Elder Drone Reeds.

[Jonathan]

How would you characterize the tone? Say, in comparison to cane?

Meanwhile I am absolutely convinced of Elder dronereeds. The sound is incompairable - it rings in your ears - and the performance is great - some even have a "crow".

[Mr.Gumby]

Buzzy or purring would spring to mind.

[Jonathan]

Thanks for your help, Mr. Gumby. What I mean is brighter, darker, more/less midrange, low end, high end, etc.

[Brazenkane]

Less highs/less snap that hard surfaces produce. As Peter says, purring….

[ennischanter]

Buzzy or purring would spring to mind.

Like Seamus Ennis or Peter Browne?

[Jonathan]

Sounds nice--thanks. Hoping to find some around here.

[Hans-Joerg]

You see - I´m not at the stage yet of having equipped a set. "Balancing" a set is a tough job and "the other side of the coin" (I expect but good things).
So far I made reeds only and elder is an extremely tricky stuff: (pith(dust) removing, greasing from inside, checking for tightness after every "step", greasing, tongue-cutting, learning how to "strop", safety techniques, etc ...).
What I heared from the ready reeds though is extremely impressive. Now - how to describe a sound verbally? Definitely not "purring" but "buzzy. Due to the very thin walls the tongue is very light. This gives a "rich" sound. Definitely more overtones than cane. "Brighter"?

[Hans-Joerg]

I just got an idea: You cut an elder twig (or something of the same wallstrength), carefully remove bark and pith (beware of tiny cracks), slice it into 4 (or 5), put them into a book and let them dry (lets say for a year) - so that you get an absolutely flat tongue that you (you could carefully sand it swallows-tail-shaped) might wrap onto a "dowel". Worth a try I think.

[Driftwood]

I just got an idea: You cut an elder twig (or something of the same wallstrength), carefully remove bark and pith (beware of tiny cracks), slice it into 4 (or 5), put them into a book and let them dry (lets say for a year) - so that you get an absolutely flat tongue that you (you could carefully sand it swallows-tail-shaped) might wrap onto a "dowel". Worth a try I think.

In other words a composite reed.

The thing is, can a composite reed that includes timber parts be as airtight as split cane? For that matter, can an elder reed with a cut tongue ever be as airtight as some well-split cane?

[boyd]

Fascinating thread.

Sounds like a few people are making their own (very good) chanter reeds out of it too.
I'd love to get a few pointers

Boyd

[Lorenzo]

Sounds like a few people are making their own (very good) chanter reeds out of it too.
I'd love to get a few pointers

As far as the chanter reed goes, I tried everything and nothing really worked for me. I tried old decayed, newer material that was dry, dead, or decayed, fresh green tubes that had been hollowed out and dried for a few days AND weeks, but the sambucus nigra that grows around here was all too hard. About the time you'd start to get a crow...you find the lips were getting too thin. I researched all the previous threads about how to make them, Brendan and Ted offered the most suggestions, but not enough details to really help (I didn't read Brendan's article in the pipers review yet) so I gave up. He did mention that he didn't claim elder was easier to blow/play, in fact, he indicated is was a stiffer reed.

As for drone material, the local stuff is great, better and louder than forsythia, and has a bright, lightweight, rattling quality to it that forsythia doesn't have...hence the description of "purring." Wall thickness does vary a lot though. I like the thin-walled dead stuff which you can clip right off a standing dead/dying tree...which still has red bark on it which easily flakes off, and an already hollowed out center. Takes about 5 min to make one.

Here's a short demo (less than 1 min) of how they rattle by drawing air through the ends...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bph4MhacfSk

[Hans-Joerg]

Here is one way (mine) of making them:

Measurements are a matter of "feeling" rather than measuring. Roughly speaking, elder tongues are ~ 1/3 to 2/5 shorter than cane tongues but "swallows-tail" shaped, as shown in Ronan´s vid. You need ultrasharp cutting tools but must by no means lead them with any force. I bought this new "cut-throat-razor": Jayzuz - that´s sharp. In comparison to that you could pick your nose with a scalpel! (you need one though, too) I bought the razor out of curiosity, but I don´t like the idea of handling it at all. I learned to sharpen my Stanley-knife instead (Taiwan-rubbish) (belt-sander to make the blade thinner, leather-belt to strop ). This is much better to handle than the (disgusting) razor. I do the "cross-cut" with it. You might aim at an angle of ~ 60 and go ~ 3/5 through (in one go). You then take a pen and draw the tongue ("root" to "coss-cut"). Then take the scalpel and cut along these lines. "Draw" it carefully, starting at the "tongue-root" (which should be a little narrower than those of cane reeds). After some "draws" (whole tongue length) you "break through". The elder piece all the time lies flat on the bench and you hold it with your fingertips at the "wrapped foot" - clear away from the blade. When lifting the tonge insert a thin "lever" to get a good grip. Be careful! Always put your thumb on the tongue-root!. You must "fatten" these much thinner reeds (hand balm, pipe cleaner). Elder (especially when a little wet) is much more yielding and malleable and seals much better than cane.

To remove the (dried) pith - which is a loathsome stuff and you caugh for hours if you breathe it in accidentally: I drill out the center of it with a smaller drill, then brush out the rest with a suitable tiny bottle-brush (that you get from ebay - 3, 4, 5 mm) and finally fatten it from inside (hand balm, pipe cleaner).

[Lorenzo]

A couple things I've learned about elder...some tips: 1)leave the old dead bark on if possible, except for the tongue area, as it seems to make a little brighter sound. My scraped ones all sounded kind of dull, comparatively. 2)use older dead and dried material because of it's thicker walls and greater stability. The newer dead twigs, that still have reddish bark and thin walls, don't make for very stable reeds. In this first pic, notice the one on the right with thin walls and reddish bark. I've had to throw many away like that, because the next few morning, testing the reeds, they had no staying power. They sound nice at first, but not for long. They warp. Not sure what happens if you leave the pith in and let them set for a couple of years. Maybe the walls thicken?


In this pic, notice the older grey bark on the elder twigs that surround the 4 in the center. Also notice the newer dead branches at the top...the ones with the reddish bark. I'm no longer making reeds from that kind of material.

[Jonathan]

Pardon my ignorance, but how is it possible that the walls would become thicker after drying out?

[Lorenzo]

Pardon my ignorance as well, Jonathan. Being a newb at harvesting elder twigs, I never knew, until I experimented, what kind of material worked best--cut green and cured, recent dead still on tree, older dead on standing trees. I began to notice some twigs (all the same diameter) had thin bark, some had medium thick walls, and some very thick. When I posted the above I was under the impression things may be happening to the wall as it sits and dries, like pith dries out and bark/wall solidifies during dehydration, perhaps absorbing some of the pith nutrients.

Now, I have another impression/theory. Suckers! Some dead twigs at the end of a branch, are one kind of material--usually thick walled. Some closer in are actually suckers and thin-walled. They don't make good reeds IMO. The best elder twigs I've found are dead ones, located at the end of a branch and growing straight out of a fork. ----<-

With forsythia, suckers are what you want. Older dead stems are too woody. In fact, what I was calling recent dead stems (the apricot-colored straight suckers), only appeared to be dead during the winter. This spring I couldn't find any that fit that description...they'd all bloomed! It's true though, during the winter these forsythia stems are dry as a bone and make wonderful drone reeds.

Now I'm beginning to wonder if suckers are what you want in syringa (mock orange), lilac, snowberry, and other tree type bushes.