Norden Sackpipa Association of the Americas (NSAA) Forum Index Norden Sackpipa Association of the Americas (NSAA)
Jerry Revelle in memoriam
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 

2nd Gen Synthetic reeds: Updated 8/5/2011

 
This forum is locked: you cannot post, reply to, or edit topics.   This topic is locked: you cannot edit posts or make replies.    Norden Sackpipa Association of the Americas (NSAA) Forum Index -> Norden Sackpipa Association of the Americas (NSAA)
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
texasbagpiper
Senior User


Joined: 24 Oct 2006
Posts: 352
Location: Texas

PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 11:24 pm    Post subject: 2nd Gen Synthetic reeds: Updated 8/5/2011 Reply with quote

They look the same but the specs are exact from one to the next. I also made the tenon about 3 mm longer. The first generation reeds were made from molded smallpipe blanks in which the final finishing had to be done by hand. The result was each reed was a little different from the next. The curve in the free end of the 2nd generation reeds are all exactly the same down to the thousandth. This was done by making a master blank and building a new mold. Now I can use my smallpipe mold for smallpipes, lol. Now it is also easier for me to machine the blanks down a bit so they will fit into pipes with smaller stocks. Cheers, Seth



Last edited by texasbagpiper on Fri Aug 05, 2011 5:35 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
MatthewVanitas
Senior User


Joined: 01 Mar 2010
Posts: 108

PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2011 6:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Are the posts themselves metal?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Olle
Site Admin


Joined: 21 Oct 2006
Posts: 435
Location: Uppsala, Sweden

PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2011 9:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Great news Seth. Are you cutting the opening under the tongue by hand or is that also molded somehow?
_________________
Info on Swedish bagpipes at http://olle.gallmo.se/sackpipa
More about me at http://olle.gallmo.se
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website
texasbagpiper
Senior User


Joined: 24 Oct 2006
Posts: 352
Location: Texas

PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2011 2:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MatthewVanitas wrote:
Are the posts themselves metal?


Yes, the "posts" are brass. For the larger bored pipes, I put the blank on the lathe and turn the post from material itself, but the bores of the A chanters are too small. I also have a jig setup to drill the post holes, where the tube is glued in, on the lathe so its perfectly paralell to the body of the reed. Also, Matthew sparked an idea in my head last night after asking how to make the reeds where it doesn't sharpen the bottom hand as much. Their may be a 3rd generaton later in the year. Also, working on another little idea,non-reed related, but that's top secret Very Happy Seth
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
texasbagpiper
Senior User


Joined: 24 Oct 2006
Posts: 352
Location: Texas

PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2011 2:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Olle Gällmo wrote:
Great news Seth. Are you cutting the opening under the tongue by hand or is that also molded somehow?


Yes, I have to mark and cut the bleed hole by hand. Each one is milled in the exact same spot to perform the best. I also have to plug the hole in each end, which is done by taking a leather punch and punching out plugs just slightly bigger than the reed bore and putting them in with superglue, covering them with glue, and spraying them with activator. Lastly, the posts are put in after the reed is drilled in a jig with a stop which makes each bore the same from one to the next. Seth
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Anders Jackson
Senior User


Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 142
Location: Dalarna, Sweden

PostPosted: Sat May 21, 2011 12:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Great news! Well, news for me anyway. Smile
_________________
No MSN or ICQ. Only Jabber at <xmpp:anders.jackson@gmail.com>
Änd sorri får maj misspellingz, inglish is nått maj först language.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Högfeldt



Joined: 29 Apr 2010
Posts: 12
Location: Skåne, Sweden

PostPosted: Wed May 25, 2011 8:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

They look really nice Seth Smile Can't wait to try one!
What did you use as tongue?
_________________
Magnus Högfeldt - Maker of Swedish bagpipes and other Scandinavian folk music instruments
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
texasbagpiper
Senior User


Joined: 24 Oct 2006
Posts: 352
Location: Texas

PostPosted: Thu May 26, 2011 4:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Högfeldt wrote:
They look really nice Seth Smile Can't wait to try one!
What did you use as tongue?


Thanks Magnus. The tongue is a Vinyl Poly. Cheers, Seth
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Högfeldt



Joined: 29 Apr 2010
Posts: 12
Location: Skåne, Sweden

PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2011 2:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Clever! It's hard to hear how it sounds exactly on your videos; they sounds like there is a lot of leak, but I think it's just the sound quality.. I hope Smile If so, there is hope for mankind again
_________________
Magnus Högfeldt - Maker of Swedish bagpipes and other Scandinavian folk music instruments
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
texasbagpiper
Senior User


Joined: 24 Oct 2006
Posts: 352
Location: Texas

PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2011 6:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

They don't leak, but I'm not entirely sure what your referring to. They do play at a higher pressure than cane and are more stable IMHO. I will make more videos too but with as many sets of these reeds all over the world now I'm sure other videos will pop up soon. The video with Aaron and Olle playing appears to be done with a quality recording device. Aaron is using one of my reeds in that video. Seth
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
texasbagpiper
Senior User


Joined: 24 Oct 2006
Posts: 352
Location: Texas

PostPosted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 10:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm working with a new style of reed. It is for G chanters only. This new design has a tuning slide built into the reed, and it can be lengthened to narrow the upper bore, which in turn will flatten the first few top hand notes. It enables you to change the dimentions of the upper bore if your particular chanter tends to have a sharp top hand or sharp thumb note. If your chanter doesn't have this problem then you can push the slide all the way in, and the reed goes back to my normal design.

I tried this because the G chanters made for cane reeds tend to have a sharper high hand when they are used with the synthetic reeds. This tuning slide appears, so far, to make a difference.

One thing I have noticed about the reed with the tuning slide is... If you have a high "E" key, it will flatten your E to Eb if the slide is out too far.

Also, I have a new drone reed that fits in Faust drones. It has a post that is 4.75mm and will fit in the 5.5mm drone bores of the Faust pipes. My standard reeds are 5.556 and are just barely too big. I have a customer trying these out and will let you guys know how they like them. Seth
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Nic



Joined: 08 Dec 2006
Posts: 38
Location: Québec

PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2011 6:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Got my reeds today, for two different sets, one made by Boris Favre and a second one made by myself...

I had to put some teflon on all the "posts" (reed tenons ?), just a bit of wax on the High E and D holes for the Boris set (on both E and G chanters), but no wax at all on my set as I had made the thumb hole a bit narrower than on Boris set...

They sound absolutely great, I can't believe how harmonics I can hear and how steady they are, Seth, you've made a great job and I am very jealous Very Happy
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
texasbagpiper
Senior User


Joined: 24 Oct 2006
Posts: 352
Location: Texas

PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 5:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Newest Reed designs. The first set has a larger post so it will fit more easily into the larger bore of the G chanters. The longer reed is for those xtra-long low drones.


The second set with the orange drone reed is made to fit the Faust sets with the single drones. The standard reed doesn't fit in the Faust drones due to the bore size being smaller than the standard reed post. This design takes that into account and thus uses a smaller post. I have already send two of these sets out to folks with Faust sets, and they appear to work well.


Also, I'm working with Thies Eggers on a synthetic reed set that works in the multi-drone bellows sets that Faust makes.


Lastly, I wanted to show off my resin Uilleann chanter just for fun.


Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Black Rose



Joined: 10 Apr 2011
Posts: 44
Location: Minneapolis Minnesota USA

PostPosted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 5:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

texasbagpiper wrote:
I have a customer trying these out and will let you guys know how they like them. Seth


If you're talking about me and in my long drone Faust pipes I would never use a cane drone reed again. Cane has been phased out of Highland piping for about 30 years now, rarely comes up in Uilleann pipes any more, and even many or perhaps most dry-blown pipes have been using composit/synthetic reeds of one sort or another for generations. There may be some compromise in "quality" to some ears, but in this case, the Faust drone reed was so muted and soft-toned (not talking about strength here) that it was more like a background noise than a drone. That probably wouldn't be the case with a high drone, but in this case the synthetic reed was a massive improvement in both tone and volume.

But you can't argue with picking up your pipes even after ignoring them for weeks and having the drone lock into base pitch almost immediately. There is essentially no "drift" in these reeds even when blown wet for many hours. So far I've had no problem with condensation and generally neither the chanter nor drone can be blown shut unless you deliberately blast an insanely over-the top gust of air into the pipes just to prove it can be done. And even then it's quite a task.

As for the chanter reed, I'm divided. I made my own custom chanter reed that isn't shaved at all--just a matter of the right diameter/length and good cane. This produces a reed that like the synthetics, has a very hard, sealed surface and is resistant to moisture changes, very bright, and difficult to blow shut, it is very forgiving for a cane reed. It is about as loud and bright as the synthetic reed but has a sweeter tone so for the moment I'm putting up with having to settle it for five minutes or so before the lowerhand notes, particularly low E (A/E chanter) comes down to pitch and the bottomhand notes all settle down to business. The Hamon chanter reed just picks up and plays regardless of how long it has been sitting, wet or dry. You'll have to wax up your chanter to tune it and you won't be able to swap back and forth between Hamon and cane, but no two cane reeds are the same either. But having a chanter and drone both that just play at constant pitch and intonation is a huge plus if and when I get around to setting up a band performance and do that more regularly, because even though having a solid drone helps you keep the chanter in your chosen base pitch, it's still annoying at best to have to keep making sure you're not going to embarass yourself when you pick the pipes up on stage. It's a very big plus to have pipes that are always actually going to play well, and more importantly, play well with others.

If it were a comparison between only the stock Faust reed, an upcut, heavily scraped arundo donax design, I would have gone with the Hamon reed in a heartbeat. While the stock reed has a sweet, mellow tone, it is also easily shut and not very loud at all, and very very light to blow, so that even leaning the arm on the bag is a delicate operation. Before going all-synthetic, which I may end up doing eventually anyway, I decided to give making my own a try and came up brilliant first time, so I figured, who am I to argue with fate? Still, Faust's reed was less prone to having to be warmed up than mine, and played for hours without constantly dropping pitch--very much. Mine is crap for five minutes, and then locks into a stable pitch for hours. And like I say, the Hamon synthetic chanter and drone reeds both just play in tune on time all the time.

There's a lot to be said for that, especially the first time you leave your pipes in the sun for half hour because the sun comes around the tree you were shading your gear in, and you find this out five or ten minutes just before a performance and have no time for surgery.

Been there and done that.
_________________
Sigs are a waste of bandwidth
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Black Rose



Joined: 10 Apr 2011
Posts: 44
Location: Minneapolis Minnesota USA

PostPosted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 6:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

texasbagpiper wrote:
They don't leak, but I'm not entirely sure what your referring to. They do play at a higher pressure than cane and are more stable IMHO. I will make more videos too but with as many sets of these reeds all over the world now I'm sure other videos will pop up soon. The video with Aaron and Olle playing appears to be done with a quality recording device. Aaron is using one of my reeds in that video. Seth


Leak! The opposite is true. Almost all cane reeds leak tremendously! That's not because they have to, it's just that between scraping all the bark off and exposing a thin, unsealed surface, and dinking in the corners of the tongue and the bed of the cut when torquing out the split, leakage through the node which is often left unsealed or poorly sealed, they leak a ridiculous amount. That's why Highland and uilleann pipers have abandoned them at least insofar as drones go. They're working hard enough without 25% of their energy weeping through the scraped tongue and unsealed node, and around the tongue and bed. Let alone uncleaned fuzz that hangs the tongue up from inside and never lets it cleanly close. Only the fact that sackpipa are so incredibly weak that even the untrained normal human being has more than enough air to make up for the raw wastage of wind and energy, makes them go at all! Did I use enough exclamation points yet!?

You suck on most cane reeds and you'll just keep seeping air through. If any air seeps through at all, it's too leaky. Even a good cane reed should clap shut and pop a vacuum off your tongue when you suck the butt end of it. Now, that would be an ideal, perfect cane reed and as I admit, most "good" cane reeds that sound great still leak like a cup made of newspaper full of hot tea.

When you cut reeds in fact, rather than levering the split up with a razor blade--as has been done for thousands of years since the cave men first took their Schick safety razors to the local swamps and went at the helpless reeds living there in peace, just make the first cut by sawing in very carefully at about 45 degrees and pry up just a tiny bit till the fibers just start to crack at the corners. You can even try not prying at all, because you then take a drill rod or round file and insert it inside the tube and push the tongue out from the inside. This is easier with an upcut reed because you'll be near the seat opening, but it works with either and you'll not only get cleaner and more reliable splits, but you more importantly won't gouge up the corners at the bottom of the first cut or the tongue's tip or the bed head where the tip of the reed seals--or more usually, doesn't seal at all because the wood on both the bed and the tip of the tongue has been all mashed and pried out of shape.

Even so, the most perfect cane reed with the bark intact still will never seal as surely and cleanly as a synthetic, particulary the style Seth is making. Suck on the base of a Hamon reed and you get a total vacuum.

The other infuriating "leakage" I tracked down immediately is those silly little bolt-covers that are used for flapper valves. (Those little vinyl caps used to protect you from ripping your trousers on an exposed bolt head.) I tried several of Seth's pipes and my Faust pipes came with the same setup--including a weird tube that put the flapper about six inches inside the bag for some reason. (No that is not a water trap, nor could it work as one, all it can do is restrict airflow, foul the flapper with bag goo, dampen the feedback you need to feel the reeds when you blow, and I will concede, marginally put breath moisture more toward the back of the bag.) The Faust blowpipe stock in fact isn't deep enough to rig a proper water trap of either the stock-well variety or the in-bag tube variety. But water traps aside, if you're going to use those little bolt caps you have to slice into them leaving some sidewall to retain structural rigidity of the flap, and you have to cut all the way through them so there really is just a small flap holding it together. (Too much cut of course is bad as well.)

I found all of Seth pipes oddly constricted slightly, the feeling that I was running slightly behind and working a little too hard for the strength of the reeds. It's not a question of whether or not I'm manly enough not to let it bother me. It's a feedback question that puts the player out of harmony with the instrument. Everything tested solid for leaks so I decided that it had to be the valve. Sure enough, compared to Highland pipes it was nothing, but for the strength of these pipes, I was actually working harder to get air into the bag than both reeds needed combined. That creates a damper between the time you blow in and the time the bag actually inflates. It also forces you to push air through the valve at a higher pressure than needed in the bag and is inherently unsteady. It's a fine difference in the case of Seth's pipes between stock and "effortless," but not so in the Faust pipes.

For those of you in the gamer, computer or digital music fields, you'll know what I mean when I define this effect as "latency." It's infuriating and it teaches you to learn bad or "off" and premature timing to compensate ahead of the actual events.

I re-seasoned the Faust bag thinking maybe it wouldn't hurt, and by the way, don't use the reindeer-hoof seasoning or whatever hide glue formula that they came with and seems to be popular. Northumberland pipers have always been big on Neetsfoot oil, and run away from that hoof-based bag slime as well. For one thing, it stinks like rotting animals and gets worse over time. It also does nothing for absorbing and buffering moisture if you blow wet pipes. A good bag won't need much actual sealing, and seasoning is mainly to treat the leather for maintenance purposes, insure the seams and tie-in points don't have any odd leaks, and mostly to absorb moisture.

I use Murphy's Oil Soap (Wood Soap) with about 1/4 of the brew vegetable shortening. You warm this for 30 seconds or a bit longer in a cup in the microwave, blend it and pour it into the bag, inflate the bag, shake it around, and then drain it for a couple of days. It works great for both wet and dry pipes, softens and treats the leather, is good for the wood, and when dried out the shortening sucks into the leather and the oil soap remains a moisture absorbing coating that will to a great extent keep water from running all around the bag and onto the reeds. It also smells good from day-one to year 17--which is how long the last Highland pipe bag I was using it in and playing daily lasted with a sweet, freshly-washed hardwood floor scent.

Having been a Highland pipe major and through many years of competitive band playing in all weather from snow to a thunderstorms to a freezing downpour, I know a little bit about controlling bag moisture and how important that and having an efficient set of pipes is over a day-long performance schedule.

But the bag wasn't the problem here. It was that valve, which was not sliced through enough. I suppose it was "safer" not to cut so deeply, but it's not always about being "safe." Oh yes, the pipes were perfectly functional. But always felt like I was losing something or falling behind the supply rhythm. I actually bought some bolt-caps and got a fresh valve on and experimented with different cuts till I found an approach that offered no resistance to airflow--the valve easily opens all the way, and yet still seals solid on backflow. I have no idea how long this vinyl will hold up, hold its shape, and seal tightly, so I've obtained an abundant supply and plan to replace them as often as necessary.

I emphasize that inflow should be effortless through the blowpipe and valve, the valve, whatever it is should open all the way. Widely. It should not just crack open a bit to let some air through if you blow hard enough. It also should not just stop "pretty good" but it should seal absolutely airtight against the backflow from the bag. This should be especially true if the valve has been blown into a bit and picked up some moisture. You might hear or feel a slight seeping if bone-dry, but if it's not sealing airtight when wet and played a bit to loosen it up, it's a problem.

These are fine adjustments I suppose and pipers should expect to make them even on new pipes from great makers, but at least on the one set of pipes not only was this flap cut so that the crack barely opened to inflow, but really didn't seal well against outflow. It was "functional" but not "good enough." That's wasted energy in, and a pointless loss of energy even when not blowing, which adds a "softness" in the feel of the whole instrument--just because you can blow these pipes with your nose is no reason to neglect basic maintenance and efficient operation.

I have a thing about "leakiness," coming from years of laughing at Highland and uilleann pipers complaining about how their pipes are working while at the same time they're just barely held together with loose hemp and duct tape, and leaking from every joint and seam. In those cases, every bit helps keep the thing going at all, but simply making up for bad maintenance or adjustment on the sackpipa because it's easy to blow in the first place still leaves the player slightly out of sync with the instrument. You fix your valve and constriction problems, stop the leak problems, and you can easily blow twice the pressure with half the effort, and tweak four times the volume and tone from your reeds.

Looping this back directly on topic, I've concluded that with proper seasoning and a moisture control program, and of course particularly with the comprehensive incorporation of a good set of synthetic reeds like the Hamon versions, there is little practical advantage to going to bellows-blow sackpipa. I do envy Faust's lap-oriented drone layout with the independent switches, and if you're going that direction you might as well use a bellows. But for all practical purposes switching to synthetic reeds will gain you all the advantages of a bellows setup.

(And any "leakiness" problems as I've described anywhere on or in the instrument, would only be compounded in a bellows-blown configuration by the way.)
_________________
Sigs are a waste of bandwidth
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Anders Jackson
Senior User


Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 142
Location: Dalarna, Sweden

PostPosted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 8:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Black Rose, I don't really know what post you comment on, so I don't know the context. But my comments to your post would be

The bag and back vent should hold air like a football (soccer). You should be able to test this by replacing the pipes with wine corks and then blow air into the sack. It should hold the presure at least 10 minutes without loosing presure.

Reeds should be cleaned by a drill (or something like that) and the node should be sealed with wax seal in the node end of the reed. Your described cutting the reed and press from within and not bending with razor blade is a new technic I didn't know about and nothing I seen in Sweden. I might try that out next time.

The long tube is an alternative to water traps that do work, accordin to many, including Olle Gällmo. The theory is that the mouth pice in bag are close to the exits in a Säckpipa. I have not tried it myself.

A small leaking of air in cane reeds are usefull, as it works against locking reeds. So sucking the end of the reed should not lock the read totaly. But the leaking shoudl be small, as you have written.

I agree that the air resistance blowing into the bag should be minimal. But that there is no problem with the reed beeing light pressure driven. Anders Norudde, one of the most skilled säckpipare in Sweden have a extreamly easy blown pipe, which he "bend" when playing, almost like an electric guitarr. A Swedish säckpipa should be easy to play, not lilke a Highlander pipes set.

Syntetic reeds works really well in the drone, but the sound isn't perfect in the chanter. There are some syntetic reeds that get close, like the ones by Texasbagpiper. But they are not like the best cane reeds.
_________________
No MSN or ICQ. Only Jabber at <xmpp:anders.jackson@gmail.com>
Änd sorri får maj misspellingz, inglish is nått maj först language.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Black Rose



Joined: 10 Apr 2011
Posts: 44
Location: Minneapolis Minnesota USA

PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 10:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm responding to the suggestion early in the thread that Seth Hamon's reeds might be "leaky." And no, cane reeds leak, Hamon's reeds do not. Not at all. They also don't stop.

Just to clarify: My point is exactly as you state. Sackpipa are very easy to blow. They obviously aren't even in the same class as a Higland practice chanter and fall more into the category of a whistle than a set of pipes in terms of blowing pressure. They are however, from what I have seen, far easier to blow than many of them are set up to be, because of both leaks in bags, leaks in reeds, and an overly stubborn flapper valve or constricted blowpipe or mouthpiece. The light strength of the pipes only exaggerates the feeling of latency, or the delay in response between blowing air and actually getting it into the bag as effective pressure on the reeds.

Because they are easy to blow, it is easy to ignore leaking bags and constrictions because the reeds themselves actually use little air and almost no pressure. But the leakiness does make a big difference in how the instrument "feels" and responds, particularly to overblowing to bend notes etc. In fact, light reeds are far more subject to the sort of struggling to get air into the bag that I am talking about. My particular observation was the common use of those bolt-caps for valves was an easy adaptation for the instrument, but had the hazard of being very constricted if not cut carefully and fully. Making sure this flap is cut until it works freely makes a very large difference, even though the cut is only a millimeter more.

As far as the water trap goes, as I say, my pipes came with the flapper valve on the end of a long tube that stuck in the bottom of the bag and was inherently constricted and impared by jamming or otherwise laying on the bottom of the bag and getting covered with goo and making it either leaky or hard to blow through. While this design has some effect upon laying the intake away from the chanter stock, so moisture collects in the back of the bag, a proper water trap actually collects moisture in the trap, and it never enters the bag, and can be emptied now and then during play, and before stowing the pipes. The one simply re-directs moisture to collect bottom-up and only delays the inevitable. Highland drying systems are very sophisticated these days, including filter systems and synthetic bags, but the basic blowpipe sump-and-riser-pipe style is a hundred years old or more, and even this simple device prevents raw spittle and condensed moisture that runs down the blowpipe, from ever entering the bag.

As you well know Alban Faust and probably others have gone to bellows to achieve stability, or at least more stability in the sackpipa reeds, particularly the chanter. This however, is not entirely necessary given a proper, modern moisture control system (not just a tube dropping the moisture 10cm farther down into the bag, but a trap that catches moisture and can release it from the bag as you play) and the issue of constriction is also related to whatever sort of blowpipe valve or additional tubes and valves stuck onto it.

I'm still playing cane in my chanters so far, and except for a widely varying base pitch all through the spring and summer, I love cane. But then again, like in Scotland, what works in Sweden may not work in Minnesota more than a few weeks or months at a time due to rapid and violent weather swings. There are many reasons the instrument almost died out and I am striking at the heart of one of them: the matter of stability, tunability, reliability, and thus compatibility. If you're one piper playing on your own schedule in your own time, cane is the master. If you have to meet somebody else's schedule and play on demand or with other musicians, well, sometimes stability and reliability takes the edge over perfect tone.


_________________
Sigs are a waste of bandwidth
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Display posts from previous:   
This forum is locked: you cannot post, reply to, or edit topics.   This topic is locked: you cannot edit posts or make replies.    Norden Sackpipa Association of the Americas (NSAA) Forum Index -> Norden Sackpipa Association of the Americas (NSAA) All times are GMT + 1 Hour
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group