Aspects of tuning – reeds
By Stuart Letford - April 28, 2020
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Figure 2
By Roger Gould-King
Figure 2 shows a typical chanter reed design suitable for most chanters
and the average piper’s blowing habits. This design follows the principle
that all dimensions of the blades are based on a simple ‘rule of 3’. For
example, the staple is 4mm in diameter, which multiplied by three gives a
blade width at the lips of 12mm. The total length of the blades is 3 x 12 =
36mm while the blades are tied, and the staple positioned halfway or at a
distance of 18mm from the end. Further, the free (untied) surface of the
blades is divided into thirds, the top two thirds representing the area that
will have cane removed, while the remaining third is initially never
modified as this allows some cane remaining for further modification later
when the reed needs reworking. As shown, the remaining two thirds, or
12mm, is what we have to work with in terms of removing cane.
The first steps (if they haven’t been carried out before purchasing the
reed!) are to test whether the reed leaks at the sides and whether the
staple has been correctly tied. The most effective way to check for leaks
is to close the lips of the blades between thumb and forefinger and to
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suck at the staple end. The differential between the vacuum formed and
the atmospheric pressure will soon show if the reed is airtight or not. The
second test is to determine whether the reed is overtied or undertied.
This means that the top thread of the tie. must be precisely in line with
the top of the staple (flattened end) opening. If it is over the top
(overtied), moisture absorption will cause the cane to swell and the reed
will deform, while a tie below the staple opening will generally cause the
sides to splay at the lips and cause leakage there.
Most reedmakers (but not all reedmakers) use a staple precisely 15/16”
long (approximately 24mm) and one therefore uses a spare staple as a
gauge or simply measures the distance from the bottom of the reed to
the top of the tie.
The next most important check is to see whether the reed is properly and
tightly tied. By gently squeezing the reed in a rolling motion between
finger an thumb in the staple area, it will be seer whether the blades are
displaced laterally or not. If they are this is considered to b a fault as one
can be reasonably certain that the tie will loosen further and the reed will
need a re-tie and general re-assembly. If the reed is loosely or badly tied,
it should, in the interests of long life stability, be re-tied.
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Figure 2
Green cane
The final check is to examine the blades for flaws such as minute cracks
or splits in the cane and finish up with the thumbnail test. This last test
gives an indication whether the cane has been properly seasoned. Green
cane or badly seasoned cane is soft. To test, one presses down hard with
the thumbnail at the base of the reed, that is to say, just above the tie.
There should be a faint thumbnail impression. If the cane is obviously soft
the best thing to do is to take the reed apart, mark the inside surfaces of
the blades for later matching and store these in a box for a year or two
when it may be found that they have seasoned sufficiently to be of use.
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The colour of good cane is generally white, while one should be
immediately wary of cane which is discoloured.
Referring again to Figure 2, it will be seen that the 12mm we are going to
modify has been divided up into nine zones labelled with the notes of the
chanter scale, each zone being approximately 1 1/3mm in length. These
zones correspond approximately to a note on the chanter, but always
bear in mind that modification to one area will affect adjacent areas and
the remainder of the reed as well.
Before removing cane we have to soak it in water because the reed will
always be played in a moist condition. If one were to remove cane from a
dry reed it may work well while dry but be too weak when it absorbs
water.
The length of time a reed is left in water is very much determined by the
local climatic conditions. If one stays in a dry climate, an hour in the
water would be about right, while a moist atmosphere would indicate a
time of about ten minutes. Remember that while removing cane, water is
evaporating from the reed so frequent wetting may be necessary.
Taking the wet reed in one hand, gently insert a very thin oval metal plate
between the lips and using very fine glass paper wrapped around a
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perfectly flat block, gently remove cane from the top two millimetres,
right across the full width of the blades. (Figure 3).
Soak the reed again, then wrapping the glass paper around a 25mm
diameter dowel, gently work this across the face of the blades to get the
beginning of the rounded V section shown in the sketch. (Figure 4).
Figure 4.
At this stage very little cane will have been removed. Dip the reed in
water, insert in chanter and blow. If too hard, soak the reed well, then
remove cane from the top 2mm as before and remove a little more
further down by using the dowel. Replace in chanter and test. If the reed
sounds on the top notes (because we have removed enough cane from
the top or lip area), but is hard to blow on the bottom notes, a very little
cane may be removed from the remaining 10mm working area, always
aiming at eventually getting a rounded V shape.
The next important step is to take the reed and place it on a nail driven
into a block of wood and leave it for about two days. This allows the blade
to assume its new shape and permits new stresses to equalise out.
After a couple of days have elapsed, again wet the reed thoroughly and
repeat the sanding process always being very careful to remove a very
little at a time, and always remembering that the cane will age and
become slightly weaker.
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Therefore, in the beginning one must play a very wet new reed until it
has been played for some 30 hours when it can be considered to be fairly
stable and final little adjustments can be made.
To summarise then, remove cane from the top down and from the centre
out towards the sides. Aim at getting a very smooth surface with no steps
or irregularities as these will cause major problems in the reed’s
performance.
Vibration rate
It is most important to remember that the reed vibrates according to the
length of the air column it is exciting; this means that its vibration rate is
regulated by the powerful back-effect of these pulsations in the bore.
Hence, chokes are caused by a reed failing to respond instantly to a
change in bore length, for example playing a note higher or lower down
the scale from the current finger positions. The other cause is insufficient
air pressure for the length of air column under excitation.
The opposite extreme is the dirl which can occur on any note but most
commonly on low G. This is caused by a reed which becomes overblown
because it is too ‘weak’, because of insufficient cane, or too flat a
curvature at the staple.
Similarly, ‘double-toning’ or ‘growling’ in the drones is caused by a reed
with too low a generating frequency. This can be cured by simply
shortening the tongue length or decreasing the blade opening by suitable
manipulation.
‘Skrechs’ on the top notes of the chanter, notably high A, are caused by a
chanter reed having too much cane in the lip area and can be entirely
eliminated by removing cane.
The remaining notable drone reed problem is the sudden cutting out or
stopping of a drone or the slow fading out of the drone. The former is
probably caused by a minute moment of negative pressure in the bag,
that is a gap between blowing and arm pressure causing a cut-out, or by
a drop of condensation striking the vibrating blade.
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It is suspected that the slow fading out of a drone is caused by swelling of
the cane coupled with strangulation of the blade by a bridle that is too
tight.
Having sorted out most of our problems with regard to getting the reeds
to sound, the remaining task is to get each note on the chanter to chord
with either the fundamentals of the drones or one of the strong
harmonics.
There is only one position of the reed in the chanter seat that will allow
one to get an approximate chord. The task of finding this is quite simple.
Starting with the reed as far out of the chanter as possible, strike up the
pipes and, because it is convenient, immediately sound high A and tune a
tenor drone to this. The drone is ‘in tune’ when it harmonises with the
high A and there are no beats or fluctuations in tone between the two.
Once this is done, sound low A. If the tenor drone must be moved down
the slide (towards the stock end of the drone) to bring low A into tune,
this means that the high A is too flat in pitch. To correct this the chanter
reed is gently inserted deeper into the seat. Repeat the test until low and
high A are in tune. Note however that the pitch of the chanter reed will
rise because of moisture absorption, so the chanter will only stabilise in
pitch after a period of blowing when the moisture content of the bag, and
the transpiration rate of the reed are more or less constant. Practically
speaking, the chanter reed is always flat in pitch when the instrument is
first sounded. The pitch will rise and finally stabilise. However, long
playing sessions, say four hours continuous blowing or more may cause
the reed to become too sharp when it will have to be adjusted to bring it
back into tune.
Assuming that the instrument has been sounded continuously for 15
minutes or more, that the high and low A’s are in tune, one may next
sound E which is a perfect fifth with the fundamental (low A) to see if it
harmonises or tunes with the drones. If it does then one proceeds to
sound each note in turn to see whether each is in tune with the drones. If
they are (with a new reed), this can be regarded as good fortune. More
often than not GBDFG’ are a little discordant and the problem is to find
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out whether they are too flat or sharp. The test is quite simple. Leaving
the drones in the position where they are in tune with low A, E and high
A, sound the note being tested and by bending the finger associated with
that note, partly cover the hole opening. If the discord gets worse the
note is too flat, and if the note can be tuned to the drones by increasing
or decreasing the hole area by moving the finger, then that note is too
sharp.
Surgery to the reed
Flat notes can be sharpened by removing minute amounts of cane in the
zone associated with that note remembering always that adjacent notes
are sharpened a bit, too.
Sharp notes are simply corrected (if too sharp) by reducing the finger
hole area using tape across the hole. In general, sharp notes can always
be taped but flat notes require some surgery to the reed.
Throughout this process, it is assumed that the chanter is well made, in
other words, on the average the notes sounded by it are fairly close to
the correct pitch. Sometimes one particular note, such as B is always flat,
no matter what reed is used and the remedy may well be to enlarge the
hole and thus sharpen the note. On the other hand a chanter may be flat
all over its tonal spectrum. This may be caused by its total length being
too long (rare) or more commonly in old chanters, the neck opening at
the top becomes constricted because of wood swelling resulting in a flat
pitch. The remedy is to open out the neck to the correct diameter for that
chanter.
In general, the major hurdle that has to be crossed is the recognition of
the harmonics generated by the instrument and the fact that this is what
one tunes to. A 30-minute session a week will not train the ear; it takes
constant and long hours of playing to familiarise the senses with the
instrument. Even a seasoned piper who for one reason or another fails to
play the instrument for a month or two has to go through a re-orientation
of the senses before his tuning faculties return to normal.
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While playing it is usually necessary to adjust the bag pressure by minute
amounts to keep notes in tune-sympathetic blowing. increased pressure
will increase the pitch (sharpen the note) while slightly decreasing
pressure will flatten the pitch.
So far it has been assumed that the piper has what is called a ‘musical
ear’ and is not fully or partially ‘tone deaf’. The hearing apparatus is a
very complicated subject and cannot obviously be discussed here even if
the writer is qualified to do so, which he is not. Nevertheless a visit to any
ear, nose and throat specialist will enable the piper to undergo
appropriate hearing tests and help him to objectively evaluate his ability
to tune an instrument at all or for that matter, criticise the tuning of
others.
Before ending these necessarily brief notes on a very complicated
subject, we may briefly examime the actual act of tuning itself. In other
words just what does a piper play when he is busy tuning the instrument.
Obviously, the audience will go insane if the piper spends ten minutes or
so playing nothing but disconnected low As, Es and high As with the other
notes thrown in haphazardly for testing purposes.
Figure 5, below, shows the three main pentatonic modes of the Highland
Bagpipe. They are important because the majority of ceòl mòr pieces
utilise only the notes of one of these three modes. They are also
important because they enable a piper to play tuning phrases (or little
melodies for the purposes of tuning) in an intelligent manner.
The observations which follow are mainly of interest to the ceòl mòr
player because what he does before starting his piobaireachd is extremely
important. He would not, for example, play half a dozen hornpipes before
launching into Lament for Donald of Laggan. The tuning phrases played
before playing the actual composition are features of many piping
cultures. The aim is twofold, firstly to tune the instrument until one is
satisfied it js in tune and will remain so for a relatively long length of
time, and secondly to prepare the audience (and oneself) spiritually for
the tune to come.
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Thus, if the piobaireachd one is about to attempt is pentatonic in the key
of A, it would be advisable to keep one’s tuning phrases in that pentatonic
mode so that there will be no sudden change when the piobaireachd is
actually played. It takes a certain amount of study to introduce tension
(discord) and harmony by changing modes and thus ‘meaning’ or import.
Tuning and tuning phrases is a discipline vital to the whole art of playing
the Great Highland Bagpipe and cannot be adequately discussed in this
essay. However, it is suggested that the extemporaneous melodies
characteristic of tuning can be considerably aided if one were to observe
what key one will be playing in, and to develop one’s tuning theme within
that mode utilising octaves, fifths and thirds as the main themal note
intervals.
*From The International Piper, August 1978.
•Aspects of tuning – pitch, scale and drones.
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Stuart Letford
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