I am psyched. I had my first lesson with a tutor on the practice chanter. I am thrilled. The sticky above has good practical advise. I went prepared with my McCallum long practice chanter, hemp, beeswax, plenty of reeds, notebook(very important), the "Green Book" and a lot of energy. The piper that has taken me on (a real big challenge) is a grade three piper with Crann Tara, a local pipe band. He has been playing the GHB for seven years and started when he was fourteen. I am an old man, and expect to take some time to get this going. After initial introductions, we started. He was delighted that I had read the "Green Book", and had been reading up on the practice chanter on the bobdunshire.com website. He and I are glad that I left the chanter in the box until I could sit down with a tutor. His guidance with finger placement, posture, and hand motion technique were a great help in starting off in the right direction. We worked together for two hours. He took the time to demonstrate how to properly set the reed and care for the chanter. Going through the reeds that I had, he fitted several before settling on one he felt would work for me.
The one thing that I would like to add to what the pipers of XMTS have stated above. If at all possible, leave the chanter in the box until you can start working with a tutor. The exercises that the tutor will teach you are very important to the comfort and enjoyment of this instrument. The jones is well worth it. My McCallum long chanter is good, and the finger spacing is close to the bagpipe chanter, but not as close as the Dunbar long chanter.
The tutor I am working with demonstrated working from the spacing on our respective practice chanters to the Sheppard bagpipe chanter that the band uses. By the end of the first session, I have many exercises to work on between now and Tuesday's session.

Yay! I am now making sounds that delight me, and annoy my neighbours.