I have always given advice on pipemaking matters freely since and
before I turned professional in 1978. You can give advice as much as
you like but that does not mean that makes any one a better pipemaker
as that depends on the individuals skill, aesthetic and business
ability whether they
This method was used in my Pipemaking class for milling out slots for
the keys although I now use a router in the tool post for my own work.
Coliun R
-Original Message-
From: Bob Salter bob.sal...@blueyonder.co.uk
To: nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu
Sent: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 18:31
Subject: [NSP]
Been there ,done that.
Colin R
-Original Message-
From: Richard York rich...@lizards.force9.co.uk
To: Dartmouth nsp list N.P.S. site nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu
Sent: Fri, 29 Jan 2010 9:35
Subject: [NSP] Re: Mr. Bewick, Rats and Inverted Bags
Wow!
And quite apart from an illustration of an
The bags that Jackie makes are based on my sending him the shape of
Burleigh bags which by the 1960's had proved to a good practical shape
and size i.e. 21 in length, 9 deep with the bag approx. 12x9 with
the neck curving up steeply to avoid pressing against the left arm or
wrist. I make the
Dear Tim,
You clearly show your ignorance in these matters which is not a
criticism but just shows the continuing problem of new folk coming into
piping who have not sought advice from experienced players and
pipemakers like myself. I could have explained all this to you if you
had tried not
I found that the liquid paraffin was the best despite what some folk
have said who probably did not clean off any old oil that had been used
previously. LP does not go sticky.
Test oils by putting a drop of oil on a brass strip and leaving out for
some time to see what happens over time to the
Hi Phlip,
The recital was fine and I think the tuning that Francis was complaing
about was due to the last pieces being played in the tonic minor where
the tuning can go off unless mean tuning has been attempted on the
chanter. The final groans were possibly meant to be a humorous
indication
Jimmy was a farrier who fixed machinery not just horse shoes. I played
fiddle with him on one or two occasions in the snug at the Bird in Bush
in Elsdon. He was a neighbour of Ned Pearson, the fiddler, who I
remember coming out to play the Morpeth Rant at his garden gate when
the Monkseaton
For information to folk who may have thought that the 'Ray' you mention
was Sloan it was in fact my wife Ray Fisher the singer who took up the
post of Secretary of the NPS.in the early days : the 'Mrs Roff' of
Ian's Route to Piping.
This all shows how we all refer back to certain individuals as
Dear Ian,
It seems that you have become another victim of the chrome or nickel
plated keys syndrome. What I mean by that is to do with the hardness of
the plating compared to the spring material which even if it is nickel
is much softer that the nickel deposited by plating.
If the bending of
I see that you are already taking over the role of Chairman in
pre-empting the Secretary's report on the Competitions. You should have
checked this with the Secretary before making a report which could have
been left to be included in the Newsletter along with other views on
the Comps that
If you are travelling abroad you must get an Exemption Certificate from
DEFRA at the Endangers Species Dept. You can download a form on the
internet to fill in with details of where and when you or the maker
obtained the ivory with details of the invoice with importation invoice
number,or if
I have worked with some impregnated maple which was from a highland
pipe that somone wanted converting into a common stock border pipe and
it was ideal for the purpose and better that my rather primitive oil
impregnating process. The wood is as dense as the plastic and works
like plastic while
There should be no problem of sticking drone slides if the proper
degree of tolerance is observed and the wrappings are at least three
threads deep.
Colin R
-Original Message-
From: Ian Carol Bartlett (home account) i...@ihug.co.nz
To: nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu
Sent: Sun, 27 Sep 2009
Dear Peter,
Tradition is the name of the game in instrument making where makers are
sticking to well tried materials that they know will last two or three
generations and will be an investment as with string instruments.
When you start to mention computer aided design it is a mistake to
think
Thanks to all those who responded to my enquiry concerning the musical
form in an antiphonal way. I suspected it was an old form and the
Wikipedia article that Matt referred to went back to biblical days
which was further back than my pre-industrial revolution idea. It seems
to have been a
I was unable to download the electronic pipes reference you posted so I
have no idea what it is about: I certainly have had nothing to do with
electronic pipes.
I used to sort out pipes from different makers to get them playing well
and in tune if the original maker was deceased or seemingly
What the player wants the player gets. In my case I have made D
chanters with the top G and A in the place of the nominal Bb and G#
keys on the standard F chanter and also put the top G and A on the
front and back of the chanter for those that want the chromatic D# and
Fnat keys that go
Dear Colin,
There is no difference between a course run by an individual as a
private event and one run for the Society by the same individual. The
point I am trying to make is that the individual concerned would have
been doing more for piping in general by running it as a Society
Dear Sheila,
It is a pity you can't take advantage of the course after being the
most persistent in asking for it. With Susan moving up to the NE it
would have been perfect if she had taken it on for the Society but she
decided for her own reasons to do it as a private event. It disappoints
No problem as you are doing it as a group activity and there is no
conflict with the NPS who I am sure welcomes it.
CR
-Original Message-
From: Neil Tavernor neiltaver...@btinternet.com
To: nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu
Sent: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:09
Subject: [NSP] Re: Northumbria Pipe Course
I have never directly advertised my business through the NPS or any
other medium. All my activity in piping has been for the Society in
terms of running events. I never advertised when I was taking the
Pipemaking class I did at Killingworth although I must confess that I
did mention on the
Flaming right, I do have strong views on this matter but this is what
these lists generate. I try not to be insulting in my postings only to
express my views which are at odds with other folk with less information
to hand in expressing their views.
CR
-Original Message-
From:
Agreed.
CR
-Original Message-
From: Philip Gruar phi...@gruar.clara.net
To: nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu
Sent: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:13
Subject: [NSP] Re: Northumbria Pipe Course 11-16 October - Places
available
Well said colin (Hill, of course)
I have been reading this list (both lists)
I wonder if this advert for a privately run course is allowed on this
list. This is a course that is not run by the NPS but for the benefit
of the person who is running it who although taking the risk and time
to organise it is also taking any profit that may arise.
CR
-Original
Yes, for goodness sake. If Susan had come up here and run the course as
a Society event that would have been the sensible, non ego- tripping,
thing to do especially as she was taking advantage of running it
between the Society events of the Competitions and the Concert.
A lot of folk beleive it
The difference is that this is a course run by an individual for profit
and not an organisation.
CR
-Original Message-
From: Simon James si...@simonjames.net
To: nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu
Sent: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:01
Subject: [NSP] Re: Northumbria Pipe Course 11-16 October - Places
I think that anyone in UK who may buy the pipes will still have to pay
duty on them as exemption from duty only applies to pipes being sent
back to the maker for adjustment and then to be sent back to the sender.
CR
-Original Message-
From: Patrick Jones irishflutest...@gmail.com
To:
In the original reprint of the Peacock Tunes I did not indicate
metronome markings and I am not sure if I was involved in setting them
for the current reprint. I had felt it was useful to indicate something
for new players not familiar with the idiom and generally erred on the
I am pleased to read about the respect given to Jimmy Little up at
Alnwick. The group of pipers at Morpeth who mostly play from music and
sound as 'flat as the paper the music is printed on' are not interested
in any input from people like myself. They seem to be more concerned
Julia has stated the rules re the election of a new President as they
are and the Committee decided to stick to this and the secrecy involved
when in my opinion it did need to be opened up to the membership and
from a selection made by the Committee a small group from the executive
Dear Paul,
You show exactly what is wrong with the Society at the moment with two
groups at each others throats due to basic misunderstandings of what
thet think is the right thing to do. The main problem is that we have
two groups within the Society with all the negative things
Just about my own sentiments on the present situation. I was reading
Machiavelli's 'The Prince' recently and he was writing about
'malcontents' and ways of dealing with them. I am not suggesting we
should resort to his methods but the problem with the Society have
started with
Tommy was one of the last pipers to have known the Clough's and it was
a sense of the end of an era when I heard he had died last Wednesday.
For those of you who live locally the funeral service is at St.
Cuthbert's in Bellingham at 2pm.
Colin R
Dear Richard,
A corn dolly is something to do with the harvest that is made with
corn stalks. All sorts of original and traditional designs have been
made either as fertility symbols or to be worn on the lapel to show you
were available for hire as a farm worker or were hired. The term 'cut
and
Beware of the press. The same article had Katherine pictured in her
usual langorous pose which even she might be getting a bit sick of by
now.
Whatever might be said of her and her style of piping you cannot deny
she has ability in her fingering and compositional talents and if she
keeps it up
This came to me but I can't help. Anyone out there able to.
Colin Ross
Dear Mr Ross
I have just found in my collection of folk music The Rout of the Blues
– Robin and Barry Dransfield.
One of the pieces of music is The Waters of Tyne; unbelievable
beautiful music. On the sleeve
Here,here!
Colin R
-Original Message-
From: Barry Say barr...@nspipes.co.uk
To: nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu
Sent: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:00
Subject: [NSP] J Allen
On 12 Mar 2009 at 0:46, Anthony Robb wrote.
Hi All,
I have sent Anthony Robb a copy of my e-mail suggesting the genesis of
the
Thanks Paul for injecting a bit of commonsense into all this purist
debate of the Wonderful World of Ranting and its exponents belonging to
the Dead Ranters Society when all they were doing were playing tunes
that they had not been to lessons to learn how to play but just liked
playing or even
Just to mention that Mike nelson used my hole spacings on his chanters
which he graciously acknowledged on a diagram of chanter hole spacings
he produced in the early days.
Colin R
-Original Message-
From: Anthony Robb anth...@robbpipes.com
To: Dartmouth NPS nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu
Dear Malcom,
I wish you could ask pipemakers about your ideas before putting it on
the List.
The idea of measuring from the shoulder was the original way of marking
the hole centres and I used it in my class for some time before
discovering that pupils' ideas of what was 5/8 varied from an 1/8
The best person to comment on this would be Richard Johnstone who has
been using them in schools on loan from the Sage, Gateshead who had
them made from a grant awarded some years ago where they had £25,000 to
make 100 sets which obviously limited what could be done with £250 per
set. What
The NPS has just published a small tune book inpsired by the Boulting
brothers who found they couldn't join in at a session I was leading at
the North American Pipers' Convention at Killington in 2007. They asked
a number of pipers to contribute their collection of 30 tunes that they
thought
-Original Message-
From: rosspi...@aol.com
To: muse...@tiscali.co.uk
CC: n...@csdartmouth.edu
Sent: Mon, 2 Mar 2009 13:06
Subject: Re: [NSP] Re: Am I tone deaf?
I haven't tried the test yet but as far as I am concerned the tuning I
do is always in relation to a fixed drone when the
Hi Colin,
Pete asked me to make left handed chanter for him and I have made one or two
since I have been making pipes including tying the stocks in the other side of
the bag.
Colin R
-Original Message-
From: colin lt;cwh...@santa-fe.freeserve.co.ukgt;
To:
I think this business of expressing rhythms in terms of word s or word
groupings is fraught with difficulty as it depends on the emphasis with which
you say the words. Any actor will tell you it is possible to say words or
groups of words in many different ways and although it may be fun to use
I have had it brought to my attention that it was the REEL of Tullochgorum?that
was in question. The renaming of tunes of tunes due to ignorance or wilfulness
has been something that has gone on for hundreds of years. Just look at our
Peacock Follows the Hen, known as Mad Moll,etc, since
Although Derwentwater's Farewell is an excellent to play as the mourners are
coming in or going out at a funeral as well as playing for the committal, it is
fraught with danger of squeaks when playing the lower notes on the chanter.
Much safer to play The Rowan Tree which does not use the keys
It looks as though I have been missing a dot in trying to send messages to the
List. Here goes again with dot.
CR
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:21
Subject: Fwd: Re: [NSP] Re: Correct grade of oi l?
It
Dear Margaret,
I went along with Barry's idea on trying to encourage more playing by oneself
only to get knocked down by him but it is something I will be trying out at our
meetings in future if people want it and in an atmosphere of encouragement as
you recalled at the earlier meetings.
I
OK Barry,
At our regular Monday meeting last night in Morpeth at our temporary venue in
the Methodist Hall I thought I would try out the solo piping idea with every
one present and of the nine who were there only a couple said they would rather
not play solo. There was no crticism of their
HI Julia,
This is the e-mail he sent me under his 'what me' address. I assume it was
Adrian?
Just read your long reply to the detached note debate with that quote from
Clough which was right on. There is always something to be learnt from other
folk in whatever field they are working which
Dear Paul,
I think you have made the right distinction between 'gracing' and 'cutting' but
it is the cuttings which are not neccessary on the small pipe which are the
'choytes'. The gracings, if done neatlyand discretely, are a part of playing
any instrument which includes the NSP.
Colin R
George Atkinson used to attend the NPS meetings when I was there in the early
days and he used to be the only fluent piper that came to our meetings. I
remember him playing Athole Highlanders and the Remember Me hornpipe in a very
clear and articulated style that we knew was what we had to aim
For those of us who live locally and were thinking of coming to the
Chantry?this Saturday,?Maureen Davison has offered to host us for this meeting
at least. Her address is in the Handbook.
Colin R
AOL Email goes Mobile!
Dear Matt,
I agree with you about the 'slipshod editing' except I would say it was
ignorance of the pipes and how to write out the music that came into it as
well. Examples being one of the tunes being printed upside down and The Hen's
March being printed in the wrong key and of course the
Dear Richard,
The Peacock Collection was printed in facsimile 'warts and all' so there were
some of the original mistakes on the page.That was in 1980, but in the reprint
(1999)?the music was reset and corrections were made so that particular bar in
Wylam Away was altered to scan properly.
Dear Chris,
The tuning of the low E I find is most effectively tuned also against the A
drone as a fifth or its inversion. This is also an octave to the top E so it
can be checked both ways. The 'third' way is to use the tuning meter which I
find to be the quickest way to tune most of the
Dear Sam,
The 'lugs' are a pair of devices situated on either side of the head as in ' If
yi divent shurrup aal giv yi a belt across the lugs.'?You may need to look it
up in a Geordie Dictionary. I am afraid that NSP's come with a bit of local
jargon known as 'Geordie' since they were
Dear Ross,
I have just had a set of drone reeds I tongued with plastic returned to me for
re-tongueing with cane. The player had compared the tone against a cane tongued
set and did not like the tone. There are a good number of folk out there with
educated ears (lugs) that can hear the
As one who is married to a Scot and being half Scotch myself I am familiar with
the 'choocter' (teuchter) word which I was told referred to sound of the Gaelic
language spoken in Glasgow by all the Highlanders and Islanders who came
looking for work. It was thought to sound like chooky birds
I was reprimanded quite rightly by Matt for saying that Linlithgow was in the
Borders in a recent e-mail when I meant Innerleithen which is on the Tweed in
between Galashiels and Peebles. This was where I bought a length of black and
white plaid at the mill which had been specially woven to
For all of you who read Anthony's letter in the NPS Newsletter can I correct
what he said about the title Rusty Gulley where he said it should read Busty
Gulley because of confusion over the lower loop on the letter R as it occurs in
the original MS of the Vickers Tune Book. It is not the
Dear David,
It is not that I am too busy to make reeds fro you it is just that I do not
make reeds for other makers sets especially if they are still alive. I had to
call a moritorium on reeding Burleigh pipes some years ago now because of the
demand on my own reedmaking and pipemaking
Dear Richard,
Sound reasoning re the bores but at 4mm bore (5/32) it could be a little quiet
altho I have found it sound the same tone and volume as the regular 4.4mm
(11/64). The sharpening effect does work at 3,8mm (3/16) but can sound a
little too loud altho once again I have found it OK as
The original remedy to correct tuning and excessive vibrato on the top notes
was to insert a small cane G reed into the end of the chanter and move it in
and out until an optimum position was found. It was then cut off at that point
and the end piece replaced. This would satisfy Chris's
Dear Helen,
I actually made a D set for someone with larger fingers which was comfortable
for him and didn't worry him as he was not intending to play with other F
pipers and to be realistic might be the only way to fix him up with a playing
set he can manage.
However if the finger holes are
The way I approached developing the G and D chanters was as you say to scale
the chanters in proportion and then try them out and adjust the hole positions
to get the chanters in tune. I also made the decision to use the same reed for
the chanters for simplicity in providing reeds to cover the
I had a call from Mr Scott of Scotts Leathers this morning to let me know they
were still in the business of supplying leather for bags and bellows. This was
in response to a call I made to the firm last week wondering if they were still
operating. He said they had rented out the majority of
The three drone, plain chanter set was one of the first sets I made and I
enjoyed playing it for the same reasons as Paul. It was so light and easy to
play and of course ideally suited to playing most of the tunes in the Peacock
Collection which is why I called them the Peacock Pipes and
Face the reeds with the tongues towards the centre of the stock to avoid the
tongues beating against the inner wall of the stock:there is a fair degree
of movement on the large drone tongue for example. If the stock just has holes
drilled thru a solid piece of wood then it is still advisable
Try putting a spot of super glue into the hole as this will set in the
presence of oil. I have found it works very well.
Colin Ross
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If you wish to extend the bore depth of the cotton bud you could glue it on
to a thin knitting needle or a length of 1/16 welding rod. I wrap the end of
a 1/8 welding rod with cotton that I seal with shellac varnish to stop it
from un-wrapping and use this for oiling and also french
My interpretation of the word 'choyte' is that it refers to gratuitous
gracings applied on the small pipe chanter in the manner of the highland pipes.
It
is interesting that the word 'teuchter' (pronounced chookter), that is
applied to Highlanders speaking in the Gaelic in Glasgow, referred
Dear Gerrit,
I have no idea why you are not on the List or rather not getting information
from it. I have copied this to the Pipers List to see if anyone has any
ideas.
Colin
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