​Bob Pekaar has retired from updating the Pekaar Encyclopedia. I’d like to keep it updated when new books are released. For that, I’ll need help. Bob used to purchase all the books and add them himself. He would then donate the books to a piping library, if I’m not mistaken. I’m hoping I can avoid those costs considering my own (highland) piping is in decline due to the ravages of focal dystonia, and so the purchase of new books isn’t high on my grocery list. The current list of books can be found here: https://www.patrickmclaurin.com/tunedatabase/books.txt You can search the above list b ..read more

 My recording setup for using an external mic plugged into an iPhone for video: 1) Zoom H4n Pro or summat (https://zoomcorp.com/en/us/handheld-recorders/) (what I use for my audio these days) 2) Long cable headphone jack male (plugged into Zoom H4n headphone jack) to female; for length so I don’t have to put the camera near the recorder if I don’t want to; I usually put the mic up high and behind me or off to my drone side so I don’t end up with chanter heavy recordings. 3) a Rode TRS male (plugged into the cable above) to TRRS male adapter, SC7 I think, the red one (http://www.rode.com ..read more

May’s tuneS of the month are compositions by a piper who visited me at my home during a tasting tour of Texas a month or so ago. We played some tunes together and he played some of his compositions (2/4 marches) for me and I figured you might like them as much as I did so he gave permission to share them here. I don’t have recordings, yet, as I have been getting over a cold. It seems a year in isolation has resulted in my body having no idea what a cold is and struggling to fight it off. The compositions of Luis Jorge Vázquez Estrada < pdf ..read more

I do not understand why bellows are made the way they are. Primarily, and my samples only include bellows I personally own made by Scottish smallpipe makers (Kinnear, Garvie, and Hope; although uilleann pipe bellows seems to have the same design: https://www.kellehertrad.com/brown-cherry-full-sized.html), the bellows outlet tube comes out of the inner cheek of the bellows at an angle (you can see this in my first photo bellow). The problem with this angled outlet is the bag is not in front of my body, it’s on the other side. So the bellows outlet is not pointed at the bag inlet. The tube ..read more

I have stumbled upon yet another Irish jig that transposes quite well to the highland pipes with just a few slight modifications. This fact means you could play it along with an Irish session group if you were playing smallpipes in D (mixolydian), the little tiny chanter. It’s a fun little two parted jig! The Girl of the House – sheet music The Girl of the House – audio https://www.patrickmclaurin.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/girl_of_the_house.mp3 ..read more

What should you do with the fingers you don’t use to cover the holes on your pipe chanter? The left pinkie and right thumb, unless you’ve switched from the standard top and bottom hands. After dealing with focal dystonia of the left pinkie finger for over a decade, I have thought of what to do with that darn little finger more than I should. Real quick, focal dystonia is where the signals from your brain to your muscles get distributed in an unintended way resulting in unintended muscle movement. It generally affects those who do a very repetitive motion and often affects the pinkie and ring f ..read more

I haven’t done a tune of the month in over a year or so as I felt toward the end that I was too often grasping for something to share. But, I watched the online concert linked below and was struck by this awesome tune written by Fin Moore: The Wedding in the Woods. Being unable to sleep early this morning I got up and figured it out, I hope correctly! I’ve got no sheet music for you as it’s under copyright but I do have a recording of it for you on highland pipes: Glencoe drones, Colin Kyo chanter, Husk chanter reed, Overtone drone reeds (Ackland). Just absorb the smoothness of those drones ..read more

In addition to some 1950s Robertson pipes featured in the previous post, I was also loaned a set of Atherton Legacy pipes. My primary goal is to confirm that Overtone (Ackland) reeds work in them as well as they do in all the other pipes I’ve tried the reeds in. Verdict: I have not yet found a set of drones that Overtone (Ackland) don’t work well in. Their harmonic volume just works and they help bring the most out of those pipes lacking in the tonal character department. Most of these tests (using the pipes I own) are recorded in the Big Overtone (Ackland) Drone Reed post save for the 1950 Ro ..read more

Instead of tacking onto the end of the Big Overtone (Ackland) Drone Reed post I figured I’d post a new, well…post. The Big Overtone (Ackland) Drone Reed post (the one chronologically before this one so scroll down and maybe click the link to older posts) was mainly just drones with Overtone (Ackland) reeds in them. Except that I did play my Colin Kyo pipes with Ezee tenors and Kinnaird bass for comparison purposes toward the beginning of that post to give people an idea of the contrast. However, as time goes on and I continue to exclusively play Overtone (Ackland) reeds in all my pipes, the di ..read more

At the “end” of the design process with Terry Ackland I figured I needed to put my advice where my mouth is and switch all my pipes over to Overtone (Ackland) drone reeds. With a little hesitation, I committed and I couldn’t be happier with the drone tone out of each of my sets of pipes. All of them. Gellaitry, Henderson, Terry, Sinclair, David Glen, Colin Kyo, etc. This page will contain recordings of Overtone (Ackland) reeds in all my pipes as I get around to recording them. Check back for updates! If you have calipers, I set the tongues around these measurements: 14.2 mm tenors, 24.4 mm bas ..read more