As I've mentioned at least a couple times here in this blog, I play the bagpipes. I don't play them especially well, but I do play them decently -- that is, if I've been practicing, if my lips don't give out (which only happens if there has been a LONG time I haven't been playing), and if the reeds are working right.
It's one of the musical pursuits I enjoy, especially when the pipes are in tune and all is working right. You sort of get into this 'zone', because the music is surrounding you, and it's a great feeling. Bagpipe music has always been an interest of mine -- it was the first music that I really wanted to play -- even before I discovered rock 'n' roll.
I've been playing the same, full set of pipes since January 1982. I got my set of pipes -- RG Lawries -- on Christmas 1981. I played in a pipe band for just over three years, from early 1982 until I quit the band in the Fall of 1985.
The reason I quit was because my father had died in '84, and my mother wasn't taking it too well. Also, the attitudes in the band weren't really conducive to my enjoying being a part of it anymore. Looking back, I regret the decision of leaving, but there are no time machines.
All that said, I've played the pipes for the better part of 44 years now. I play for my extended family on Thanksgivings, Easter, and Christmases. I've played at cousins' weddings, and at least one wedding for a college buddy of mine. I played at the birthday of a veteran neighbor down the street. I played a lot for my mom when she was ill and staying at my house.
Of course, during Covid, I didn't play at family get-togethers, because there were none. And in 2024, because my Aunt and Uncle had some medical procedures, they didn't hold get-togethers, so there was over a year that I didn't play my pipes.
I just forgot about playing them.
When I decided to get back into playing, earlier this year (around September, 2025), I discovered that the synthetic, plastic chanter reeds that had served me well since 2016 were now worn out. Two of them had developed hairline cracks -- I don't know what from. They were in storage. The other two wouldn't hold tune at all. Maybe they got too cold in a cold room in the winter. Maybe it was just from use. Maybe the hairline cracks were there for a long time and I just didn't notice them previously.
Either way, for the moment, the synthetic reeds that I had depended on for 9 years were now no longer working correctly.
So I returned to cane chanter reeds. The 'chanter', by the way, is the pipe with the holes in it, that is used to play the tune. Chanter reeds, by their nature, are a bit finicky. Even seasoned pipers will tell you they sometimes have to buy 3 or 4 reeds to get one that works right. And this is when reeds are made by skilled artisans. The problem is that there are -- for all intents and purposes -- no real standards for bagpipes anymore.
The reed makers are making reeds for chanters that really DO NOT ADHERE TO A PITCH STANDARD. The piping world, amazingly, does not see this as a problem.
MORE ON THIS LATER.
BACK TO CANE...
Anyway, my synthetic reeds were worn out. So I tried cane reeds, being that I had a stash of them I had bought over the years -- unused, 'new' reeds. I found one that was marked 'EASY', and started 'blowing it in'. It worked OK for maybe two weeks. Then it started squealing every third or fourth time I hit a High G grace note -- a grace note that is almost used in every part of every pipe tune in existence.
No matter what I did -- higher air pressure or lower, more arm pressure against the bag or less -- and no matter how deep I sunk the reed into the chanter, it would squeal on the High G, 3 or 4 times during a song.
It was maddening. My other cane reeds (I also had in a box of reeds) did the same thing on both of my chanters (I have one chanter that came with the pipes, and another one I bought when the band insisted we all use matched RG Hardie chanters). Suddenly, I remembered why I HATE CANE.
It's cantankerous, and unreliable.
A LUCKY 'FIX' FOR A WORN OUT, PLASTIC CHANTER REED
Luckily, I was able to 'fix' one of the worn out synthetic chanter reeds by putting a small elastic band around the blades, about 5 millimeters below the top of the 'lips', and then shore it up with some snug windings of waxed, yellow hemp string, wound from the dental elastic down to the bottom of the blades, where I tied it off snugly.
I've since ordered some new synthetic chanter reeds, hoping they will work out OK, because the only time I really had zero issues with chanter reeds was when I used the plastic, synthetic ones. I like having extra reeds handy. Without reeds, pipes are useless. Spare reeds are always a good thing -- just like having spare strings for your guitar.
Which takes us to the main subject of this article: Why do pipers put up with this sort of mediocrity -- where reeds are so cantankerous, and good reeds aren't as easy to find as good guitar strings, or good drum heads?
One issue that many pipers will tell you about, when it comes to reeds, is that not all reeds work in all chanters. You see -- chanters really have no actual standards anymore. They used to, maybe 40 years ago, when all pipe chanters were tuned to A=466, which means that the 'A' note on a bagpipe chanter was actually B Flat -- 466 Hz.
When I was in the pipe band, all chanters were tuned to A=466 Hz. That meant that all chanter reeds were crafted to play at A=466.
But then, some time in the late 1980's, and through the 1990's and thereafter, something stupid happened. Some of the top pipe bands in the world began to pitch their bagpipes to a higher pitch than A=466. Some of the bands that won the big championships in Scotland pitched their pipes to A=470, and then A=475, and today a lot of pipe chanters are tuned to A=480 and on a hot day they can pitch even higher -- closer to A=490.
So when a pipemaker comes out with a new chanter, they'll say things like "this new chanter likes reeds that will pitch it between 470 and 480 Hertz" or some such.
Which isn't really a standard, is it?
Some in the piping world wonder where the increased pitch will stop. 490? 500?
And remember, because so many pipemakers are gearing their products to the competition circuit, that means that more and more new chanters are pitched higher and higher every couple of years.
And the chanter reedmakers, of course, are following suit. They are making reeds that simply won't work well, or work at all, in older chanters. If I wanted to get spanking new reeds for my 1982 RG Hardie chanter, which is pitched at A=466, I would have to buy special 'B Flat reeds', at $13 to $15 dollars a pop, and hope that they actually worked in my chanter. Because, as I mentioned earlier, sometimes you have to buy 5 reeds to get one or two that work well.
Why is that? It is because reed material -- Cane -- being a plant, isn't always consistent in nature, and although a reedmaker can craft a reed that works in his or her chanter at the shop, it doesn't necessarily mean it will work in YOUR chanter, because not all chanters are made to the same standards, and -- as many veteran pipers will tell you -- they all "reed differently".
Even if you have a modern, A=480+ Hz chanter, and get reeds that are supposed to work in it, you may have to squeeze the reed, shave off some cane from the blades, 'poke' it with a 'reed mandrel', ALL SORTS OF CRAP TO GET IT TO WORK RIGHT.
Think about that.
Can you imagine this sort of rigamarole being acceptable with any other instrument?
When I buy strings for my guitar or banjo, for example, I don't have to do anything but install them, and then tune them. I don't have to go through a bunch of hijinks to get them to work.
In fact, you can get a set of guitar strings, and the same exact strings will work on a 25.5 inch scale guitar (like a Stratocaster) or a 24.75 inch scale guitar (like a Les Paul), and the strings will work just fine.
Not so with bagpipe reeds, and chanters.
Being that over the past month I've had to go through so much needless bullshit just to try to get a decent, dependable cane reed to work in my chanters -- and these reeds were made in the 1990's, when A=466 was still basically the 'standard' -- it has made me wonder: why do pipers put up with this shit?
Why do they go along with a market that has NO STANDARDS?
Why do they go along with a marketplace that expects you to buy a new, $200-$300 chanter every 5 or 6 years if you want no problems reeding it, or playing it in a band?
Why does the piping world tolerate this bullshit of the pitch being allowed to go up and up and up and up?
Orchestras and marching bands don't allow that. Neither do any other musical genres, really. Even in rock and jazz music, there are standards for the instruments.
They also were louder.
One afternoon I was playing my set -- same reeds, probably -- in my back yard, in the Summer of 1983. One of our neighbors three streets away said he could hear them even inside his house.
YOU CAN BLAME THE SCOTS :-)
Apparently, a lot of this trend towards higher pitches started when one of the premier Scottish pipe bands jacked up its pitch, to make the band's sound stand out from the rest of the bands, and the judges awarded them first place, because the tone sounded 'sweeter'.
Then every competition band in the higher grades started seeking higher pitches, not just for the chanters, but the drones had to accommodate higher pitches as well. This led to every band in the UK, Ireland, Canada, US, Oz, et. al. pitching their chanters higher too.
So a lot of the acceptance of movable, fickle and arbitrary pitch standards comes from the competition band scene.
And pipers everywhere put up with this shit. No sooner than the pitch goes up another 10 Hz, you suddenly have a redundant set of harder-to-reed bagpipes (mainly the chanters).
And pipes aren't cheap. A full set can cost $1200-$2000 US. A new chanter can cost $200-$300 easy. Some pipers have 5 or 6 chanters, largely because of the moving pitch standards. A set of drone reeds is anywhere between $55-$85 or so. Even the drones have changed in pitch over the years. If, for example, you have a modern set of pipes, and got a new, $250 B-flat chanter (so you can play with an organ or other standard pitched instrument), you'll need "Drone Extenders" so that your drone reeds will match the pitch of the B-flat (A=466) chanter. Drone extenders are these pieces of plastic tubing that you shove into the drone's tuning pins, that are an extra 'seat' that sits between drone reed and drone pipe.
And then you hope they don't fall out. Sounds great, hey?
Pipers tolerate an activity where the top bands start trends that can not only cost you money, but they also cause you to have to deal with tons of bullshit just trying to see if reeds will work in your new chanter.
'Ain't broke, don't fix it' definitely doesn't apply to the piping world.
I have a 53 year old electric guitar. It's my Sakai, 1972 Japanese Jaguar copy. It will use the exact same new strings that will work on a brand new Gibson, Jackson, Fender, Ibanez, PRS, Suhr, or any other new brand of guitar. The same strings will work on ALL of them.
If you have a 50 year old set of bagpipes, good luck. You'll have to hunt down a B Flat reed and hope that it will work in your 1975 chanter. Even then, you may have to squeeze it, poke it, shave it, or otherwise manipulate it to get it to work right.
ARE WE STILL IN THE DARK AGES?
Which is another gripe of mine. Why, with all the space age materials available for instrument making today, are pipers still relying on Dark Age, Neanderthal tech like CANE to make the most important reeds in the bagpipes?
Why, in the in the 21st Century, are bagpipers still relying on the same reed materials that they were using in the 1600's? Violin strings are no longer made out of gut. Neither are banjo strings or guitar strings. Drum heads and banjo heads are no longer made out of animal skin. Many sax and clarinet reeds are synthetic, and they work well.
Why have none of the major pipe and reed makers brought pipes into the modern world, where there are all sorts of plastics available, and come up with chanter reeds that are plug and play, dependable, and still have the sound that the competition pipers want?
The synthetic reeds I used worked well. They were indeed plug and play. I had a slightly flat E note, that I lived with. I'm guessing it's because my chanters were 1981 and 1982 models, and the reeds were designed to work in A=470+, 2016 bagpipe chanters.
But the reeds actually worked. They sounded good enough. And there was no fidgeting. No 'poking' the reed to get it to work right. No spitting on it to try to soften the material to get the reed to keep sounding without choking out. No pinching or squeezing the blades together, no shaving, no trimming, no cutting the tips of the blades -- none of that crap.
A MUSICAL TRADITION IN SLOW DECLINE
The piping world needs to wake up. It's already in decline. The number of pipe bands in my area is almost half of what it was in the 1980's. It's even that way up in Canada, where piping seemed to be one of their religions, aside from hockey.
One of the reasons has to be the cost, as well as the fact that pipes aren't more plug and play, like a guitar or keyboard is.
I have a college buddy who I recently talked to who was in a band in the 80's and 90's, and he was a much better player than me. He used to teach students, and even started his own pipe band, made up of his students.
I asked him what he thought of the piping scene today -- because it seemed that there are less bands out there than there used to be, and less pipers.
He said there are less bands and less pipers because the young kids have other pastimes. They play video games, or are into other forms of music that are easier to get into.
I would bet that one more reason is that pipes are a pain in the neck to get working right, if you don't already know what you're doing. Why would any young person today want to pay out $1500 or more for a set of pipes when the reeds are inconsistent and such a pain to work with? Why would they want to expend all this energy to try to master an instrument where the instrument makers can't even adhere to a pitch standard -- which makes all the components variable to a degree not accepted in other musical genres?
Why would they want to spend money on an expensive, niche instrument that may be hard to reed up in 20 years, because of unnecessary and arbitrary pitch changes?
It's crazy.
I've come close to just throwing the pipes in a closet and forgetting about them, and sticking to just guitar. With my guitars I only have to touch up a string or two, and with 10 seconds I'm PLAYING GUITAR.
With the bagpipes it sometimes is half an hour of EXTRANEOUS BULLSHIT to get them to work perfectly.
It shouldn't be that way. WITH ANY INSTRUMENT.
I got close to instant, plug-and-play reliability with my first set of synthetic chanter reeds in 2016. They served me well until they wore out earlier this year. The one synthetic reed I fixed is holding up OK, but who knows how long the fix will last. Hopefully the new, synthetic plastic reeds I ordered will work out OK in my pipes.
All that said, the pastime that I once enjoyed, and the instrument that I used to play for my ailing mother daily is facing challenges. My pipes, chanter reeds aside, still amazingly have held up well. The bag is still airtight -- amazing for a 1981 L&M hide bag. The plastic drone reeds I bought in 2003 still work OK. The bass drone is a little unsteady, from lots of play, but it still works. The tenor drones are steady as a rock.
But the bagpiping scene is nothing like it was in the 80's when I was in the band. The Seattle-Tacoma area has half the pipe bands it used to have. Even in Canada, there are less bands than there were when I was competing. Bands like Victoria, Triumph Street, Vancouver Ladies -- they were top notch competition bands. All gone.
It's almost like piping is aging out. Not good.
Just last week two top notch, Grade 1 pipe bands in the British Isles folded. Closkelt, a top band from Northern Ireland, and Johnstone, a band from Scotland, gave it up.
Can you imagine not being able to find strings that would work on a 40 year old bass guitar? The idea of not being able to find strings that would work on a 40 year old bass is laughable.
But it's standard issue if you have a 40 or 50 year old bagpipe chanter, where some pipers who have old chanters just put them on the mantle and never play them, because reeds that will work in them are hard to find, or you have to mess with them and hope you get lucky and they will work.
It shouldn't be that way.
SOMETHING HAS GOT TO CHANGE
Naturally, there always have been changes in the piping scene, just as any other musical scene. But when top pipe bands decide to fold, it could be a warning sign that the pipe competition scene, and the bagpiping tradition has some serious issues.
And as my college buddy noted -- the kids aren't as interested anymore. There are less pipers than there used to be. Less bands.
And this bullshit of the piping world putting up with ever-changing pitches and ZERO STANDARDS is not helping it any. There has GOT to be a way to make reeds and pipes that not only sound good, but are plug and play, and an instrument that's consistent enough in long-lasting playability that when you dish out $2500 for a set of pipes or $250 for a chanter this year, it won't be little more than a cool looking closet piece, wall-hanging, or doorstop in 20 years.
I've yet to hear a drummer tell me "you can't get heads for that set of drums anymore", or "that guitar is hard to get strings for", or "sometimes you have to take a hammer and vice to the mouthpiece of that trumpet" to get the instruments to play.
Trust me, even if pipes were plug-and-play, the music would still be good, the competitions would still be good, and the pipes would still take some time to learn, to play well. Most instruments take some time to learn, and each instrument has its particular care and maintenance issues -- the pipes are not different in that regard.
But there would probably be a lot more people interested in playing if the instrument itself wasn't so cantankerous to get playable, and sounding good.
And if pipes were more plug-and-play, it would be one less reason to try to hunt down a local piping expert to help you get that POS reed you bought to stop chirping, or get that chanter to reed more easily.
It's not 1980 anymore. In my city there used to be several Scottish shops, and at least two bagpipe repair and sales shops. Not anymore. Right now, the total is zero.
We're in a new age, where pipers are fewer and farther between, everything is bought via the internet (including pipe lessons) from retailers that may be ten states away, and the master piper with lots of hands-on experience is two states away instead of 15 miles away. For piping to keep from declining into oblivion the instrument has GOT to become more easy to play, maintain, and fix.
And that may depend on more and more pipers -- and pipe bands -- demanding more consistency and actual pitch standards in the instruments that are sold -- including chanters and reeds.
It would be a start.
GOING HOME: A BAGPIPE JOURNEY -- my book
I actually wrote a fiction book on piping, back in 2016. I think it sold a handful of copies. It's an eBook, on Amazon, and budget priced. I used a pen name that I don't use anymore. I thought James Fenamore Blake would be a cool name -- sort of a take on William Blake and James Fenimore Cooper. The name, however, didn't exactly take off.
I based the book roughly on my own piping journey, and renewed enthusiasm for playing and listening to pipe music. In 2016 I'd just got my synthetic chanter reeds and playing was a joy again. I was enthused about playing again. I was learning new tunes, and rediscovered a bunch of old ones I'd forgotten. I was rediscovering my love for the instrument.
I also had recently lost a cousin who had a background in the drugs trade (he'd long cleaned up, but he died a year before my book was published). "Jack", in the book, is roughly based on him, and also based partly on my late stepfather. The rest was just pure fiction. The woman in the book was based on a real one I had a thing for, a blonde, Canadian piper. She never knew it, though....
Back in 2016, online publishing and independent publishing were still relatively new things, and the eBook market was still growing by leaps and bounds. There were still a lot of people, like myself -- and my mother also (I helped her write a book and publish it on Amazon) -- who thought that once you published a good fiction book online that you would sell a fair amount of books and perhaps make a bit of money. None of us understood the massive competition one has with online content.
I didn't sell a lot of books with Going Home, but I'm still glad I wrote it and published it.
Here is a link to the book.:
The book rated four stars. I guess somebody liked it.
Peace.
C.C., October 19th, 2025.
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