A keystone habit for bagpipe practice

Some of you are probably not neurotic enough

I've been reading The Power of Habit, which I don't think is a self-help book even though it sounds like one. I think it's popular science. One of the major points is how a keystone habit can cause changes in tangentially connected habits and skills. The example in the book describes how Paul O'Neill (Not the Yankee) introduced a new culture at the aluminum manufacturer, Alcoa, that monomaniacally focused on workplace safety. Aluminum manufacture is a truly unsafe process, it ain't no Sunday school picnic. Accidents can be fatal. Anyway, O'Neill's focus on safety had the desired effect of producing a safety record that beat the industry average by an order of magnitude, but also produced knock-on effects throughout the company.

One straightforward example given is that malfunctioning equipment is a root cause of workplace accidents and repair/replacement should receive top priority. It turns out, malfunctioning equipment also causes quality issues, downtime, and waste, so this safety measure resulted in improved efficiency and lower costs! The new safety reporting system also created new communication networks that penetrated the company's previously rigid hierarchy and permitted the free-flow of ideas related not only to safety, but also efficiency.

I also read this article a long time ago: Marginal Gains: This Coach Improved Every Tiny Thing by 1 Percent, and I've recently become interested again in incremental improvement. In general, I'm interested in how measuring how skills can go from inferior to better, rather than from wrong to right. I think being able to appreciate this dynamic range is critical for persisting with an improvement process when the gains can seem very small and discouraging.

So I've been trying to identify habits in pipe bands where we could make a change in some routine that would produce transformative change elsewhere.

What I came up with is…probably not the finished idea, but something! I’m going to try it in my own practice and make the band do it.

Let’s start with a video demonstration.

This is inspired by the process that I’ve adopted over the years for assembling my pipes after travel by car or air. I always felt like the many vibrations that happen during travel could dislodge reeds, so when I arrive at my destination, I always reseat everything before playing. The rest of the instrument inspection is really just quickly checking in on the state of the instruments many articulating sections. It should be a 2 minute process at the beginning of every practice. If you are way behind on maintenance though, it will take more time. I would therefore suggest either improving 2 things about your instrument maintenance on every play or taking 3 hours once and redoing everything. After you’re caught up, small maintenance tweaks should occur every time you pick up the pipe.

It goes like this:

1. Following a practice session, record a single tune, any tune, especially one that you haven't been working on during the current session. Record it once, judgment free. Don't listen to it. This should take 1-3 minutes.

2. The next time you are going to play your pipes, run the recording. Listen to it critically. Pay attention and mentally note high-value corrections¹. If you would like help identifying high-value corrections, consult with a friend!

3. While the recording is playing and you are listening critically, assemble your instrument with care following steps 4-7.

4. Disassemble drones from stocks, visually inspect drone reeds for moisture or other irregularities. Reseat the drone reeds. Inspect hemp on reeds and drone tenons². Return the drones to their stocks, paying attention to proper joint tension.

5. Assemble the drones onto their tuning pins. Set to a plausible tuning height. This should be a few millimeters above the hemp line on tenors, and 1-2 inches for the bass³. Assess joint tension in this step. Ensure the top section of the bass is a few millimeters above the hemp line and that this joint is firm.

6. Inspect the chanter reed for chips, cracks, discoloration, or other irregularities⁴. Inspect the hemp on the reed and chanter tenon. Assemble the chanter, assess joint tension.

7. Assemble the blowpipe. Inspect the valve and hemp on the tenon⁵.

8. Finally, quickly set the drones to low A, then meticulously align the drones with each other.

9. Play some tunes and enjoy your instrument! Repeat steps 8-9 as needed.

The theory is that a bagpipe where the blowpipe is jammed against a petrified mat of soggy broken hemp is probably hiding other issues that will affect how good it sounds. On the other hand, a habit of obsessive maintenance will have knock-on effects resulting in improved standards of intonation, technique, and who knows, maybe even start ironing your shirt and making sure your socks are the same height! (Incidentally, I think this process could flow in reverse. Try ironing your shirt and see if that does anything for your playing!)

1. Here are some examples of high-value corrections:

• Tuning problems

• Intonation problems

• Crossing noises and other errant sounds (failing to close D gracenotes is a big one!)

• Groove violations (usually rounding something out to accommodate difficult passages)

• Clumsy embellishments out of the groove

• Major tempo variation

2. I don't know if others agree, but my preference is for drone reeds to be seated with the minimal amount of hemp that provides contact with the bore along the full length of the reed base. You also want to make sure there isn't a rogue loop of hemp occluding the reed base. The reed should not wobble or seem like it's perched in the bore. For some drone reeds, this may require cutting off a rubber sleeve. I leave a short tail of hemp and drape that over the tenon to prevent the reed from falling into the bag in case it comes unseated. This never happens anyways because I make sure my reeds are well-seated, but this is extra security.

3. As for the tuning height, in some drones it will be difficult to control this, for example, my 1902 Henderson tunes low on the bass. I believe this is normal for Henderson as well as for older instruments. I also have a chalice-top Lawrie that tunes impossibly low and requires sharper drone reeds to achieve a reasonable tuning height.

In a few moments, we will tune the drones to the chanter. If the tuning height is not right, make adjustments on the tuning screw, bridle, or rubber sleeve, depending on your type of drone. Bridle and rubber sleeve adjustments affect tuning height, **but primarily affect the air flow**. This is for a different discussion, but generally, the order of adjustments is 1 - bridle/rubber sleeve followed by 2 - tuning screw/reed length/wax cap. Reed length, wax cap, and bridle are cane things, they will be unfamiliar to most pipers and that's okay.

4. Replace the reed. Bagpiping is expensive. It's not worth it to fight a failing reed.

5. The blowpipe hemp is especially vulnerable to rot because it gets so much moisture. I remove my blowpipe from time to time to let the hemp dry. It is necessary to leave an expansion gap at the projecting mount. Hemp will swell with moisture. If it swells against a solid boundary like a projecting mount, it will buckle and break and form a grody matted mess that will prevent the blowpipe tenon from assembling flush in the stock. In point of fact, all joints could benefit from a 2-3 mm expansion gap. I hate when hemp gets soggy, matted, and gross. Joints should be flush.