Strides in synthetic chanter reeds

Traditional cane chanter reed

The bagpipe chanter is the most important part of the sound, and also among the most difficult parts of the instrument to get in tune, and get to stay in tune. The reeds are very fickle because they’re made of cane: it is able to absorb moisture, thus changing the density of the cane and therefore the way it vibrates. This changes the pitch and tone; a wet chanter reed will be flat and dull, whereas a completely dry one will be very shrill and tend to chirp. Thus out of tune pipes can be caused by conditions outside the piper’s control: temperature and humidity in the outside air, and probably the biggest factor, which is amount of playing time. The reed has to be played to get it to settle in to its pitch, and once it’s there it will go out of tune as soon as it’s allowed to dry out and cool down. Putting down the pipes for even a minute or so is enough to require three or four minutes of additional playing to get it back to the sweet spot.

There have been some attempts to make a synthetic chanter reed that is unaffected by these factors, and they have been successful to a point. The biggest drawback has been the sound, which is usually thin, shrill, and raspy; in short, it sounds like it comes from a plastic reed.

I met a piper who played a synthetic reed, and it was perfect for his purposes. He doesn’t play competitions and only occasionally plays with other pipers, but his primary performances are with another musician at a local Irish pub on Friday nights. He primarily plays other instruments (guitar, banjo, harmonica, tin whistle), but when he plays the pipes for a song he needs to be able to pick them up and have them ready to go. Playing in a noisy bar full of non-pipers the sweetness of the chanter isn’t really an issue, so it works well for his purposes.

McLaren synthetic chanter reed

Malcolm McLaren of Brisbane, Australia has developed a new reed that apparently is leaps and bounds ahead of previous synthetic reeds, though to be fair my only assessment is based on the video below. However it seems to have a decent sound for a synthetic reed, and would be well-suited to playing gigs where there is some elapsed time between tuning and performing. He specifically says it’s not intended to replace cane reeds for competition, although the sound is good enough that some people are using it for competitions.

I’m intrigued, and I might try one out. They’re fairly pricey though, so while I have a cane reed that does pretty well for me I’m not in a rush to order one just yet.