... is something most people wouldn't normally attribute to piping, or specifically what you often do to a cane chanter reed.  Some would say that you shouldn't ever lick or pinch your reeds. There are, however good reasons to do so, more on that subject later.

Today was my first lesson with Jori Chisholm in Seattle.  I didn't really know what to expect and just went in with an open mind and figured I would just go with the flow.  The first half of my lesson was more of a "get acquainted" period, we chatted about our interests, why I wanted to learn to play the pipes, how he got into piping, why I drive a big blue dodge diesel truck... stuff like that.

After we got that out of the way Jori had a look at my pipes, overall I think he was pleased with them.  There were three things I wanted to address regarding my pipes during this visit.

1) My chanter reeds

2) My Posture when playing

3) My chanter position (related to posture)

The first thing Jori looked at was the reed I had in my chanter and the 2 extra I had in my reed box.  The two in the box were pretty hard, I think he ended up working on the one I already had in my chanter.

Jori scraped the sides of the reed with a razor knife to take some of the bulk off the lower section of the reed, he then took a dental rubber band and wrapped it around the bridle of the reed to ease it up a bit.  What I really appreciated during this process is that Jori explained each thing as he did it.  What the effects of doing this or that would have in relation to how the reed operated and sounded.  I really could relate to that level of information, it made other aspects of piping and pipe setup come into focus.

Then a quick "lick and pinch" and I put the chanter back in the pipes.  Oh, the lick and pinch thing?  OK, here's the deal.

When you play the pipes your warm breath creates moisture in the bag and warms up the reed and makes it vibrate better.  If you have a dry reed to start with and just start playing, the reed will absorb enough moisture in about 20 minutes to settle the reed and start sounding good.  By "licking" and "pinching" its like you had been playing for 20 minutes already, in other words why expend the energy in getting your reed to the point it is sounding good and settling in when you can start out that way from the beginning? 

Lick and Pinch... we are not talking about slobbering all over it and squeezing the beejezus out of it, just a dainty touch to the tongue and a ever so slight squeeze.

I blew up the pipes, struck in and played a low A and High A alternately while he adjusted my drones.  The difference was very apparent, much easier to blow and the tone was sooo much better.  I was very happy!

One unfortunate side effect of my trouble with reeds lately was I was blowing way to hard, WAY to hard!  Jori explained more fundamentals on blowing and gave me some suggestions on what to look for and how to work on steady blowing on the high A.  If I recall correctly, the goal is to find your optimum blowing pressure at high A and maintain that same pressure for all of the lower notes. 

The reason you pick high A is because you can hear the differences in blowing pressure at high A much easier than you can with any other note, and it takes more blowing pressure to sound high A than any of the other notes, AND you want your blowing to be CONSISTENT all of the time across all of the notes.

Jori had a manometer which he plugged into my outside tenor drone, 30" of pressure was my sweet spot.  Playing a tune and watching that meter, and having Jori adjust my drones was a lot to keep focused on but it was fun to try!  This is my Manometer, simple to make and very sensitive to pressure.

I could have never done all that with with my reed the way it was the night before, but I was able to play High Road to Gairloch at least twice through and a few High A and Low A transitions without too much effort.

With that out of the way we addressed my posture and it would appear my blowstick is a little to long. Fortunately I had purchased an adjustable blowstick a few months ago so I will try that and see what sort of effect that has on my chanter position and posture.

With the pipes taken care of we moved onto the chanter work. There wasn't much time left so it was a short session, probably 10 minutes at most.  Jori had me sight read through the "Muir of Ord", this is a tune that I just started on with Helen about two weeks ago but as luck would have it the only time I actually worked on the tune was with Helen during my lessons.  Needless to say I picked my way through the tune stopping at each note and embellishment, it was a little nerve wracking but I made it to the end of the tune.

Jori commented that my fingering technique is good and what would really help me is to get my sight reading up to speed since when I figured out what the embellishment that was to be played, I played it well.  That was a huge confidence boost to me so I was really happy to hear it.

I commented that I thought the 79Th's Farewell to Gibraltar was harder than the Muir of Ord and Jori said it was the other way around!  After discussing this with my instructor Helen I think we both (Helen and I) agree, a measurement of difficultly is more than just the notes and embellishments, it is the arrangements of those notes and embellishments and how they link up and are played that can make a simple looking tune, actually more challenging to play.

So my new "march" for March is "Prince Charles Welcome to Lochaber", it is a tune that would fit between 79Th's and Muir in terms of difficulty.

My next lesson with Jori is in 4 weeks.  Now I know what to expect and I'm sure things will get more challenging the next time around.  I recall the comment, "I like to pile things on", Hmmm, I think I better get busy practicing!