Seven Years to Make a Piper

A lot of good new drone reeds has done me. They are supposed to sound glorious (and they do, one at a time, when blown by mouth, but my goal is to have them play together and have the bag blow them!)

<---Kinnaird Carbon Fibre Drone Reeds. Notice the little belt toward the bottom of each reed. I have had them intalled for a week and a half. I even tried to practice several times, but if your drones are playing something that sounds like two or three middle-aged, chain-smoking crows arguing with your chanter, it's not something that you encourage. Even your most finished tune will sound terrible. We drank champagne and toasted our competition success Tuesday at band practice, and talked about exciting new developments in Grade IV history, instead of actually practicing. . .

Last night at group lesson I let Jason know I had this teeny, tiny drone problem. He sighed and said he would see what he could do, but couldn't I have let him know a little in advance? Obviously there is a communication breakdown somewhere, because I have been telling Erin about it for a week and a half and . . . . nothing. He tried.

He moved the little belt on the reeds "down" (I call it "up" because they were being moved away from the earth's core, toward the stratosphere, but for some reason I've got the word backward--or he does) and we took away some hemping and added some more hemping (hemp is a sort of waxed string that you wrap around the base of the reeds that helps them fit into their appropriate holes better-- deeper). All this was happening while the rest of the group was watching bits of "So I Married An Axe Murderer" starring Mike Meyers, so it was a little distracting and I didn't pay 100% attention, I'll admit.

Yellow Hemp

The end result was that they sounded wonderful when played individually by Jason. But then Jason can make even plastic Paki pipes sound wonderful. I had to go home and get people to bed, including myself, so I didn't have time to try them together. I don't know if any progress was made at all.

My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to get them tuned before next band practice on Tuesday next.