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Pipemaking
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texasbagpiper
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 7:00 pm    Post subject: Pipemaking Reply with quote

Plans removed

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Tex
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 4:04 pm    Post subject: Conical? Reply with quote

Thank you for re-posting these plans they have been most helpful. I do have a question about the end of the chanter, do they have a conical end? It looks to me in some of the photos I have seen of chanters they are conical. If they are conical is it for volume at the lower notes or just a way to tune the lowest note?
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Olle
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 26, 2006 8:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

They are not conical. It's just the outer shape.
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Tex
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 27, 2006 11:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote



It looks like the ends of these chanters are conical...... Question


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texasbagpiper
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 27, 2006 11:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's only for about 5mm deep. If you want to do that you can but it's not required to get any specific tone. It does look nice though.
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Tex
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 5:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wouldn't the 5mm depth shorten the column of air and cause the low note to raise in pitch?
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Anders Jackson
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 6:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tex wrote:
Wouldn't the 5mm depth shorten the column of air and cause the low note to raise in pitch?

It might, but then you adjust that with the last tuning hole. The cone is strictly decoration. On old pictures/photos there is pipes with different decorations, even straight pipes without that decoration.

Most piper makers take inspiration from Leif Erikssons pipe, which is a (good) reconstruction from pipes in museums.

The tuning holes and slide on bordune is an addition made by Leif (and Per Gudmundsson, I guess). Someone with more information about that (Jan W)?

Anyway, If you put the tuning hole "right", it can be used as a playing hole, but it's a also later addition.
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Quimbisero



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PostPosted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 7:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am far from being an historian of the sackpipa, but I want to ask about whether it is actually correct that Leif really was the source of the holes in the drone. Mind you, I am not trying to deprive the gentleman of any credit due, just trying to clarify what I have noted. See the picture below, which appears to be that of an antique Sackpipa and which is on Leif's website.





Eoghan
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Olle
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 9:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Many of the old bagpipes have tuning holes (all, I think). Some of them have plenty of very small holes, where you inserted twigs to tune the drone. None of the old instruments had tuning slides! On these instruments, covering a single tuning hole did not change the pitch much, so it is highly unlikely that anyone used the tuning holes for playing the drone. Eriksson's tuning holes are playable, though.

The instrument you show is from Mockfjärd, and I believe this very instrument was Leif Eriksson's main source of inspiration.

By the way, the American Bob Thomas reconstructed the Swedish bagpipe before Eriksson did. In the 1970's. Unfortunately I don't know of any Bob Thomas instruments in existence today - most of them were destroyed in a fire accident, I believe. Alan Keith should know (Californian piper - invited here, but yet to show up). He previously owned a Bob Thomas set.
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Anders Jackson
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 1:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for clearing that out about tuning sliding and holes Olle and Quimbisero. I was not clear in my formulation. Embarassed
But then english isn't my first language, which you might have noticed by now Wink

The Mockfjärd instrument looks very much like Erikssons pipes. So I would n't argue against that information, either. Smile
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Quimbisero



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PostPosted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 4:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have to remark that in one respect, the Sackpipa was quite unique. Bagpipe drones, even among most of the most primitive forms, tend to have tuning slides on their drones. While I am disinterested in many of the modifications occurring today - if you want an Uilleann pipe, play one, don't reinvent the Sackpipa to look like one (no offense intended to anyone - I haven't heard these modified forms yet but they do look nice). However, when I do make my pseduo-almost-traditional sackpipa, while it probably won't have all sorts of offset finger holes, it will have a drone slide. Some things are just too convenient to refuse as innovation. I am not a total Luddite.

Eoghan
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Anders Jackson
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 10:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You should do what makes you happy. Olle hade some god discussions about "propper" Swedish bagpipes.

If Mozart had a synth, he would love to use it. We prob would not have same masterpieses, but still. If the original bagpipes players/makers would have more stabel modern material, I guess they would have used them to. But they didn't, so they used what that had access to.

But you still want some basic formes and attributes to call it a Swedish bagpipe. So you can't make to much changes.
But small ones like a tuning hole to change between minor and major easily is such invention that I wouldn't count as to large addition. Neither to place the tuning hole on spelpipan (the chanter) so it can be used as a playing hole. Could even go for a extra key for a hole to play one extra note up (I got one on a spelpipa that Leif Eriksson made to a friend, but not using it mutch). And of course an extra bordunpipa (bordun pipe) as well, as it is some indications of that in some old pipes (only blind pipes though, no hole drilled in them) and it sounds good.
But I would never, ever let go of the tuning slide or holes in bordunpipan (the bordun pipe). Wink

I go for those changes, as long it sounds and plays like a Swedish bagpipe ("walks and talks like one"). But when you start to be abel to change keys while playing, sounds are changing, fingerings change etc. Then I would questing if it should be called Swedish bagpipe rather than something else.

But then again, that is my preferences. And who am I to tell anyone what to do. I can have an opinion and tell everyone about it, but nothing else, I guess.
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Liraman



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PostPosted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 11:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Olle Gällmo wrote:

The instrument you show is from Mockfjärd, and I believe this very instrument was Leif Eriksson's main source of inspiration.


Actually he used three bagpipes for his model, the Mockfjärd one obviously being the most important. Interesting detail is that the drone of the Mockfjärd pipe is one piece, as I recall it.
When I made the interview with Leif for the book I asked him how he decided to make the drone in two parts. If I remember well this was a result of the cooperation with piper/fiddler Per Gudmundsson after trying out some of the prototypes.
I also asked him about the simple wood cut decorations on the bag mounts. It looks like the Mockfjärd but not quite. But this was just some simple things he learned in his early school years when every boy had a knife, pocket or otherwise, and carved in every tree they could find, he said,


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Olle
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 1:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Some things are just too convenient to refuse as innovation


That's the point. People might disagree on which things are too convenient to refuse, i.e. where to draw the line between convenience and tradition, but the statement is still true for us all.

My main set does not look the way it does because I wanted it to be similar to an Uilleann pipe. I have no need for that, since I own and play Uilleann pipes as well. No, also to me it was a matter of convenience. Bellows blown bagpipes are much more reliable than mouth blown bagpipes, and apart from that there is only the number of drones which differs from a conventional set.

[Sidenote]
The nyckelharpa has been extended a lot in the 1900's, much more so than the Swedish bagpipe has. The reason this kind of debate has not popped up there is, I believe, due to the nyckelharpa being more unique. There are few other instruments to compare to. The bagpipe, on the other hand, can't be modified by much without such comparisons.
[End of Sidenote]

To me, the main attribute which defines if a bagpipe is Swedish, Irish, Bulgarian or whatnot, is the chanter. Bellows blown or mouth blown, the number of drones, their tuning and/or placing is of much less importance to me. Personally, I have absolutely no problem with calling my set a Swedish bagpipe, though I do emphasize that it has been extended. Some people disagree, of course, and there are even pipers who refuse to call anything Swedish unless made according to Leif Erikssons original design. But in the end it really doesn't matter, as long as people enjoy the sounds we produce.
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Aaron K. Holt
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2006 6:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I came across the following photo and recalled a discussion under this topic about reinventing the Swedish bagpipe.
Apparently, a lot of the additions and extensions may not be as innovative as some would believe;



here is a link to the site (in Dutch) where I found it:

http://www.folkroddels.be/artikels/25568.html
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Olle
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 16, 2006 7:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There are several preserved Säckpipas which seem to have two drones, but in all cases (including the one depicted here) one of them is blind, i.e. not drilled at all (the left one in this photo). It's just a piece of wood. It is still a bit of a mystery why they did this.

By the way, it looks (to me at least) as if the chanter of this bagpipe may have been carved with a knife, instead of turned in a lathe.
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Anders Jackson
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 6:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Aaron K. Holt wrote:
I came across the following photo and recalled a discussion under this topic about reinventing the Swedish bagpipe.
Apparently, a lot of the additions and extensions may not be as innovative as some would believe;

Well, I did mention something about this one in my post in this thread Wink
But cool to have it on a picture. Thanks!
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 7:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Looking at the photo, I'm sure the whole set was made using a knife, no turning involved. You can tell by the look of the rings, they would look quite different if turned.
The longer drone also seems to have a tuning-hole towards the top, but also another somewhere towards the middle, which I'd guess plays the 5th of the normal drone, perhaps the 4th. So I guess they played the drone in a variable manner in the past, not just recently.
And as to the second, blind drone, this sort of thing is not unusual, there are some folk instruments with this sort of no longer used features, I can think of the French cabrette offhand, that sometimes has no working drone at all, but is always fitted with a dummy, if not with a real one. It's like that when playing with , usually , a hurdy-gurdy, that provides both the drone and rhytm.
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Quimbisero



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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 2:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Such things usually mean that the instrument in question is an uniformed (in this case read "rustic") copy of an instrument known only, or primarily by sight alone.

It is tempting to think that the traditional sackpipa was born after some rural swedish workers saw a foreign bagpipe in a large city or during a naval or military stint abroad. They knew enough to understand the principles of boring, reeds and sound production, but did not possess the measurements to the instrument in question. Alternately, some may have sackpipar seen another kind of bagpipe with a second drone and added an ornamental imitation of it to his own.

It's all speculation, but fun! As U. Utah Philips says "Good though!"

Eoghan
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Aaron K. Holt
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 3:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have noticed that the old pipes are quite different from what we play today (even Eriksson's more conservative model) in one major respect - the old pipes are smaller and have a very dwarfed appearance. Look at this picture of Gudmunds Nils:

(form the same website previously mentioned)
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Anders Jackson
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 17, 2006 9:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It might be that the mouth piece is shorter, which make him bows over it. My mouth piece also gets shorter after a while. I'm into my third or fourth now. But many makers, even Leif, makes larger bags than older pipe sets. My sets bag (an early Leif set) is smaller than Olles (an Alban set).

And that Gudmunds Nils was a large man, with large hands Wink

The size of new pipes are about the same as the old pipes. Not that I have tryied on on the museums, Have Olle or Jan played on those pipes Smile
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Liraman



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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 1:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Anders Jackson wrote:

And that Gudmunds Nils was a large man, with large hands Wink


I'm not too sure about that (Nils being a large man). What struck me most after seing this photo for the first time was, besides the sensation of seeing a Swedish peasant playing on a Swedish bagpipe was the way he is holding the chanter in his large hands: right hand over the left! Was he lefthanded? Was this the tradition? Nobody knows.
Anyhow, that is a fantastic picture, one of I think three actually showing the man play. Sorry enough there were no Mp3- recorders at the time....Not even Mats Rehnberg, the man who took the photos and without whom we probably would know a lot less about the instrument and it's musicians thought of making some kind of recording - and he regretted it afterwards , when Gudmunds Nils passed away.

And no, Anders, I have never tried any of the museum instruments. I don't think anybody has.
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Quimbisero



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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 2:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

To add my two cents worth, i suspect he was left handed. To my knowledge, all the xisting piping traditions seem unanimous about this detail. The only players of any kind of bagpipe i have seen holding a chanter this way were lefties.

Eoghan
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 5:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't know about the Swedish tradition, but where i come from, in Hungary there is a type of pipes that has a chanter with a drone running in the same piece of wood. Now, the drone plays the 6 finger note, and by covering it's only hole, a 4th below. it makes it possible to play a rhytmic accompaniment, by the way. The point is that there are chanters made both ways, left-handed as well as right handed. I don't know the proporion, but there are quite a few that would be deemed lefties today. The only conclusion possible is that hand position was clearly optional.
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 1:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There is, at least in theory, a possible advantage of playing like that - with the bag under the left arm and the right hand on top: Most of the ornamentations are done with the top hand and it should be easier to be quick with your fingers, if the arm is relaxed ...

I have met one modern-day Swedish bagpiper who plays like that - Daniel Zandén-Varg. He was a teenager when I last heard him play the pipes and he has since then made a career as a fiddler. I don't think he plays the pipes much anymore, which is a pity - he was very good.
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Aaron K. Holt
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 3:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's very interesting.
I'm left handed and I played right-hand over left at first - I didn't know to do it differently. I switched very early on - when I was considering buying my first set of pipes. I thought that it would be harder (and much more expensive) to get a set of pipes made for a lefty. I didn't really think about it at all at the time. I did the same thing when I learned to play the guitar. I used to string it backwards and play "upside-down". When I went to buy a good guitar though, I just adapted to right handed playing. I seem to do that with most things except writing. I can do most things with either hand.

Olle's point is a very good one. My mind has drifted in that direction several times while practicing. I wonder if I would be a better piper if I played left handed...maybe I should give it a try.
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Quimbisero



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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 7:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Aaron,

I'm impressed by the dexterity involved in adapting to left or right handed pipes. Willie Clancy once let me try out his pipes which were tied in for him left handed. It was quite an adjustment to make. Of course, with Uilleann pipes, what with the regulators and drones tied into a mainstock and the bellows, a left handed setup represents more to adjust to then with the Sackpipa, I am certain.

Eoghan
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 8:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The reality is that left-or right handed playing has only become standard in the 19th century. All medieval and renaissance woodwinds (made from a single piece of wood) have two little finger holes, the one not used was stopped up with wax. When in baroque times they started making three-piece recorders, the bottom joint lost the need for doubled holes, because it was rotateable. (in those times they never used semitone-doubled holes for the little finger, it's a 20th century innovation) It's only with the advent of keywork that hand position had to be standardised. The dexterity of both hands is interchangeable for woodwinds, as they both perform equal tasks. With bagpipes, it actually means that the bag is under the weaker arm, to make the standard lef-hand-up more comfortable. The under-the-right-arm position would really make more sense.
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Aaron K. Holt
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 9:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, I can't switch very well anymore. I got through my left-hand/right-hand problem on the fagerstrom chanter I mentioned in another post. Since I've had my pipes, I've pretty much completely adapted to right-hand playing. I will occaisionaly (and without thinking) play the e-chanter "backwards". I've found that it depends on which hand I pick up the chanter with. As I've gotten used to playing the actual bagpipe, this seems to happen less and less. I've always been a little schizophrenic about my lefthandedness, the only thing that I do left-handed consistently is write - I switch my mouse back and forth almost twice a week.

Yuri has a good point. So far, I have never been comfortable with the bag under my left arm. The right arm seemed to come naturally for me. When I first got the pipes I tried switching arms, in the end, it was the blowpipe and not the drone which made this impossible, not to mention the ergonomically right-handed design of the Swedish chanter. It also looked silly when I tried the right-arm.

It's funny, I never even gave a moment's thought to any of this until now. I'm sure what I was doing would have been obvious if I had a teacher, but I like to figure things out on my own.
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 19, 2006 5:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Back on topic: the 1/8" chanter-wall thickness at the tone hole, is that just to ensure that the scallops are all to the same depth or does this affect tuning? If so, how? (I'm hoping to make my first set of pipes sometime in the new year).
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