The other side of druid

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

thanks all.

My Pipes are pre-1900 Lawries, with E-Z Drones [which I was dead-set against in the beginning/traditionalist], chanter is a Shepard with a Warnock reed.

Would you believe the girls started learning the Dances in late January? They are fantastically speedy students...lol.

We would have done the Broad Sword and Fling but the girls also participated in choral and instrumental performances that day. It would have been too much on their tiny bodies...lol. Elizabeth is 13 and Emily is 12.

Perhaps sometime in the near future I can get the other dances on tape as well...

Maybe I'm misreading this, but if you have replaced the chanter, and replaced the drones (and presumably replaced the bag) what remains of the original pre-1900 Lawrie pipes?

[davidlpope]

Maybe I'm misreading this, but if you have replaced the chanter, and replaced the drones (and presumably replaced the bag) what remains of the original pre-1900 Lawrie pipes?

Scott,

I think you've misread. E-Z Drones are reeds, not drones. The original drones are really where the "heart" of a set of pipes is at, and what people are after. Older pipes' chanters were pitched lower than modern chanters, so they're 1) hard to reed and 2) sound very different to the "modern" piper's ear. As a result, old chanters are usually switched out for new ones. To be honest, most pipers tinker around with their chanter/ drone combinations so it's pretty rare to find anyone competing with a matching set. For a while the Naill solo chanter was "in", now there's been a shift towards the new MacCallum chanters. Bags are switched out as needed, as well, since almost everyone has a favored bag and the hide ones wear out over time. In all truth, if I was buying a vintage set of pipes, I'd probably just buy the drones alone (the "sticks") and use my preferred set-up for the other components.

David