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Reed making, cane buying, etc.
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Olle
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Location: Uppsala, Sweden

PostPosted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 11:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
I am very surprised that he would glue back together a crushed reed.


After so many years you have worked up a personal relationship with your reed. It becomes a family member. You know it so well, that you always now exactly how it will behave in every possible situation. That makes it worth while to return it to life, instead of making a new one, I guess. Stefan is an accomplished Phragmites reed maker, though (the best one I know), despite not having to make new ones for himself, since he makes reeds for his students.

His reeds are downcut, Ericsson style, i.e. with bridle and hair.
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chad_fross



Joined: 02 Feb 2007
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Location: Seoul Korea

PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 1:03 am    Post subject: that is amazing..... Reply with quote

Thank you again Olle for the encouragement of users of phragmites like myself. And after reading your comment about the reed becoming as familiar as a family member....I think as a beginning reed maker/ Svensk Sackpipa play, I will keep that in mind, and continue making reeds for the sets I build, but try my best to maintain the reeds for my main playing sets as long as I possibly can. It also gives me hope to hear that there are great builders/ musicians out there who exclusively use phragmites and get great results. I love the tone that my phragmites reed so easily produces.........so warm and with that sweet reedy-"buzzy" tone. I think, however, I will try to continue experimenting with modified tenor drone reeds for just in case I am ever sent that I can't find phragmites or arundo growing naturally. I know of one great stand of phragmites (i'ts almost a field, that how big the stand of reeds is) about 45 minutes by bus from my appartment, and another much smaller stand about a 10 minute walk. Without depleting the reed population in those two areas, I will continue to visit those two reed beds over time in order to select and collect usable reed tubes until I have enough reed material to virtually last a life-time Smile
Olle, I don't suppose you could put me into contact with Stephen so that we can talk about phragmites reeds, so that I may learn from his reed making/ playing/ adjusting experience? Thank you,
Chad
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Anders Jackson
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Joined: 28 Nov 2006
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 10:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I would recommend to make many reeds in beginning before you sattle down for "the one" reed. This will give you a feel for how to make reeds, how they work and how to make reeds to your later students Very Happy

I still make a new reed once or twice a year. But I guess that it's up to the player to judge if it's worth trying to save a broken reed. I would certenly try to save a good read in any way I can. Good reads ARE valuble to any piper. Worth there volume in gold. Very Happy
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Last edited by Anders Jackson on Wed Apr 25, 2007 12:14 am; edited 1 time in total
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chad_fross



Joined: 02 Feb 2007
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 12:11 am    Post subject: agreed Reply with quote

I certainly agree with you about the need to make and try many different reeds. The more reeds I make, the better at it I get. The more reeds one makes, the more adjustments to said reeds in order to create the piper's preferred tone will make a reedmaker better at his/her craft. As a buddng piper/ pipe maker I think that turning and boring the pipes and making the bag (and possibly bellows) is only half of the task. The other half of the task is making a reed that you like. I whole heartedly agree with you and will continue making reeds in order to get better at the craft.
Chad
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Olle
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Joined: 21 Oct 2006
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 9:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's my problem. The lifelength of a good reed makes it unnecessary to make new reeds for myself. At least not very often. Had I been an instrument maker I would have to continue making reeds, but I'm not. So, despite my reputation as a good reed maker (due to my web site), I'm getting rusty.
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Olle
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 9:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Chad, you said something in another thread about elder reeds. Have you tried to make reeds from elder? I did once, without succeeding but it was only one attempt and it was when I was new to all this. I would be very interested to hear from anyone who has tried to make elder reeds for Swedish pipes.
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chad_fross



Joined: 02 Feb 2007
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 1:48 pm    Post subject: elder reeds Reply with quote

Olle, I did make a few elder reeds, about 5 or 6 actually. At the time when I had elder available (4 bushes in the backyard) I was making a couple of Welsh Pibgorn (hornpipes). I made the elder reeds for the pibgorn, but you basically make them the same way you would make any other single reed. They had a VERY sweet and mellow tone............sweet and haunting. I think that in one of your less traditional set of pipes which is bellows-blown and has a bass drone, it would sound amazing as your drone reed set-up. The problem I encountered with the elder reed, is that it seems to be about as problematic as the phragmites reed when it comes to moisture. However, in recent years, I have purchased to Bulgarian Gaida which came with "wooden" reeds that were very close in material to the elder, but of a slightly different tree or shrub. I noticed that there was something smeared all over the reed and the reed bridle. The maker said it was lard, and was to protect the reed from absorbing to much moisture and swelling in the reed seat. I assume this also helped keep the tongue from flattening out with moisture build-up during play. I did not have any access to pure lard like that, so I tried something I read somewhere which could be a substiture..........I used Hair Pommade. It contains lanolin, waxes and a certain amount of a form of lard (if I'm not mistaken), and it worked just as good as the original lard did. After some thought which you provoked by that question...I have decided that maybe rubbing the elder reed down with Hair Pommade after it has been constructed, would lenghten the amount of time you could play it without having to adjust it.
There were three things I had to do different when I was making the elder reeds. The first thing is you have to scrape off all of the bark. Of course the branch you select must be dry, and of the proper diameter to fit into your pipes. The second thing, Is that I drew out the tongue........I drew with pencil directly onto the "reed" tube where I was going to cut the tongue. Then I took clear packing tape and firmly applied it over the area that I was going to cut the tongue. I had to do this because it helps control the cuts (this will not cut like real cane), and since it will not split like cane, I had cut/split the sides of the tongue to open it up. Then I took the tape off. The third thing I did was to insert something into the tube up to about the point where I was making the initial "end of the tongue" cut. This was to keep the reed from collapsing on itself. The elder I was using was somewhat more fragile than any reed in that regards. From that point, you can use slight amount of heat to set the tongue into the position that you desire, but I found that just a sliver of hair did the trick.
I know it can be done.............I did it semi-successfully, but never really had time to get good at it, and at the time I was just learning about single reeds. If I ever can find another stand of elder, or elder-like trees/shrubs, I will give it another go Very Happy
I have come across articles of uillieann pipers making drone reeds out of elder. I even read where one said that if you had a piece of elder of the proper diameter, you could make a double reed for a chanter from elder.................that would be very interesting Very Happy

Chad
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Olle
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Joined: 21 Oct 2006
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 3:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
I think that in one of your less traditional set of pipes which is bellows-blown and has a bass drone, it would sound amazing as your drone reed set-up.


My thought, exactly ...

Quote:
Hair Pommade


Ouch. An Elvis Presley reed? :-)

Quote:
I have come across articles of uillieann pipers making drone reeds out of elder. I even read where one said that if you had a piece of elder of the proper diameter, you could make a double reed for a chanter from elder.................that would be very interesting Very Happy


I have also come across descriptions of UP drone reeds in elder, not chanter reeds though. Mark Walstrom, member of this forum, should be able to shed some light on this - I think he has a very old elder reed in one of his UP drones. Is that right, Mark?

(note my blatant attempt to force lurking members to write something - I have no shame :-)
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JNelson



Joined: 15 May 2007
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Location: move around, Florida, Alaska, Texas, Kenya

PostPosted: Thu May 17, 2007 9:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey all,
I've been reading the posts for a few weeks and have started making my own sackpipa. on the topic of reeds, I once tried to make a double reed from a plastic drinking straw. I had a little bit of success, but I don't know if my lack to tune it had to do with my complete inexperience or the quality of the material. if anyone has any success with this method let me know.
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JNelson



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PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2007 3:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

it would be fun to figure out if this would work for a single reed.
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Yuri
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Joined: 16 Dec 2006
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PostPosted: Fri May 18, 2007 6:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think drinking straws are the wrong material. What you are after is stirene (not polystyrene, just styrene) The best known kind is found in the ubiquitous (note my fantastic familiarity with really tough English words , by the way)(just kidding) yoghurt containers. ( the single shot variety, the bigger ones are too thick). Once you remove the paper stuck onto it (a Herculean task, as they seem to use really good glues these days) it has the right curvature for double reeds, and more or less the right thickness. Styrene is so far the best kind of plastic that is useable, as it's rigidity (relative) is giving the reed that reedy quality. All other common plastics tend to be too pliant, and don't really hold out for very long, even if you manage to get it working.
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Aaron K. Holt
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Joined: 01 Nov 2006
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PostPosted: Fri May 25, 2007 4:04 pm    Post subject: Synthetic reeds Reply with quote

I've seen several strange synthetic reeds in the chanters of bagpipes from Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech republic. I would be curious to see if a similar construction would work in a Swedish bagpipe (no doubt with several modifications). I would also like to know what they are made from in the first place, They're weird looking. They look like they're wearing condoms.

here they are in a shocking blue/green color


and again in a normal white plastic (at right)


by the way, the second photo comes from a new website from Slovakia, run by Juraj Dufek (http://www.bagpipes.sk/), he has a lot of nice photos and samples of his pipes He makes several different types, my favorite is the šutky, it has a great sound. Juraj does some beautiful work, and his prices are also very good.
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Olle
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PostPosted: Fri May 25, 2007 9:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
I have also come across descriptions of UP drone reeds in elder, not chanter reeds though. Mark Walstrom, member of this forum, should be able to shed some light on this - I think he has a very old elder reed in one of his UP drones. Is that right, Mark?


You won't believe me, my friends, but tonight I went to a concert with the group Väsen here in Uppsala, Sweden, and, lo and behold, suddenly in front of me stands Mark Walstrom, from California, USA. After having come over this shock, I took the opportunity to ask him to confirm the above story. Yes, one of his drones reeds is an original Coyne reed in elder, which should imply a date around 1840-1850. Still working perfectly.

I would say that's probably a world record. Would anyone bet against?
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Yuri
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PostPosted: Fri May 25, 2007 10:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There have been some reed finds from late pharaonic Egypt, together with the double pipes they went into. But I doubt it very much that anyone dared to try them out. However, they are there. (somewhere, don't know where they are kept.) Very probably there are more than one set's worth of reeds found, too. I mean if yo want to find out, you'd need to wade through an enormous mountain of archaeological publications, most of them without indexes even.
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Yuri
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PostPosted: Fri May 25, 2007 10:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ah, yes, and don't forget the Chinese instruments from all over China, found in burial graves. Admittedly, they are free reeds, but then they are not necessarily metal free reeds, some are bamboo, so they qualify, too. Don't think anyone tried playing those, eityher, though.
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Stuart



Joined: 28 Oct 2006
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PostPosted: Sun May 27, 2007 1:34 am    Post subject: Re: Synthetic reeds Reply with quote

Aaron K. Holt wrote:
I've seen several strange synthetic reeds in the chanters of bagpipes from Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech republic. I would be curious to see if a similar construction would work in a Swedish bagpipe (no doubt with several modifications). I would also like to know what they are made from in the first place, They're weird looking. .


well, the ones on the bottom right I can likely identify. looks like ordinary delrin plastic. also called polypenco I believe. Turns on a wood lathe just like wood, well almost, tendency to chatter with vibrations. many synthetic reeds use delrin, it is also used to make mouthpieces and even whole bagpipes.
The colourful clear ones could be coloured acrylics.
just about anything can be used to make a reed body. I've used brass on scottish smallpipes, delrin and even wood bodies on highland pipes.

Stu
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texasbagpiper
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 20, 2009 5:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When I first started making reeds the problem I now know I was having was the fact that I was cutting too deep into the tube and the result was very thick tongues that had to be scraped bigtime. I also had a stage where I cracked the tongues too thing and not very wide. It take a bit of getting used to when your teaching yourself but you will get it in due time.. Seth
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Tex
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 9:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFTvvHl1SPU

Video of a composite reed (synthetic reed) for Swedish bagpipes (säckpipa), made of walnut and arundo donax.
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Olle
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 10:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow! That was some news! (I'll talk to this guy immediately)
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Aaron K. Holt
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 1:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow!
Thanks for the video link Tex! That just may be the solution to some of my reed problems. I tried making one of these before, but just couldn't get it to work.

Olle, let us know what you find out!
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Aaron K. Holt
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 13, 2009 4:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Any more news on the composite reed?
I'm dying to hear more.
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Olle
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 14, 2009 12:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I had a short conversation with the maker. He said that he will send me a copy eventually (Internet fame has its advantages) but I think he wants to fiddle around with them a bit first. There might be issues there we don't know anything about yet. After all, we have only seen and heard them on the video. Very promising, but we don't know how they "feel".

But he confirmed my hunch that these reeds can be overblown. Several notes, it turned out when he tried it.
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