A familiar situation for any uilleann piper is turning up at a venue, getting the pipes out of their case and finding that the chanter is half a semitone flat or sharp, plus either sounding muffled or raucously loud. There follows ten or fifteen minutes fiddling around with the reed to see if it can be made to play in tune with a decent tone.
I think it would be great if pipers didn’t encounter that situation several times a week. In fact, I think it would be even better if they never encountered this situation at all, so I made changes to the instrument to ensure that playing in tune with a decent tone is no longer a problem
How to fine adjust the reed and tune the chanter
An uilleann chanter uses a double reed, like an oboe, Cor Anglais or bassoon reed. Reeds are traditionally made of thin strips of cane joined together. I’m not aware of any synthetic materials currently available to rival cane and most uilleann pipers continue to use this material. However, this natural material can change its properties in response to changing atmospheric conditions, for example, becoming stiffer in a cold room.
Oboists and players of the Cor Anglais and Bassoon spend years perfecting their embouchures to play their double reed instruments. It has always surprised me that uilleann pipe players are satisfied with a copper strip, the bridle, that is adjusted using a pair of pliers.
After becoming aware of the huge difference in reed performance that occurred when using the thumb nail to move a copper bridle by a fraction of a millimeter, I set out to design a bridle that could be adjusted in a “micro” way, to emulate the tiny differences that are used to good effect by oboists and Cor Anglais and bassoon players.
Each chanter is supplied with a Westwell Micro-Adjustable Bridle that enables the player to adjust the bridle in tiny amounts, using a jeweller’s screwdriver.
In addition, with each chanter I provide adjustable tuning sections that enable the chanter to be brought into perfect concert pitch, regardless of any changes of atmospheric conditions.
See the patent description at https://www.ipo.gov.uk/p-ipsum/Case/PublicationNumber/GB2567224
Easier and safer adjustment
In a traditional chanter, there is not much space between the reed and the chanter cap, meaning that the player must be extremely careful when removing and replacing the cap.
The Westwell Micro-Adjustable Bridle is somewhat larger than a conventional copper bridle and the chanter cap is larger as a result. This has the beneficial side-effect that the cap is easy to remove and replace, requiring somewhat less dexterity. The reed is also protected by the bridle itself. The end result is that routine reed maintenance becomes part and parcel of playing the pipes as it should be, bringing uilleann pipe double-reed players in line with oboe, Cor Anglais and bassoon players.