Question: How can you manage a persistently sharp High G and avoid chirping notes?

Great question. The High G note on your pipe chanter is probably one of the trickiest notes to get. What you want to make sure of is that you have a high-quality pipe chanter and a high-quality reed that’s the right strength, and not too dry.

To sum up and get right to the point: the most common factor that leads to a super sharp High G is a reed that’s too dry or too easy. Often those go together, a reed that’s dry will tend to be easy and sharp.

So, get your reed into a Tone Protector. You guys who’ve been following my channel and BagpipeLessons.com know about the Tone Protector. It’s the world’s first digital chanter cap with two-way humidity control. What it does is store your reed when you’re not playing it, it’s a cap that goes over the reed and stores it in the perfect environment with the right humidity, 84%. It stabilizes it and makes your reed predictable, not too dry.

Once you’ve done that, if your reed is still chirping and sharp on High G, it could be that it’s too easy. You’ll want to open up the reed. That means opening it up from the inside, taking the cane blades and pushing them apart a little bit. The tool for that is the Piper’s Ultimate Reed Poker. It’s round and tapered, the perfect tool for opening up your reed.

Make sure it’s not too dry. Make sure it’s not too easy.

If it’s still chirping, check how much tape you have on your chanter. If you have a lot of tape on the High G hole, more than about a third, it can lead to chirping. You might need that much tape because otherwise it’s even sharper, but what you might want to do is put a little bit of hemp on that reed so it’s not quite as deep in the chanter. That will pull the reed slightly out, which flattens the top hand. Then you can take off some tape.

Also, not all pipe chanters are the same. My favorite chanter is the Infinity Pipe Chanter. There are a lot of things I love about it: the smaller holes compared to other chanters, the closer spacing of the holes, makes it really comfortable to play. But also, it’s really hard to make that chanter chirp. That’s what I love about it.

I’ve had other really good chanters over the years, but there were certain tunes I could never play until I got my Infinity Chanter, just because they were so chirpy.

So, consider a new pipe chanter, especially if it just keeps chirping no matter what you do.

Question: How can pipers keep their top hand relaxed to improve embellishment speed and clarity?

Keeping the hands relaxed is super, super important. If you’ve read any of my stuff that I’ve written on BagpipeLessons.com or watched these YouTube videos, I’m always talking about keeping the hands as relaxed as possible. The reason is that bagpipe music requires a lot of really precise, clean, fast fingering. And in order to maximize your finger dexterity, meaning the precision, the speed, and the control of your finger movements, you want your hands to be as relaxed as possible.

On the top hand, that’s especially important for all those top-hand embellishments. So, what are we talking about? F doublings, E doublings, D doublings, birls, taorluaths, grips, embouchure, crunluaths, a lot of complex embellishments on the top hand.

Most people are right-handed, so that means your left hand, your top hand, is your non-dominant hand. That adds to some of the issues with finger dexterity. So, you want to keep the hand as relaxed as possible.

One way that I think about it is: I want a dividing line in my arm. The upper arm, shoulder, back muscles, and chest, they’re all doing the squeezing on the bag. But from the elbow down, I want to keep my forearm, wrist, hands, and all the way to my fingertips, as relaxed as possible. It’s something you can practice.

Strike your pipes up and just play a simple note, Low A or High A or whatever, and really focus on mentally using the upper arm, shoulders, back, and chest for squeezing, but then try to relax the forearm, wrist, and hands all the way down to the fingertips.

Another thing that factors into top-hand tension is if your pipes are too hard. That could mean your pipe chanter reed is too hard, or your pipes are taking too much air, maybe your drone reeds are too open, or you have a leak somewhere.

You want to make sure your chanter reed is efficient, so you get that bright, beautiful bagpipe chanter sound, but it’s not taking too much air. If you use a bagpipe gauge, you want to be around 30 inches of water. That’s straight up and down. If you’re up to 35, your pipes are too hard.

Now, some people say they like a harder reed. Personally, I don’t like that. I want to be right around 30, plus or minus a little bit. That way I know my pipes aren’t too hard. I also want my drone reeds closed down as much as I can without them shutting off, and I want everything to be super airtight, my hybrid Bannatyne pipe bag rock hard when inflated, all joints nice and tight, no loose hemp anywhere, tight valve. Everything that’s supposed to be airtight must be airtight.

The chanter reed needs to be the right strength and really efficient. The drone reeds should be as efficient as they can be, closing everything down. That way, you know your pipes are as comfortable as they can be.

The other thing is making sure your pipes fit you.

An issue that a lot of pipers have is that their blowpipe is too long. You can tell because the pipe chanter is way out in front and your head is back, you’re turned away. You want a blowpipe that’s the right length.

Same with bag size. A lot of pipers have a bag that’s too big. I personally play a small Bannatyne bag, I love that bag. The next size up is the extended small, it’s longer in the back but only slightly larger around. Then there’s the custom Willie McCallum style. Willie is one of the all-time great pipers, a great guy, good friend of mine, fantastic piper.

He designed this bag to be more cut away in the front. The back is like an extended small or a medium, but the front is more like a small. People love that bag, it’s really comfortable. It’s a little too large for me, but if you’re thinking about changing to a bag that’s more ergonomic and helps your top hand relax, try that Willie McCallum bag. It’s in my shop, I’ll put it in the description.

I also have a custom pipe bag that Bannatyne makes just for me. I ordered it for one of my students, an extended small with a longer neck. So if you’re close to six feet tall or you’ve got long arms and feel like your chanter’s too close to your body, try that bag. It’s two inches longer in the neck. I thought it would be a niche item, but it’s becoming one of the most popular bags I sell. People buy a second one for a second set of pipes and tell their friends.

So: efficiency of bagpipes, fit of the bag and blowpipe, and finally, you just need to practice playing with a lighter touch.

You can practice this on your practice chanter, but you have to work on it on your pipes too, because of the blowing and squeezing involved.

What I recommend is just place your hands on the chanter and play Low G. Pay attention to how much tension is in your hands. Tension is extra squeezing and gripping beyond what’s needed to cover the holes. Bagpiping is all about finger dexterity, raising and lowering your fingers to execute clean, consistent, clear, fast movements.

It’s very hard to stay relaxed if your pipes don’t fit you or your pipes are too hard. It’s also hard to practice this if you’re playing difficult material, fast tunes, big tunes. So take a step back. Practice with simple material, maybe just a note, or a very slow scale with two or three breaths per note, and focus on relaxing your hands.

It’s incremental. Anything to do with your body, how you hold the pipes, how you blow, how your hands go on the chanter, takes time. If you’ve played a certain way and want to change, it takes time.

If you’ve ever made a big change, your posture, thumb position, bag size, blowing steadiness, you know these changes live in your body. Give yourself time. Give yourself credit for trying. Do it every day or at least four times a week. If you can’t play every day, do your best, but don’t take multiple days off in a row. Some people play Monday to Friday and take weekends off. Others play more on the weekend. Aim for four sessions a week, minimum, without taking more than two days off in a row.