Why Your Practice Chanter Sounds Bad: A Guide to the Top 4 Practice Chanter Reeds
by Jori Chisholm, Founder of BagpipeLessons.com
Last Updated: August 14, 2026
When was the last time you thought about the reed in your practice chanter? Most pipers never do. You play whatever came with the chanter, and you quietly put up with a sound that is dull, or shrill, or becomes so wet after a few minutes that it shuts off on you.
It does not have to be that way. Most of us spend far more time on the practice chanter than on the pipes. It is where you learn your tunes, where you work on your technique, and where you do your memorization. That reed decides how those hours sound, how they feel, and how efficiently you make progress. It is the smallest purchase in piping that changes the most about your daily practice.
In this video I go through the four problems a bad practice chanter reed causes, I show you exactly how a practice chanter works and where the reed sits, and then I play four of my favorite practice chanter reeds so you can hear the difference for yourself.
I also show you the Endurance Practice Chanter, which I invented and designed and which is made in Scotland by the famous bagpipe makers R.G. Hardie & Co. Desiccant cartridges sit hidden inside the top section and keep moisture off your reed, so the reed behaves the same at the end of a long session as it did at the start. No stopping to blow out your reed. No swapping chanters. You just play.
Key Points in this Video:
- The four problems caused by a bad practice chanter reed: bad sound and bad tuning, a shrill and loud sound, a reed that is too hard to blow, and a reed that is too easy and shuts off.
- Why some pipers put tape on a practice chanter, and why you should never need to.
- How a practice chanter actually works, and why the reed sits inside the instrument rather than in your mouth.
- Threaded reed seats, and why I use waxed dental floss instead of hemp.
- How the Endurance Practice Chanter keeps your reed dry for hours.
- What to look for in a practice chanter reed: comfortable pressure, a clear scale in tune with itself, the right volume, and durability.
- Four reeds compared side by side, and which one I would pick.
Links to Products Mentioned in the Video:
- Premium Practice Chanter Reed Variety Four Pack
- Walsh Practice Chanter Reed
- R.G. Hardie & Co. Red Practice Chanter Reed
- R.G. Hardie & Co. White Practice Chanter Reed
- Piper’s Choice Green Practice Chanter Reed
- Endurance Practice Chanter
- Practice Chanters
Watch the video below, and scroll down to read the full video transcript.
Video Transcript: Hey everybody, Jori Chisholm here from BagpipeLessons.com.
Today we’re talking about one of the most ignored reeds for pipers. We’re talking about the one in your practice chanter.
Think about it. Most of us spend way more time on the practice chanter than we do on the pipes. It’s where you learn your tunes. It’s where you work on your technique. It’s where you do your memorization. And for most pipers, it’s the instrument you play the most.
And a lot of pipers don’t give it too much thought. You’ve just got the reed that came with your chanter, or a reed you picked up somewhere along the way. It doesn’t work as well as it could. It doesn’t sound as good as it should. It’s annoying, and you just kind of deal with it. It interrupts your practice, but you’ve just decided to live with it.
Most pipers have just accepted that your practice chanter reed is frustrating. It gets wet. It doesn’t sound good. It cuts out on you. And that’s just part of playing the practice chanter.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
There are four problems, and they’re all caused by your practice chanter reed. So let’s talk about what actually goes wrong, so you can recognize it in your own playing.
First, bad sound and bad tuning. Your chanter sounds muffled and dull. The notes are genuinely out of tune with each other, really sharp on certain notes, maybe high G.
And I’ll be honest with you, the tuning you hear on some practice chanters is horrible. It’s really bad.
I know pipers who have tape all over their practice chanters, taping the notes to get them in tune. On a practice chanter.
Listen, if you have a good practice chanter and a good reed, you should not need tape. It should sit at a good pitch, and every note should sound good and be nicely in tune. You shouldn’t have to blow harder or softer on certain notes to get them into tune either. That’s not a technique you need to learn. That’s just compensating for a bad reed.
And here’s the thing. It’s usually not the practice chanter. It’s the practice chanter reed.
Number two: a shrill, harsh and loud sound. Instead of a dull, quiet reed or a muffled sound, you get a reed that is shrill, with a harsh, coarse sound to it, and loud.
There’s no reason for a loud practice chanter. I’m shocked when I hear people play their chanters and they’re really loud with a rough sound. You don’t need that.
Number three: a reed that’s too hard to blow. Some reeds just take a lot of air pressure. Your lips get tired, your practice sessions get cut short, and you stop before you’re done playing what you wanted to play.
You should not be working that hard on your practice chanter. It’s not what it’s for.
Number four: your reed is too easy and it shuts off. A reed that’s too easy is really sensitive to moisture, and it shuts off too easily.
You know how this goes. You’re practicing, things are going well, and then all of a sudden your chanter reed cuts out. And then you’re taking the reed out, blowing it out, wiping it off, blowing the spit out, doing this over and over.
I know some pipers who do this every few minutes during their practice session, and they have a whole pile of backup reeds, or backup practice chanters even, exactly for this reason. They swap them out. I know one guy who keeps several chanters going. He plays, and as soon as a reed cuts out he just grabs a different chanter and carries on.
You should be able to practice with one chanter all the way through and get all the playing done, with a reed that sounds good, stays in tune, is efficient, and has a clear sound that’s easy to blow. It just plays all the way through your practice session from start to finish, without you needing to touch and mess and fuss with your reed.
I’m often surprised when I hear other pipers talk about how their lips get tired. Some pipers even say, “Oh, it’s way harder for me to play my practice chanter than my full pipes.” That’s just mind-blowing to me.
There are some genuinely bad practice chanter reeds out there, and most of the time your chanter is completely fine. It’s your reed that’s letting you down. So really what you want is a great practice chanter reed that brings out the potential in your practice chanter.
So here’s how this thing works. A typical practice chanter has three parts: the bottom section where your fingers go, the top section you blow into, and inside is the reed, sitting in between them.
Take off the top, and there’s your reed. Most practice chanter reeds these days are plastic, and on its own it just makes this little buzzy sound. It’s the chanter body that amplifies and shapes that sound into the tone that you know.
The practice chanter top goes over the reed but doesn’t touch it. So unlike other reed instruments like the clarinet or the saxophone, the reed is inside the instrument. It’s not in your mouth.
The reed sits in the reed seat. Now, a lot of new practice chanters like this one have a threaded reed seat, which means you can screw the reed into the reed seat and it holds there nice and snug.
Usually a reed is going to come with yellow string. Pipers call it hemp, although it’s not actually made from the hemp plant. It’s linen thread, and it comes in unwaxed or waxed.
But what I prefer is dental floss. Dental floss is waxed. It comes in this nifty little container, it’s got the little cutter on the top, and it does not absorb any moisture. It’s not going to swell or shrink, and it lasts a really long time.
Now, a big problem with practice chanters and practice chanter reeds is moisture.
This right here is the Endurance Practice Chanter. This is a special chanter that I invented and designed, and it’s manufactured in Scotland by the famous bagpipe makers R.G. Hardie & Co.
On most practice chanters the top is a single piece. On the Endurance Practice Chanter it’s actually two pieces, and inside are the Endurance cartridges, cartridges that have desiccant, which is a material that absorbs moisture. Three of those go in there, the bottom screws on, and you don’t even know they’re there.
But your reed stays dry for your entire practice session, for hours and hours, and maybe even days. You are not stopping to blot your reed. You are not swapping chanters. You just play.
You get this at BagpipeLessons.com/endurance.
So let’s talk about the practice chanter reeds themselves, and what to actually look for.
Number one, a comfortable pressure that you naturally blow, not straining hard, and not so easy that it shuts off with a little bit of pressure.
You want it to have a clear, clean sound across the whole scale and be in tune with itself, low G all the way up to high A. The high A is not super sharp, and the high G is not sharp. Every note is in tune, with no tape.
You also want the right volume. You don’t need a super loud practice chanter. This is for working on fingering and expression and memorizing tunes, and comfort and stamina. It’s not for volume and projection. That’s what the bagpipes are for.
Finally, you want a reed that’s durable, that’s going to last for months or even years. And you want it matched to the chanter you actually play, whether that’s a regular length chanter, a long chanter (also called extended length or pipe chanter size), or a smaller chanter like the children’s or junior size.
So let’s go through four of my favorite practice chanter reeds, and I’ll tell you what each one is like and why it might be right for you.
This is the Walsh Practice Chanter Reed. This has been my favorite practice chanter reed for years. It’s got the white blades and a purple body. They used to be black, but they’ve been purple for several years now.
It has a really nice, bright sound. It’s really high quality and really air efficient, and it works well in all makes of practice chanters.
They’re made by John and Jean Walsh in Nova Scotia, and they are genuinely hard to get. When I order a batch it sometimes takes six months to arrive. But for me, they’re worth the wait. And because I’ve done the ordering and the waiting for you, you don’t have to.
Next we have the R.G. Hardie & Co. Red Practice Chanter Reed from Scotland. These are made by Fraser Warnock.
This has a really clear, crisp tone, and this might be the most popular practice chanter reed in Scotland. It’s got the red plastic, and wrapping that has kind of a shellac on it, like a clear coat.
This is a great practice chanter reed. It has a really nice sound.
Next we have the R.G. Hardie & Co. White Practice Chanter Reed. It’s got the white blades and this black body to it.
Really mellow and quiet and smooth. This is the one that comes standard with Hardie practice chanters, and it’s nice for practicing if you want it a little bit quieter. It’s got a really mellow, smooth sound and takes very little air.
And finally, this is the Piper’s Choice Green Practice Chanter Reed. It looks very similar to the Walsh, but it’s a little bit mellower and quieter than the Walsh. It really takes very, very little air, low pressure, and has a little bit of a quieter volume.
So I like all of these reeds. My favorite is the Walsh. It’s more expensive and harder to get.
Also, the red and white reeds from R.G. Hardie are really good. I probably prefer the red one a little bit more, but the white one is really quiet and mellow. And then the green reed from Piper’s Choice, also a little bit quieter.
So they’re all really good, and slightly different.
If you’re still not sure which one you want, check out my Premium Practice Chanter Reed Variety Four Pack. It’s got all four of these reeds in one pack, and it saves you buying them each individually.
Get them all, try them, and pick your favorite, whether you like the brighter, crisper sound or a little bit of a mellower sound. Whatever suits you and your chanter, and how you blow, and where you practice. You really get the best of both worlds with this pack.
And you’ve got spares, because you never want to be in a situation where you don’t have a reed that is working for you. You don’t want your practice chanter to be holding you back.
It’s a tool. It’s for learning. It’s for making music. It’s for memorization. It’s for working on technique, practicing efficiently, with the main goal to get on your bagpipes. So your reed and your practice chanter should not be getting in the way. You want a reed that is maintenance-free and hassle-free, so you can pick up and play without fussing with your reeds.
This four-pack is exclusive to BagpipeLessons.com. You will not find it anywhere else. You can find it at BagpipeLessons.com/reeds, along with links to get all four reeds individually.
You want to have good reeds. You want to have reeds you can trust, that work for you, that play when you’re ready to play. You never want to be without a good quality reed.
And these reeds should not need any breaking in. They are plastic. They are instant. They are good to go.
Of everything you could spend money on, a practice chanter reed is the smallest purchase that changes the most about your daily practice routine. You probably spend more hours on your practice chanter than on your bagpipes, and that reed is going to decide how those hours feel, how that practice sounds, and how efficiently you’re making progress.
You don’t have to put up with a practice chanter that sounds bad, or shuts off, or wears you out. That’s just not part of the deal.
Check out these reeds at BagpipeLessons.com/reeds. I’ve got the Endurance Practice Chanter too, and the cartridges, at BagpipeLessons.com/endurance.
Everything I sell in my shop is either something I designed and invented myself, or something I’ve personally tested, use and recommend.
Life is too short to play bad reeds, and that includes the one in your practice chanter.
Thanks for watching. Happy piping. Mahalo.
