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Hi Donald H:
If you are not easy with the
fiddling-about-with-reeds, there is not a huge amount that can be done by
writing or even explaining without actually doing. There must be a piper
or two nearby who can go over maintenance with you and show you addtionally the
business of manipulating reeds. The new synthetic wood drone reeds are
relatively steady and low-fiddle factor so to get a reliable drone sound pretty
quickly, I would get a set of Wygnents from the USA or EZ drones from the
UK. In addition you might consider getting in touch with The College of
Piping in Glasgow who can provide you with any one of their three tutors,
the middle one (#2) has to do with how to set up a bagpipe.
The problem stems from the fact that you are playing 4 reeds
at once, and one of them is a double reed and somehow it has all got to mesh.
This is not a world to enter if you are a total neophyte. To add to
your difficulties, the pipes made in the east are often uneven in quality:
the drones sometimes sounding rough and the chanters not correctly tuned.
There is a very arcane art to chanter-making and I know men who have devoted
their lives to just that -- there seems always to be a 'holy grail'
of sound to chase. Having bought a practice chanter from Pakistan, I fear
the worst for you as I had to re-drill a couple of holes to tune it properly
(the high A had was so flat that it had to be brought up nearly 1/8 of an
inch. If this is one of your problems, you can always buy a better chanter
without throwing the drones away.
Let me know if you need addresses for obtaining any of the
above info or products.
Aye,
Rory
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