The long hours of practice and competition can make the average piper take his or her instrument for granted. All pipers have their regular maintenance routine to keep their pipes…
The bagpiping world seems to be divided up into two groups: 1) The denizens of bagpipe internet forums who are sure manometers, i.e., tubes filled with water, will make them…
Do you know what it is you spend your time on? Previously, I've talked about treating your bagpiping like finance and money and taking stock of your intangible assets. Well,…
This moving and poignant slow march appears in only one place in print as near as I could discover, and that is in the J & R Glen Collection, first…
In the world of finance, assets are any resource, tangible and intangible, in your control, that can produce value. In the world of bagpiping, your assets would be anything you…
Posted on | February 8, 2012 | by Vince Janoski | No Comments
The long hours of practice and competition can make the average bagpiper take his or her instrument for granted. All pipers have their regular maintenance routine to keep their pipes in top shape, but think about it, you’ve taken your stand up and down the bumpy roads to the games in trains, planes, and automobiles. You’ve carried them around the field and played in all kinds of weather—not to mention the dust! It’s time to take some extra effort to make sure your instrument has held up. Pipers can be as active in the winter as they are at other times of year but things do slow down in the fall and winter months, so take the time to give your instrument some tender loving care. Here are eight things to check off on a slow weekend and remedy for the coming months.
CHECK YOUR BAG FOR AIR LEAKAGE. Remove all the parts of your pipe save the blowstick and cork the stocks. Inflate the bag fully and apply “playing-strength” pressure with your arm for several seconds. Blow into the bag again. If you can inflate the bag any, you’ve probably got a small leak somewhere. Use your pipehacking skills and find it.
EXAMINE THE OUTER SURFACE OF YOUR DRONES FOR CRACKS OR DAMAGE. While the drones are apart, carefully examine each piece. Check the wood for hairline fissures, chips or other early signs of damage. Long term, even the smallest chip or crack can become a major problem down the road. Time for repairs.
CLEAN THE OUTER SURFACE OF YOUR DRONES AND MOUNTS. Things get dirty just being outdoors. Use a soft cloth and small amount of mild dish soap to wash the outside of your instrument. Apply a light coat of almond oil to the outer surface.
SWAB OUT YOUR DRONES. You would be surprised how much can build up on the insides of your drones. Dust, moisture, weather all conspire to collect build up on the inside bore of your drones. Use your drone brush or pull a swab through the bores with a small amount of almond or bore oil to clean away any unwanted dust and debris. If you are an advocate of oiling your drones, now would be a good time.
CHECK ALL THE CONNECTION POINTS WHERE ANY “FOREIGN” OBJECTS ATTACH. All the points where the various gadgets—such as water traps, moisture systems, and the like—attach to your pipes can collect gunk and just get plain dirty—or worse, wear out quickly. Take these items apart and clean them.
CHECK THE SEAL ON ALL HEMPED JOINTS. Normal use will wear out the hemp and wax on all of your joints and loosen the seal. Check for any part that requires a fresh wrap.
RETIE YOUR CORDS. Normal use can loosen the ties on your drone cords and have your drones flopping around on your shoulder. Cut the plastic cable ties that bind your cords and replace them. All that time in the sun and elements can have adverse affects on your nice silk drone cords. Check for wear and wash or replace the cords if necessary.
WASH YOUR BAG COVER. All that squeezing under a sweaty arm during the summer months can take its toll on even the most durable fabric. You wouldn’t wear the shirt you play in for three months straight without washing it, so take off that bag cover and give it a cleaning.
Posted on | February 6, 2012 | by Vince Janoski | No Comments
Posted on | February 3, 2012 | by Vince Janoski | 1 Comment
The bagpiping world seems to be divided up into two groups: 1) The denizens of bagpipe internet forums who are sure manometers, i.e., tubes filled with water, will make them better pipers and talk as if manometers and pressure gauges are as commonplace in your piping gear as hemp and black tape; and 2) everyone else.
Advocates of using a manometer have all sorts of DIY methods of construction with tubes, dyes, and whatnot. The purpose of these homebrewed thingamajigs (or any of the recent commercially available dial pressure gauges out there) is to see how much water your blowing pressure can move…or something. But if what you’re trying to do is improve your bagpipe playing, the numbers or “inches of water” are meaningless when trying to achieve an air efficient instrument, a comfortable, stable set up, or improve the quality of your sound.
That’s not to say that such tools have no value. The gauge’s true calling is as a diagnostic tool: measuring the air efficiency of your instrument. Because it is only at that point when you can even begin to work toward steady blowing on the bagpipe. It is here that some visual reference is helpful. Many a piper has obsessively believed their bag has a leaky spot, or a weak point on the instrument where air may be escaping. Others frantically search when the true causes are physical issues, not instrument issues, and these physical issues also need to be diagnosed. For this, a handy, inexpensive pipehacked gauge to determine whether your instrument is working in top form is needed. Assembly couldn’t be easier and use is better than any other solution your can dream up. And if a number is really needed, heck, you can just blow right into the thing.
What You Need
How to Do It
1. Prepare your materials. Inexpensive home blood pressure cuffs are easily found out and about these days. Make sure you find one that uses the auscultatory method, which has an old style analog gauge and a stethoscope. The gauge should not have digital sensors of any kind. (The vintage beauty that gave up the gauge shown here was found on Ebay for $3 and free shipping!) Snip the sphygmomanometer gauge off of the cuff and keep as much tubing as you can. If the cuff you have does not have any tubing, disconnect it and attach your length of separate medical tubing to the gauge’s nozzle.
2. Assemble your gauge. Push one end of the brass hose connector through the hole in the rubber stopper as far as it will go. The medical tubing of the blood pressure cuff should fit snugly over the other end.
3. The piper’s perfect gauge! Now try out your gauge by placing the stopper in your chanter stock. Inflate your bag and play your drones. Keep an eye on the gauge’s needle and pay attention to how often you blow to keep it steady. Too much effort at this should tell you your instrument’s air efficiency is compromised somewhere. For the curiosity seeker: If you want to have a go at measuring your blowing pressure when playing, pull out one of your tenor drones from its stock and pop in the stopper of your new gauge and play normally. Watch the gauge needle for variability (oh, there will be some…). The conversions from millimeters of mercury (mmHg)measured on the sphygmomanometer to pounds per square inch (psi) and inches of water (iw) are as follows:
psi = .019 x mmHg
psi = mmHg/51.72
iw = mmHg/1.868
iw = mmHg x .54
A small 1/8-inch brass hose connector and some extra medical tubing can give you additional length in order to position the gauge at a better viewing point.
Posted on | January 30, 2012 | by Vince Janoski | No Comments
Now in glorious technicolour!
Posted on | January 26, 2012 | by Vince Janoski | No Comments
Do you know what it is you spend your time on? Previously, I’ve talked about treating your bagpiping like finance and money and taking stock of your intangible assets. Well, also like finance, you also must take stock of your spending if you are to see where your money goes.
Like money, time is an asset that must be budgeted and managed. How are you spending your practice time? It stands to reason that the things you work on the most will be the things that improve the quickest. Likewise, you might be frustrated by how slowly some things develop or improve, if they do at all. Small bits of time spent on the right things pertaining to your music can add up and pay off big. Likewise, time NOT spent on the areas you need to improve also adds up and becomes a deficit that is more difficult to overcome.
The objective is to discover how you spend your bagpipe practice time in order to strengthen the musical areas in need of most improvement while maintaining stronger areas that are already going well. But how do you figure that out? Sometimes a picture tells the whole story.
The Tip
Keep track of your practice time this week and document in detail how much of it was spent and on what specifically. Create an infographic—that is, a handy chart or picture or table—that clearly illustrates the time spent. Create a clever system of images to depict the amount of time you spend on individual aspects of your playing. For example, you can use images of chanter reeds to illustrate the amount of time spent with a chanter reed for every minute or five minutes spent on an area of music. You can change the size of the image to reflect either a large amount of time or small amount of time, whatever works. Mark down the thing you worked on and use an image to illustrate how much time you spent on it. (Some suggestions are posted below. Feel free to download and use.)
In a week’s time, you will have a clear idea of where you are spending most of your time, and where the deficits lay. Once it is all illustrated, it should become clear where time can be gathered and added or moved around to other aspects of your bagpiping. Your immediate goals for your bagpiping should also suddenly become very clear.
We all have a tendency to gravitate toward the things that are comfortable and easy. In our bagpiping, we might not realize that we are spending less time on the hard stuff simply because it feels better to spend time on the things that come a bit easier. But to have truly productive practice will require a focussed approach to specific aspects of your music. Improvement will come with deliberate effort and a clear illustration of your progress, something you can follow and track. I know a great book that is perfect for documenting such progress.
Posted on | January 24, 2012 | by Vince Janoski | No Comments
Posted on | January 20, 2012 | by Vince Janoski | No Comments
This moving and poignant slow march appears in only one place in print as near as I could discover, and that is in the J & R Glen Collection, first published in 1870. The witch’s stane mentioned in the title is a small stone that stands in the garden of a cottage in the western Scottish village of Dornoch, north of Inverness. It commemorates the 1722 execution of Janet Horne, convicted of witchcraft and said to be the last witch burned in Scotland. The event was powerful enough to inspire all sorts of music and literature of the time. The tune is a stirring piece of music given the simplicity of its phrasing. A multi-verse poem by the poet and musician Robert Mauchline (posted below) captures the feeling about the place. Listen to the podcast for more background and a playing of the tune on the bagpipe.
THE WITCH’S STANE: A LEGEND OF DORNOCH
by Robert Mauchline (b.1846)
Mark yonder wild spot where the grey mossy cairn
Its gloomy shade casts on the black sullen tarn,
Where the flow’rets are withered, and blasted the heath,
And Nature is wrapped in the silence of death.
“Tis a spot to be shunned; e’en the bold mountaineer
Shrinks back from its shadow with awe and with fear,
And nought but the hemlock and deadly wolfsbane
Grows rank by the cairn of the grey Witch’s Stane.
See yon pale, wan creature, by misery bowed,
Dragged forth to her doom by the murderous crowd,
With wild maniac gaze on the throng she looks round,
As her poor shrinking form to the dread stake is bound;
The faggots are gathered, the stake towers high,
And fierce roar the flames as they leap to the sky,
While her cries rise on high in a sad plaintive strain,
Where now towers the silent and grey Witch’s Stane.
“Farewell, glorious sun! thou bright lord of the morn,
Farewell to the land where my fathers were born;
To mountain and valley a long, long farewell,
To bright wimpling streamlet and sweet mossy dell,
Farewell to the glen where, a maiden, I roved
With Ronald the gallant, the winsome and loved;
He fell with the noble Dundee ‘mid the slain,
But his spirit looks down on the grey Witch: a Stane.”
“Ay, pile up the faggot, and fan the bright blaze,
Ay, demons of fury, rejoice as ye gaze,
Let my poor smouldering ashes to fierce winds be given,
But the deed shall be seen and recorded in heaven.
The heath shall be withered, the grass still ungrown,
Where this poor heart of mine shall be quivering thrown,
And the ban of your victim for ever remain
On th’unhallowed spot marked by the grey Witch’s Stane.”
But high rose the tumult, and loud the fierce hum,
With shrill sound of pipe and of hoarse rolling drum
That drowned her low wails, while the red embers plowed,
And her ashes by wild blasts were scattered and strewed.
And oft ‘mid the storm and the lightning’s blue sheen
The spirit of poor hapless Elsie is seen;
And there desolation for ever doth reign,
Nor breezes of spring kiss the grey Witch’s Stane.
Small Tunes: Vintage Melodies from the Bagpipe Tradition 004 The Witch's Stane [ 4:57 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (343)
Posted on | January 16, 2012 | by Vince Janoski | No Comments
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5 Ways to Build Good Bagpipe Practice Habits
What is the most difficult aspect of learning bagpipes or pipe band drumming? It’s not the music and it’s not playing or maintaining the instrument. It is practicing or, building the habits to practice.
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The bagpiping world seems to be divided up into two groups: 1) The denizens of bagpipe internet forums who are sure manometers, i.e., tubes filled with water, will make them better pipers and talk as if manometers and pressure gauges are as commonplace in your piping gear as hemp and black tape; and 2) everyone [...] more »
