The Ebay Bagpiper: Devil Drone Reeds by Vince Janoski

Wherein Pipehacker purchases and test drives assorted bagpipe junk from ebay—so you don’t have to. If you spend any time sorting through the bagpipe offerings on Ebay you’ve seen them. The strange and wonderful variety of “off-brand” drone reeds from just about every continent on Earth. Serious pipers will simply give these goofy entries a [...]

4 Steps for Getting Your Drone Reeds to “Point Zero” by Vince Janoski

“Point zero” is exactly what it implies. It is setting the strength of your drone reeds at the starting point before you begin adjusting for pitch and chanter reed strength.

Bagpipe TLC by Vince Janoski

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 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. It’s time to take some extra effort to make sure your instrument has held up.

Chanter Reed Selection—The Match-Up by Vince Janoski

The ideal bagpipe sound starts with selecting the ideal chanter reed. Obvious? It is not always as easy as it seems. Personal preferences and taste coupled with what amounts to unlimited choice in makers and quality of chanter reed makes that initial task of selecting your ideal reed a bit more daunting. But unlimited choice [...]

Pipehacker Tip: Use a Spare Bagpipe Bag Cover in the Off-Season by Vince Janoski

Would you mow your lawn or clean your house in your good suit? Of course not. You have an old T-shirt and some work pants for that kind of thing, something you don’t mind getting dirty. But pipers do this all the time when we play our nice, clean bag covers during our non-performing times. [...]

Pipehacker Project: Rebuild and Resurrect a Practice Chanter Reed by Vince Janoski

Never chuck a good reed. Wait. Did I say that already once before? Well, it’s true, and if you’ve been at this bagpipes thing for any length of time, you’ve probably amassed quite the collection of old reeds off all kinds. Practice chanter reeds are typically going to give up the ghost more frequently only [...]

Pareto Piping: The Three Things at the Core of Pipe Band Success by Vince Janoski

Pareto Principle: Roughly 80% of the effects of many events come from 20% of the causes. We all want to crack the secret of good bagpiping and drumming and achieve success on the competition field, don’t we? Pipe bands here in the USA work very hard to be musically and competitively successful, but I’ll bet [...]

Reed Anatomy: Synthetic Drone Reeds by Vince Janoski

The last ten to fifteen years or so have seen an explosion of synthetic drones reeds makes out on the market. The modern Highland bagpiper is not at a loss when choosing a make of reed that is suitable to personal bagpipe vintage or sound taste. Stalwart varieties spawned from Ross’s early plastic body and [...]