Sharp 2nd octave, can it be cured ?.

[Ballygo]

Hi
Any advice on curing a sharp second octave. High B particularly sharp. Good reed lovely sound.

Thanks

Ballygo

[pudinka]

I'm glad that you posted this as I was thinking about posting the same topic - about a very sharp B in second octave...is this simply a fact of life or a problem that can be fixed? All other notes, except the C#, are not sharp in the second octave. They are in tune.

Since the 3rd D is played as a C natural (with F# finger up) and the C natural must be played using a key, I am wondering if the sharpness on this end is simply the nature of the beast or maybe a problem unique to wide bore chanters?

[geoff wooff]

A sharp top B is somewhat "the nature of the beast" but too sharp is too sharp.
If you look at fingering charts for the Oboe, which has a 'second octave key' that alters the fingerings when depressed, then when playing a second octave B a small key closes a hole where one would place third finger ( A hole) to play a G.

This is a fingering that can be used on the UP chanter... play High B with third upper hand finger closed on its hole this should bring the Upper octave B into tune.... How effective this is dépends on the particular chanter and reed.

A Pipemaker's fix for this problem is ( has been Censored... ).. everything else needs to be taken into consideration, of course, and sometimes it is possible to have everything Perfectly in tune.... but usually at the expense of some amount of expressiveness.

[Ballygo]

Thank you for the detailed reply Geoff Wooff
Other reeds I have, are a little sharp on the high B. All play slightly flat on first octave B. I was hoping some alteration to the scrape or some other solution. Ill try the fingering suggested, but at speed this might pose a challenge. As I say, its a great reed, but just bordering on unacceptable on the high B.

Ballygo

[Christian Tietje]

Dear all,

sorry for telling the following, but I'm completely not convinced this being a good solution. This is my theory and my approach and experience since more than twenty years.

The resulting frequency of the notes in the chanter is a balance of the resistance and the velocity created by the movement of sound waves - the up and down moving air molecules in the chanter (and the reed staple) to the inner surface of our chanter. For the resistance is depending on the velocity as Daniel Bernoulli (1700–1782) found out by the square the diameter has a square influence to the high octave compared with the lower octave.
This means in the practical live of reed-blowers: The diameter of the air way through the chanter has to be reduced in a specific part of the staple-chanter-conus, just there, where it has the best influence on the upper octave "B". This is in a specific part of the staple pipe where the swinging wave mountain moves very fast up and down through the utmost narrow part of the chanter. You can easily try by putting some wire with a knob into the staple up from lower end of the reed. By pushing it up and down millimeter by millimeter you can find out at which note(s) the knob has the influence by lowering the note in the upper octave.

For the real life the wire is not the best idea, only for testing (and for sessions). It softens the stablity of notes. It is better to reduce the diameter of the staple by tweaking the staple together with pliers, making it smaller at a specific point. Works fantastic and has influence exactly to “G”, “A” or “B”. For that reason a conical staple pipe is better than a cylindrical one

This being said by a piper and engineer of hydraulic systems and pipe systems/HVAC.

[pancelticpiper]

About the sharp high B, it seems to be very common if not universal in Concert Pitch chanters.

Since I use my Concert Chanter with studio gigs I need everything 'in tune' (to the ordinary non-traditional notion of what being 'in tune' is).

I wish that my chanter had a High B key, placed exactly where the High C key is. Very convenient there! And I need High B far more often that I need High C.

I'd like to have the High C key placed as a 'side key' exactly where the High D key is on my chanter, which happens to be exactly where the High C key is placed on an Irish flute.

As it is, the only way I've found to get a perfectly in-tune High B is with this fingering

x xox xxxx

that is, everything down except the one finger. Trouble is, I can't do much with that note: no vibrato, no bending, no ornamentation...

At least with the High B key I envision I could do vibrato, like I do on High C.

At least High B on my chanter isn't wildly sharp like it is on many chanters, just a bit sharp, so usually I can 'shade' it with the finger and keep it in tune, more or less. (I have low B exactly in tune to it's ET position as required by my jobs.)

[geoff wooff]

As you may notice, I had given a more detailed reply to this topic but decided to edit the post the following morning because I felt the information I had given was more to do with the design of chanters than how one might alleviate this problem.
Then I find that the next poster (Mr. Tietje) has objected in some way to my reply... exactly which part of what I had written he objected to I am not sure but the Flattened upper B fingering is a well know thing.

When I was starting out on my career as a Pipemaker I happened to ask a friend, who, had been playing the GHB for a great many years " what, in your opinion , makes a good chanter ?" he replied " One that is easy to Reed!" This, of course, is a very important point and it behoves the pipemaker to try to produce a chanter that gives the least amount of problems to the reedmaker.

Regarding the Forked high B fingering suggested I re-read articles on Oboe construction and realise that there are perhaps other considérations for the Oboe makers, namely that they wish to simplify their tooling needs by utilising straight conical bores( reamer making is far lest problematic) and correcting any tuning amomalies by the use of fingerings and keywork. So they wish to have a production model which requires no skilled player to be involved after development.

In the same way that Christian describes researching the internals of the Reed Staple it is possible to study the rest of the Bore of the instrument and make small corrections to improve or perfect the tunings, in this case the octavings. However, a great deal of factors have to be considered which include Staple diameters and Tapers, Eye shapes, Reed head widths and scrape lengths/shapes, depths of insertion of Staple into head and thus overal length, Reed Head Speed, rates of bore taper and internal diameters of Chanters,holes sizes and positions and how these relate to each and every note.. etc etc.

Simple answer, Yes it is possible to have your chanter " In Tune"... even the well known( in all woodwinds) difficult 2nds and 6ths.

Richard, your upper B problem is made more difficult by having the low B up to ET... but I'm sure you know that, and the problem is caused by the chanter bore being too narrow around the B hole (or too thick on the outside)... the low E might be correctable with a short Rush... because making the bore smaller from just above the E hole to just below the Eb will lower the pitch of the bottom octave note or you could thicken the chanter wall to make the E hole chimney deeper.

Some reed adjustments:

Sharp second octave can usually be cured by adjusting staple diameter (stick a wire up it) or unbinding the reed and moving the staple out of the head by one millimeter ( at a time) and replacing the reed so that the tips of the blades protrude the same distance from the end of the chanter (in other words you have kept the reed head where is was before but just moved the staple slightly further in whilst providing a little more internal space in the reed).

A wider reed head will usually lower the pitch of notes at the upper end of the second octave.

The upper hand notes in the low octave can be raised in pitch, and stability (usually) by closing the staple Eye slightly.

All moves and changes can have influences on other notes.

Hope some of this helps;

[pancelticpiper]

One of these days I'd like to order a Concert chanter with that high B key.

It's the trouble of having to play in ET.

When I've tried other Concert chanters it seems that I see various approaches to the 2nd octave tuning.

Mine is set up so that F# and G are bang-on in both octaves using the same fingerings in both octaves. E and A are a hair flat, and B is a bit sharp, in the 2nd octave. I've got used to giving an extra pressure boost to E and A and shading B.

I've played other people's chanters where the entire 2nd octave is sharper, so that E and A are better, and F# and G are sharp and require special fingerings to bring them down. It works for them fine! But then B is even sharper.

I guess it's a matter of getting used to a particular setup and using whatever fingerings and pressures you need to make everything in tune.

A professional tuba player once told me "there's no such thing as a perfectly in-tune wind instrument!"

Perhaps the Highland pipes come closest, having only one octave, so that a chanter can be set up to be perfectly in tune with the same pressure used throughout the gamut. And the trombone. Nearly every other wind instrument requires the player to be constantly compensating with embouchure and/or tuning slides (tuba, trumpet).

[Christian Tietje]

You're right, don't worry - none of all wind instruments will ever be perfectly in tune - also as not a human voice will be. Listen to flutes. Most of the flute players blow the second octave too hard/sharp. Saxophones will be slighty out of tune, also as oboes and clarinets will be. But they all have less problems because the don't have the upper harmonics - and they have no drones! The pipes have to be in tune with the drones! That forces also to flatten the thirds and sixths by -14 ("F#" to "D" in the key of D) or -16 cents ("B" to "D" in the key of D). Never tune the "B" only to a digital tuner! But it is possible to tune as close as a flexible reed (with vibrato) will allow. As alway there are the good, the better and the ugly ones.

[buskerSean]

'Can it be cured?' Yes, buy a chanter by Brian Howard or his former apprentice, Cillian O Brien.
I know C&F is wary of Howard fan boys, (and I am one) but every time I play with other pipers I love my pipes that little bit more.

For the record I have never met a piper who's pipes I'd trade for mine.

[CHasR]

not that i know anything more than the great minds here already, but from a practical standpoint I have to say its my preference, provided all else being managable on one's chanter, then for slow tunes & sustained tones simply drop part of the long 'top hand' finger ( i'll spare the graphic ) for the sharp high B. Faster dance tunes it wont really matter that much & it adds to the wild individuality & rustic colour of the instrument. Any situations that fall between the two, just add lots of vibrato Ive never liked sticking things up chanters, any chanter. my 2 cents. or 21 cents as the case may be.

[djones]

I haven't been to this forum for years and just came here today with this very second octave issue. It's driving me nuts. I'm ready to just give up reed making. Reeds I make last around 6 months, so I'm not back at the workbench very often. I get rusty, out of practice, then very frustrated when it takes hours to get a decent reed.

The information here is great, thanks!

But I still think I'll quit reedmaking...

For those who buy their reeds, what is the best arrangement? Do you buy two and have a backup? Who's making good reeds for sale?

[ennischanter]

'Can it be cured?' Yes, buy a chanter by Brian Howard or his former apprentice, Cillian O Brien.
I know C&F is wary of Howard fan boys, (and I am one) but every time I play with other pipers I love my pipes that little bit more.

For the record I have never met a piper who's pipes I'd trade for mine.

What about a Wooff set?

I KID of course!

You know what they say(Or don't) work with what you got!

Not that my chanter has any problems. Just saying...

[john]

i haven't read this thread just the title, but i've found my chanter to be sometimes noticably flat in the 2nd octave only for it to correct itself the next day - i've never been sure why this is, the only thing i've learnt is to not muck around with the reed except for adjusting to desired volume according to the situation such as busking in town or at practicing at home - sometimes i've thought my reed was finished but then i try it the next day and it's back to a very reasonable state - basically i've learnt to be patient and hope for the best and a lot of the time i've been rewarded with marked improvements

[geoff wooff]

i haven't read this thread just the title, but i've found my chanter to be sometimes noticably flat in the 2nd octave only for it to correct itself the next day - i've never been sure why this is, the only thing i've learnt is to not muck around with the reed except for adjusting to desired volume according to the situation such as busking in town or at practicing at home - sometimes i've thought my reed was finished but then i try it the next day and it's back to a very reasonable state - basically i've learnt to be patient and hope for the best and a lot of the time i've been rewarded with marked improvements

There is an ideal point of Reed Opening when both octaves will be best 'in-tune' with each other. So, if the reed has been adjusted for "desired volume according to the situation" then you may have put this balance point out of focus.

To clarify: if the reed head is too closed the lower octave will be sharper than the upper ( generally) and likewise if the reed is too open the lower octave will be too low in pitch. This can happen by adjusting the bridle for volume and it can happen due to changes in humidity.
To correct things just play the G's or A's of both octaves and very slightly adjust the bridle untill those note 'Octave' correctly. This is then your point of balance for the reed.... the volume that the chanter then produces is what you get and there is no real volume control .