Imagine, if you will, this scenario: Jack Lee suddenly has a change of life and must relocate from British Columbia, Canada to Boston, Massachusetts. What a boon for eastern U.S. piping! Unfortunately, that boon turns to a curse when we realize that Jack Lee is not able to judge EUSBPA sanctioned contests since he is not a member of the EUSPBA panel. As a matter of policy, Jack Lee could judge as a “guest” while a member of the British Columbia judges panel, but is no longer a member of that panel with his relocation. If he wants to adjudicate, he now must pass muster against the EUSPBA selection system—which requires him to be invited to take the EUSPBA judges exam.
Is there anyone who would argue that Jack Lee’s piping résumé alone would qualify him as a competent judge? Is a test really necessary to prove it? Such a special circumstance might cause the EUSPBA Music Board to waive the current requirements. It’s been done before. But how many times is it done before the requirements are cheapened and mean nothing?
What about another, lesser known piper with a résumé that does not quite measure up the same way to Jack Lee’s, but yet who has many years of experience in bands and is equally capable of judging a pipe band contest based on this experience? In our scenario, both this individual and Lee have relocated. Do you measure this individual against the EUSPBA requirements and force him or her to sit the exam while waiving the requirements for Lee? How do you justify that?
Drone tuning is tricky business! For those of us that are new to the world of drone tuning, it can literally take 5 or more minutes to get our drones in tune! Even for more experienced tuners, I want to stress how important it is to take into consideration the changes that are happening to your chanter reed while you’re up there trying to get your drone reeds in tune.
[image to the left from http://www.kilberry.com/maintenance-drones.html]
Before I learned to think like my bagpipe, I would often find that, after spending large amounts of time getting my drones just PERFECT, I would go back down to my low A and find that, despite my wall-of-sound drones being well tuned, they were no longer in with the chanter! What happened?
The basic answer is this: Your chanter increases in pitch as you play. The temperature inside your bag increases, which allows your chanter reed blades to vibrate more freely. There are other factors that effect just how much your reed changes over time (moisture is probably the biggest factor), but it is important to at least take the pitch issue into account before you go about fine-tuning your drones.
Here is my routine, to avoid this problem:
Step 1: I get my pipes out, and ROUGHLY tune my drones. I’m not worried about being precise yet. I just want my pipes to sound tolerable while I begin to settle them in.
Step 2: Only after 5-10 minutes of non-stop playing do I attempt to “fine tune” my drones. This amount of time has allowed the temperature inside my bag to rise, and begin to settle out to a (somewhat) constant level.
Step 3: As soon as I stop playing my pipes, I know that steps 1 and 2 will need to be repeated when I start up again. Even 30 seconds of down time, and I have allowed the temperature inside my bag to drop again.
Of course, you’ve got to make sure your pipes are set up well to begin with. Have a look at the previous post on drone reeds: CLICK HERE
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