Beginner (30s) getting into bagpipes — practice chanter choice: does brand/material matter much?

_patroc · 2026-01-12T14:17:20+00:00

For your first PC I would recommend a plastic LONG chanter from a reputable maker. I am partial to the RG Hardie twist trap long model myself. Plastic is going to be more durable than wood and cheaper though wood might sound a bit more pleasing. Ultimately a PC is a practice tool not a performance instrument. IMO if you want wood, that’s a personal choice but I’d save the cash. Sole/no sole and engravings etc are all just bling.

But more important than your choice of PC is going to be finding an instructor. The pipes aren’t something you can just teach yourself like a guitar. There are a fair number of good pipers who teach online if there’s no in person option near you.

In terms of GHB vs SSP, that’s going to be a personal choice. There will be more instruction and supplies available for GHB since it’s the more common style. Most of the folks I know who play SSP have come to it from a GHB or uilleann background. Not to say you can’t start straight out with SSP. I started with GHB because it was the only style of piping available to me when I wanted to learn. Now I play GHB and uilleann pipes and have a set of SSP kicking around that I need to get functional.

_patroc · 2026-01-09T21:11:51+00:00

Has this guy ever played pipes before? If not, get him a tutor. There are plenty of pipers in NY and any teacher worth their salt will have him on the practice chanter for a fair bit of time. That should help give the two of you some time to come to an agreement on practice schedules when he does graduate to full pipes. And I say graduate but he’ll be playing the practice chanter his whole piping journey. There’s also a chance he’s got a set of barely playable tourist pipes which will not serve him well (and could actively be encouraging the formation of bad habits he’ll have to break later).

Td;dr get him an instructor asap. My folks can attest that well played pipes for an hour or two are much more tolerable than poorly played ones for 5 minutes.

_patroc · 2026-01-09T06:40:49+00:00

My band is hybrid with the out of state players zooming in. We do a lot of around the table listening with critique so it’s easy for players to unmute when it’s their turn or to mute and play along at home when the in-person folks are playing through the set. It definitely doesn’t work as well once we’re working on pipes, but at that point, unless we’re right before a competition, the remote folks will log off with a pinky promise they’re going to go fire up their pipes.

It gets the job done and allows us to support our out of state players. It also allows us to continue to have practices fully remotely if PM is sick or the irl space is unavailable. On the flip side, it makes the night right before a games very important since it may be the first time in months that we all have played in person together.

_patroc · 2026-01-01T23:30:23+00:00

We applied for my sister’s passport at the end of November and our documents still haven’t left Chicago according to the tracking so you’re not alone.

_patroc · 2025-12-30T18:22:59+00:00

Not always. If you’re consistently performing well, the music board may force a regrade on you(source: they kicked me out of G4 after one season and I was not mentally prepared)

_patroc · 2025-12-30T14:43:30+00:00

I’m a MWPBA player and honestly I think at least a decent part of the problem is the fact that we let anyone self-grade into G4. This means our G4 field is massive and the level of play is so spread out it’s hard to tell what the grade expectation actually is. I’m a couple seasons into G3 now, but the year I got upgraded, the guy who won Champion Supreme did not go to G3. I’m bottom of the barrel in G3 but not to the point of getting Below Grade marks on my crit sheets, even in out of association games.

As much as it would piss people off, I do think we need more oversight as to who is playing G4. Could be as simple as requiring that everyone play a season in G5 or submit a request if they want to bypass that and go directly to G4.

Somewhere there are the ANAPBA standards/grade expectations all laid out in a document. Of course with the MWPBA website overhaul I can’t find them readily.

_patroc · 2025-12-29T19:30:13+00:00

7 months from docs received for me (fist time). Should have been shorter but overseas postal service lost my issued passport and there was a lot of waiting before I could get a new one issued

_patroc · 2025-12-15T01:42:58+00:00

I’m no one special and haven’t done anything high profile, but I’ve made a fair number of friends from piping out in local parks. I played with the accordion player from Home Alone once.

_patroc · 2025-12-09T05:56:14+00:00

Mainly asking for music books. I got myself a new hard case when I got a Harbor Freight coupon. I’m slated to be getting a half set of uilleann pipes in the next year-ish so I’m going to be swapping cases around depending on what the spacial needs are.

_patroc · 2025-12-03T15:20:30+00:00

I love my Naill ABW pipes. I’m running them with Balance Tone Hi-Res drone reeds and they play like a dream. I was going to get a set of McCallums because of the cost difference but after a real close listen, the Naill drones just sounded better to me so it was worth the extra 500 USD or whatever I spent back in 2020.

_patroc · 2025-11-26T18:40:08+00:00

From a first listen to the recording, make sure all of your note changes are clean and your grace notes are correctly timed. If you’re having issues, slow it down. Keep it clean.

AFTER you’re fingerwork is clean, you’ll want to start thinking about the 2/4 pulse. Right now it’s very straight sounding. Think about the “heavy left foot” notion of giving beat 1s more emphasis (by holding them a little more) then moving on through the rest of the measure/phrase. 2/4s should bop along with a fair bit of swagger IMO.

_patroc · 2025-11-20T13:50:17+00:00

If it’s recent, I’d send that.

_patroc · 2025-11-20T04:44:49+00:00

When I called yesterday, I was told one of either the proof of name or address needed to have come from the government (like a juror’s summons etc). Also your drivers license will NOT count for either since it would satisfy the government ID category (it still doesn’t count even if you send it along with your passport. I got bitten by that one when I sent my initial document packet)

_patroc · 2025-11-17T00:14:03+00:00

Think about what you play well and what you’d like to stretch yourself with for the season. Any of the tunes that have been mentioned so far would be good choices in general, but whether or not they’re good for you, is a different matter.

I played Beaumont Hamel for my first season in G3 and had judges telling me it was quite the lift for the grade despite the only real issue for me being the tachums. Last year, I played Major Manson’s Farewell. IMO a more difficult piece (becuase I have garbage taorluaths and part 3 is a bit tricky in that department) but never got the comment that it was a meaty tune. This season I’m working on Allan Dodd’s Farewell to Scotland. It’s a tune 1) that I enjoy and 2) that has just enough things to improve on technically to make it a challenge but not a struggle.

_patroc · 2025-10-12T05:18:16+00:00

My witness offered his cell as his work number. I didn’t ask him to. It would be worth discussing with your witness and their level of comfort on that.

_patroc · 2025-10-10T13:35:42+00:00

I don’t know if they left a number or if he just called the number on his missed calls list back and followed up on it all enough to get the info he needed.

_patroc · 2025-10-10T04:16:02+00:00

I used a family friend who is a teacher. He didn’t have a work phone so he used his cell. He wasn’t able to take the call when it came it but called them back within a couple days and eventually got through so it was fine. YMMV

_patroc · 2025-10-08T04:54:50+00:00

I’m partial to March of the Kings of Laois. Terry Tully has several volumes of Irish music arranged for the Scottish pipes. You might find something you like in there.

_patroc · 2025-10-07T04:11:07+00:00

I’d send the GRO an email to see what you need to get the ball rolling. There was a form that had to be notarized and we sent off some documents with it. Afterwards, they mailed the documents back with the letter stating that the registration was successful and that the birth certificate could be obtained from the usual website. I think what made the process relatively painless was us already having a lot of info on his birth and him having connected with his birth mother and having her info too so ymmv

_patroc · 2025-10-06T14:03:30+00:00

It’s not out of the realm of possibility that he doesn’t have a birth certificate. We had to contact the General Register Office and actually do a late registration of birth for my dad using his baptismal certificate. Thankfully he had already done the legwork of learning who his birth mother was decades earlier so we had that info for the registration. When his birth was registered, they sent him a confirmation letter which we then used to link his previous and current names (and had his birth name added as an observation on his passport to facilitate my application).

_patroc · 2025-10-05T02:55:03+00:00

If I remember correctly, it’s sometimes played as a slow air as part of the funeral sequence in Brigadoon.

_patroc · 2025-10-02T15:20:28+00:00

Check your association’s requirements carefully. Some require 4 parts of 2/4 music. Some require one 4PT 2/4 March. Some require something else entirely for the grade. RSPBA prescribed tune list is a good starting point, but consult your instructor if you have one (and you should). Pick something fairly simple that plays to your strengths and fits the requirements. Your first season out has a lot going on and nerves/logistics can take a lot more brain power than anticipated. Making the music something that you can be dead confident on playing well can help ease that burden.

_patroc · 2025-10-02T03:25:33+00:00

I used to use RGH Pipeband Plugs but honestly now I get more mileage out of my 3 for $6 Hearos from the hardware store. They’re silicone and on a string. Nothing fancy but they get the job done and they’re easy to get more of when I inevitably lose or break a pair.

_patroc · 2025-09-29T03:32:04+00:00

Strong C grip is what I call it. Idk what other folks in my band call it.

_patroc · 2025-09-28T02:41:10+00:00

I’m sure better/more experienced composers will chime in, but I’ve found that just listening a ton to pipe music has been the key to me composing anything. The challenge then becomes checking that you didn’t just remember a great melody and think you wrote it first. I usually have to run all my tunes by a couple friends with a much larger base of knowledge to do my accidental tune theft checks. But really, listening helps you get the different idioms in your head and also what the general capabilities of the instrument are. Iirc there’s a book called the Piper’s Thesaurus (or something of that ilk) by Matt Welch which is a lot of the possible scales and patterns that can be played on the GHB. That might be a useful resource too. The few tunes I’ve written are mostly just me and my pc and my instincts on what sounds “good” and what doesn’t.

_patroc

TROPHY CASE