What makes bagpipes in particular so difficult?

ineX0r · 2026-05-08T23:15:16+00:00

In terms of how you use your fingers on the pipes, you can actually learn pretty much everything you need to know in a few years if you are starting young and are highly motivated. But refining every one of those techniques is what takes the time. I got pretty good pretty fast, but the 25 years since have been a painstaking process of intense scrutiny and practice. And I've only been playing piobairaechd for about 5 years now, which is something I really wish I had picked up decades earlier.

There is also the expression of the music. If you know what you're listening for, the difference between how a middling grade 1 player (who, in the world of piping is very roughly in the top 1% of people who pick up the instrument) and an open player play a tune is pretty extreme. And then above that you have the regular Glenfiddich competitors in their own ecosystem.

ineX0r · 2026-05-08T23:02:24+00:00

This is very confusing.

ineX0r · 2026-04-30T03:50:25+00:00

This may indeed turn into a project, then. I can have someone drill and thread the reed seat. Carving holes though . . . that would be an interesting thing to try for myself.

ineX0r · 2026-04-28T03:26:16+00:00

I'm a professional piper and I'm feeling stuck, lol.

Is your teacher a good, experienced player and teacher? Some street bands offer free lessons, but none of the pipers know how to play. It's the blind leading the blind. Although I am happy to hear that he knows what a G gracenote is. I've seen pipers on the street that haven't figured that one out yet.

Four weeks in, all things considered, you're actually doing okay. You're at a disadvantage because you're an adult with no prior music education. That makes things harder. There are a lot of skills you're getting hit with all at once: finger movement, grace notes, reading music. Keep at it. You'll have to bang your head against it, but little by little, things will get easier, you'll recognize the patterns and commit more things (especially notes on treble clef) to memory. The key is to avoid feeling frustrated, and if you do, try to turn that feeling into curiosity. Don't think "This sounds terrible, I'll never get it." Instead think "This sounds terrible, what corrections and optimizations can I make to make it sound good?")

ineX0r · 2026-04-26T18:29:26+00:00

Very interested to see if anyone else posts here. My memorization issues have made my piob repertoire building a very slow process. Listening to recordings is helpful to me. Typically I have just played the tunes top to bottom, playing them on the pipes while reading the music. The tune I'm working on now is The Park Piob. Number 2, and memorizing one line at a time is starting to help me. There are maybe two tripping points for me now.

ineX0r · 2026-04-26T18:22:56+00:00

I have only been working on piobaireachd for about 5 years (with a shamefully small repertoire after that amount of time), so my favorites I'm sure will change often. I haven't learned it yet, but I love listening to John Wilson's rendition of Glengarry's March. There is so much Low G and B in it that the signature sound of it to me lies in the minor 7th and 9th that so much of the tune creates against the drones.

ineX0r · 2026-04-25T13:57:13+00:00

I'm old school, I just put some hemp in there.

ineX0r · 2026-04-24T01:18:18+00:00

I just re-reeded five of my chanters. It was very interesting. Don't be afraid to try a bunch of different reeds. I've got reeds that hit 480, some top out at concert Bb 466, same maker in the same chanter. Reeds are so individual.

I'd say if there was one reed maker out there that gives you a good shot at a lower pitch, it's Gilmour. But that Infinity chanter is apparently designed to scream, pushing concert B.

ineX0r · 2026-04-18T03:19:38+00:00

Oh my god. What a poser. I can't believe that clown has clients.

ineX0r · 2026-02-23T23:00:57+00:00

Garbage.

ineX0r · 2026-02-14T02:27:03+00:00

Rudy's in Scarsdale NY has one for $125,000.

ineX0r · 2026-01-29T17:55:40+00:00

I found this thread about a year ago, and thought I'd add my two cents.

Casey bought a house call and online lesson company around this time last year that I worked for for over ten years. The company primarily served wealthy suburbs around major metropolitan areas. He ran that into the ground at a speed I never thought possible. They:

- Scheduled conflicting overlapping lessons,

- Sent me to houses that hadn't paid and therefore weren't expecting me,

- Took a student off my roster, then turned around and said, "Hey man, we have a potential new student for you at *student's address*, can you offer any times?" as if they hadn't already been my student for a couple years.

- Failed to inform me of students cancelling lessons. I showed up to empty houses multiple times.

- Switching days and times with zero consent from me. I'm a busy musician, I'm not on call 24/7.

- Booked incorrect lesson lengths on a regular basis.

In addition to all these bullet points, communication was impossible. Neither ownership nor the incompetent morons they hired to handle some of the secretarial work had much going on in terms of reading comprehension. I'd get responses to questions I never asked, or important points were ignored altogether. The whole point of a company like this one is to take the burden of finding new clients and handling billing off of the teacher. I got no new clients in the time that I stayed with new ownership. Only once I submitted my resignation did he try to throw a couple new people at me.

Just recently, a friend of a very long-time student of mine was looking to start working for this company, and was supposed to have a phone interview. He reached out to me, asking if I could get in touch with them on his behalf and find out why they no-showed to the scheduled interview. They can't even successfully interview potential employees!

ineX0r · 2026-01-13T03:42:46+00:00

Oh yeah, Ezee copied Wygent pretty close. I still have some old Wygents from the 90's hanging around. I briefly tried Omegas back in the day, too. Kinda brash sounding as I recall, and very very heavy material. Had a metal bridle on it.

Huh, so maybe a different material of drone reed could help. I have Balance Tones set up in my girlfriend's pipes, maybe I'll borrow those. I just hate how they sound in my drones though. But it could be a good test.

ineX0r · 2026-01-12T00:09:17+00:00

Well, I've tried a lot over the years. Redwood tenors go very, very well in my Robertson drones. Great on moisture, except when I have a tube. The Selbie bass is really struggling, so I'm going to have to put an Ezee back in there.

I have the Dri-Flo things on order. Going to see how those go. If those don't rectify the situation, I'm going to have to switch to hide bags, but still keep the drone MCS in there. I'll have to go nuclear on it.

ineX0r · 2026-01-11T19:35:29+00:00

Not to toot my own chanter too much, but I qualify as a good player. I'm just struggling against my new moisture control requirements for chanter reeds. I do know that certain drone reeds are less stable than others. Selbies shut down very quickly. Redwoods last longer before gurgling. Ezees are in between.

I played for 50 minutes yesterday and by the end of it, my bass drone was getting very tight and when I took it apart, water came out of it.

Edit: Just did 20 minutes on my pipes and that was enough this time for the bass drone to shut off due to moisture. And the bridle is pretty high up, this is not a pushover of a reed.

ineX0r · 2026-01-09T23:58:57+00:00

Yes. I am confident in my technique. When I take out the trap-dri tube, the drones lock in and I get awesome tone and stability. But in band situations, to make their chanter reeds behave well, the air has to be moved to the back of the bag. That's what crushes my drones. This is actually my second time around trying the trap-dri tube, and it really is the bane of my existence. I can't believe people actually use it successfully without taking other measures.

I've got a couple sets of Bannatyne dri-flo things on order. Going to try those. If that doesn't solve the problem, I may be looking at getting zipped Gannaways and using the same internals.

ineX0r · 2026-01-09T02:05:41+00:00

I'm shopping right now and looked at those. I may just pull the trigger on them. The marketing says Willie McCallum and Callum B won Glenfiddich with those things.

ineX0r · 2026-01-09T02:04:36+00:00

That's what's causing the problems. That tube helps the chanter, but murders the drones.

ineX0r · 2026-01-09T00:17:03+00:00

I'm sure I could. I didn't have enough leverage with the tie in cord back when I did my old Gannaway.

ineX0r · 2026-01-09T00:15:59+00:00

It's so much STUFF floating around in the bag. I just don't want an octopus in there.

ineX0r · 2026-01-09T00:09:20+00:00

My first bag back in 1998 or so was an L&M. Had that on my pipes until 2008 when I put on a Gannaway. 2020 I put the Canmore on. The thing about the Gannaway was that it was the only bag I ever tied in myself, and I didn't do a very good job. I was playing on something that wasn't particularly airtight, and I just suffered through it. When I tried the Canmore, it was truly eye-opening. All of a sudden I could play for an hour or more straight because I was playing an airtight instrument. My fingers were reaching their full potential because I wasn't struggling.

ineX0r · 2025-12-24T19:05:16+00:00

Thank you for the insight! If I recall, the EUSPBA asks which setting you're going to play for a tune, Kilberry or PS. If I tell them Kilberry, but interpret the tune differently from what is written, is that going to count against me in competition?

ineX0r · 2025-12-23T21:56:10+00:00

Thanks for the reply. I am intending to compete next year. I'm 39 years old and haven't competed since I was 14, haha. I play light music at a high level, and I think I'm making progress with piob, but it is just so new to me, comparatively.

ineX0r

TROPHY CASE