Pitching of chanter reeds!!
JOHN BROADWELL
the reeds I have.
I have a variety of reeds, usually three examples from several makers, this
way I have a range from each of them.
I have three plastic chanters, all fairly modern, I have a Korg CA 20
tuner................so here's the problem.
I select a reed that blows at a reasonable pressure in the mouth and has a
nice crow. I then put waxed hemp on the reed, to get it seated well and then
play it in the chanter. I select reeds after playing them in the chanter
that feel free and in which I can feel the air vibrating. I eliminate at
this stage, those reeds that are either too strong or too weak. (I can
return to them later)
I then kick in with the Korg tuner to see how the reed is with high and low
"A" The tuner by the way is set to the commonly accepted 447hz
(or 473hz in Bagpipe tuning)
Quite often I find that whilst High "A" registers 0, low "A" is about minus
20. After raising or lowering the reed and manipulating it, I can usually
get the two notes to cord. What I do find however, is that if mouthblown the
pitch is usually higher by 15-20 cents. So I try it in the pipe (drones not
playing) to get a truer reading. I should add that I am a steady blower, my
drones don't waver.
I got hold of a copy of some readings for all the notes of the chanter for
the Korg CA 20 tuner from Richard Mao, what I am finding is that when I have
all the notes sounding OK by ear that the tuner says something totally
different and I despair of ever getting this right.
According to the scale as given by Richard the following readings should
apply : -
A = 0
B = +4
C = -14
D = -2
E = +2
F = -16
G = -4
A' =
After I have got A' in tune I have had the following readings : -
A = 0
B = -5
C = -20
D = -2
E = 0
F = -5
G = +5
A' = 0
I got the D and the G' in tune with tape, before the tape I had the G' sharp
by +20
All in all I am very frustrated and clearly doing something wrong.
What I will say is that if I judge it by ear I can usually tell if I am
somewhere near, you know, you get all the notes chording really well with
the drones and the pipe starts singing. I would like to get better at this
and am trying hard to educate my ear more finely. I thought the tuner would
assist, but I am not sure any more.
I can tune the drones to both High A and low A quite easily and can balance
the pipe reasonably well where the chanter is in tune with the two A's and
the drones require no adjustment, but it's what happens in between that
bothers me? I am not near other pipers very often so I have no bench marks
to guide me.
I have read articles by Chris Apps, John McLellan and others but none seem
to talk about pitch, only strength, getting the reed working freely and
rejuvenating old reeds.
Any suggestions or help would be most welcome, I suspect I need to learn to
manipulate my reeds more, also to find reeds that produce the sound I want
with the chanters I have and to master the tuner OR get my ear better
educated -- I am working on it honest!
Or should I just chuck the tuner??
My objective is to produce the best "in tune" sound I can get with the
instruments I have and to produce that sound consistently and regularly,
tall order eh??
Cheers
--
John Broadwell
--
"Everything that lives, Lives not alone, nor for itself."
Blake 1789
Richard Mao
What make are your plastic chanters?
If any of the chanters are band chanters.... do not mess with them... let your
P/M say what's in tune.
If the chanter is your own personal chanter that you want in tune.... then when
you are taking your readings (not to impugn your statement that you are a steady
blower)... you might try to put a manometer on one of your tenor drones and make
sure you are blowing at the same pressure when you adjust your high A and low A
and record the displacements you cited below.
For your and the newsgroup's information... the displacement chart you cite as
coming from me is actually from Ewan MacPherson's wonderful site:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~emacpher/pipes/acoustics/chromtune.html
My personal experience... is that I have found the displacement readings
"correct" .... methodology as follows... I cheated... took my chanter to Summer
School... and Alasdair Gillies (who has the pitches hard wired in his head by
now) ... I told him I had the suspicion from my tuner that two notes were
flat... Alasdair agreed... got his carver out (scaring me to death)... carved
the notes out... pronounced the chanter in tune using several chanter reeds...
(Naill chanter with Gilmour reed currently).... I got back to my tuner and sho'
'nuff... right on.
Have another go at it.... but my advice is unless you are absolutely sure of
your blowing pressures....don't rely on your own skills and the tuner... have
the scale/chanter vetted/carved as necessary by a world class/grade one class
solo piper... if you can arrange to have some quiet time with one...
Best Wishes...
Henry Van Dyke wrote "Use what talents you possess. The woods would be very
silent if no birds sang except those that sang best."
Richard Mao, The Peking Piper ( Pekin...@mao.org )
Ben Ethridge
I have had pretty much the same problem as you, John, with many, many reeds,
and with four chanters by four different manufacturers!! Naill, MacMurchie,
my band chanter (a quality chanter - but I haven't asked who the
manufacturer is) and a Pakistani parlor pipe chanter. I have been able to
work around the problem by:
(A) giving up on the idea of getting lowA/hiA to "Bflat and a wee bit", and
simply moving the reeds up or down until the two are exactly one octave
apart (with the Korg tuner), and then fine-tuning the chanter reed (up or
down tiny amounts) against the outside tenor drone (up or down tiny amounts)
until the chanter lowA/high A are BOTH perfectly tuned with the tenor drone
(i.e. W-A-A-A-A, not WAA-WAA-WAA-WAA - I'm sure you know what I mean). If
I'm lucky, I end up with lowA/highA somewhere near (plus or minus 20 cents)
Bflat on the tuner, but obviously, I'm not going to be doing a duet with the
organist in church:-)
(B) applying LOTS of tape to the rest of the holes. I throw away "the book"
here, sometimes taping 3-4 holes, sometimes taping way more than half the
hole. I do this with Scotch Satin tape, with a little bit of paper on one
edge, so that I can move it up or down easily and quickly. (Looks ugly as
hell, but it works. Also, no sticky, gooey mess that you get with black
electrical tape.)
After all that, I finally have chanters that sound beautiful on EVERY note.
(Isn't that really the goal? i.e. isn't all the rest simply a means to that
end?) Also, I know someone's going to ask, so, I'll pre-answer: No. The
tape ends up on different holes on different chanters. It is true, though,
that mostly it's on the top hand. It's also true that the Paki chanter is
the worst, i.e. take the most tape to fix.
Hope that helps. I'd love for someone to give me some advice on how to get
to perfect Bflat (so I could play with the organist) with no (or minimum)
taping, without resorting to taking brand name chanters to a Grade I piper
to fix what sounds like manufacturing defects. Next step for me is to learn
reed scraping/sanding.
Respectfully,
Ben
Richard Mao <richa...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
news:3A57FC51...@prodigy.net...
Calum
human is better than the tuner. If you say you can tune your pipes better than
your tuner, there are three possibilities.
1) Tuner is f*****d. Always possible, but less likely.
2) Your ears are f*****d. Also possible, but also unlikely.
3) Your chanter/reed combo is f*****d. Also, unlikely really.
Advice:
Tune the chanter in your pipes. You blow differently in your mouth to in the
pipe, and obviously in the pipe there is more air keeping the drones open.
Trust your ears. I know you are not a struggling beginner, so trust yourself.
Anyway, if it sounds good to you, who gives about the rest of the world?
You'll get there. I'm at roughly the same stage as you, but I don't trust
tuners. Anyway, why buy one tuners when you have two free mark one earholes?
Anyway,
best of luck,
Calum
JOHN BROADWELL
appreciated.
Richard's post did not appear on my list, though it must have been there as
Ben included it in his reply, so to anyone else who replied, thank you too,
and would you be kind enough to forward a copy of your post to me!
I would also like to point out that the Korg tuner scale I was quoting from,
was from a post of Richard Mao's, he was quoting in turn from Ewan
MacPherson's web site!! Richard claims no responsibility in this.
I have a lifetimes learning to do regarding reeding pipe chanters, just when
I thought I was beginning to get somewhere with my piping.....eh!!!!! isn't
life just grand??
Ben Ethridge
the way.
Calum <u3...@abdn.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:3A58FA96...@abdn.ac.uk...
JOHN BROADWELL
a Shepherd MkII, a Warnock MkI and a War-mac Mk III and of course the 1960's
AB Hardie that I am trying to reed up! see elswhere on the NG.
Cheers
--
John Broadwell
JOHN BROADWELL <jo...@crown-ht.dircon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:h3766.317$nB5....@news.dircon.co.uk...
Chris Eyre
[snip]
> I then kick in with the Korg tuner to see how the reed is with high and
low
> "A" The tuner by the way is set to the commonly accepted 447hz
> (or 473hz in Bagpipe tuning)
>
> Quite often I find that whilst High "A" registers 0, low "A" is about
minus
> 20.
From what you have said so far, John, this would appear to me to be the
point at which you are going awry. You appear to have decided that 447hz is
where you should be and so are trying to force the chanter to that pitch. I
think you would be better to come at from the other direction. Let the
chanter tell you which is the best pitch for that reed. My experience is
this. We are using WarMac chanters at present and about every two or three
weeks during band practice I check the pitch of the band on a meter just to
keep an eye on what is happening, ie. if at any time I notice that I am
starting to use more tape on the top hand than previously, it's a good idea
to check the pitch to see if the general pitch of the band has crept up a
little too high. I have gradually learned what is the best pitch for us, in
our climate, with our reeds and with these chanters. I find that after at
least 30 to 45 minutes blowing, when the reeds are well settled, we are
tuning very consistently around 444 and 445 on the meter (ie. 470 - 471hz).
But it doesn't start off that way. Often at the beginning of a practice I
will often find that my own reed is noticably higher or lower than the band
pitch, depending on the condition of the reed and the temperature and
humidity in the room at the time. Also certain notes on the chanter may
often be slightly out of tune with the rest of the scale. Only after a
reasonable blow will it start to come back into its regular pitch and
anomalies in the scale settle down to what they were when you last played.
There is no point in checking every note in detail on a meter until this
stage.
And when you start playing outdoors you'll find the pitch can change much
more markedly from one day to the next - or even from one hour to the next
as weather conditions change. If you try to keep to a certain meter reading
all day you could really end up getting in a mess.
To come back to what you said earlier....
> Quite often I find that whilst High "A" registers 0, low "A" is about
> minus 20.
This reading is telling you that there is too wide an interval between Low A
and High A, ie. your reed is sunk too deep in the reed seat, which would be
consistent with your efforts to get it to tune up to 447 when it really
wants to tune a little lower. Lift the reed a little until you get both
notes tuning to "O". That'll probably bring it down around 445, perhaps a
little lower. My band chanter will sometimes start from cold at about 440.
After raising or lowering the reed and manipulating it, I can usually
> get the two notes to cord. What I do find however, is that if mouthblown
the
> pitch is usually higher by 15-20 cents.
It's certainly very common to find pipers overblowing when mouth-blowing a
chanter.
I have never attempted to tune every note on the chanter with a CA20 and I
don't think I would benefit from trying. I think you are much better advised
to go by what your ear is telling you. Spend time just drifting slowly up
and down the scale with just the bass and one tenor drone going, dwelling on
each note. Try using arpeggios - note sequences in the same chord ie. A C E
A' - A D F A' - G B D G'. Experiment with moving the two drones up and down
ever so slightly on each note in turn until you can recognise better when
you achieve that "lock-in" effect when the combination of sounds suddenly
blends into one entity. It's actually more than that. There suddenly comes a
point when you can hear something which is greater than the sum of the three
notes - almost like a rich fourth note somewhere in the background which
encompasses them all, (ie. the harmonics). It's not easy to describe in
words but you'll know it when you hear it. I find them particularly
noticable on an F or D. Sessions like this is what really trains your ear
into recognising when a note is ever so slightly flat or sharp.
Chris Eyre
Bpiper3981
even served to help me, good advice thanks.
GS