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 Physical Exam 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 [...]

Better Bagpipe Blowing: Take It to the Limit by Vince Janoski

You should always be playing at the edge of your abilities if you are committed to improvement. That is a given in just about anything you do. There are many who will say that the outer limit is as far as you can go, that you will go no further, while the more rational and [...]

4 Steps to Revive Dead Chanter Reeds by Vince Janoski

Never chuck a good reed. A good chanter reed that has served you well may still do so even after it has dried out or turned “wimpy.” As long as it has no damage and is not in a state of decomposition, the reed can be revived and brought back to its former glory for [...]

Pipehacker Tip: The DIY Pipe Bag Seasoning Funnel by Vince Janoski

Bagpipe bag seasoning is messy stuff. The wide mouth opening of your modern container of Airtight makes it an easy matter to make a clean pour into your bagpipe bag through the drone stock. I don’t know about you, but I’ve always drained the excess through the chanter stock back into the container and that [...]

Scraping Bagpipe Chanter Reeds by Vince Janoski

Ask twenty pipers the question “how do you scrape a chanter reed?” and you will likely get twenty different answers. There are as many treatments as there are chanter reeds to treat. Even SFU’s Jack Lee admitted as much in his recent discussion on Bagpipe Nation. In that conversation, he described his approach to “the [...]

Bagpipe Nation March 3, 2011 by Vince Janoski

The March 3, 2011 episode of Bagpipe Nation is below for listening and downloading. Hosts Vince Janoski and Andrew Douglas chat with special guest Adam Holdaway of the Stuart Highlanders, talk about the potential extinction of our bagpipe competition mode, ideas to revamp the bagpipe competition circuit, and review some bagpipe instrument maintenance. Subscribe to [...]

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