Dear Alastair: Thank you so much for this very clear and concise video. I did all you said with my 1989 RG Hardie hide bag, and it is now PLAYING like I want it to !!! Make more vids ! You are an excellent teacher ! Alexander S. Bauhart, Montreal Pipes & Drums School, CANADA
Hi there. I'm a Scot in Germany, and recently bought a set of 2nd hand pipes (made in Pakistan, I think) at a flea market just so I could finally answer the question with "yes, I do have pipes". Unexpectedly, it turns out they would actually be playable enough for me to consider trying to add the pipes to my musical repertoire, if I manage to get the bag sealed. My problem is not with the bag as such, but rather that it's leaking at the stitching - looks like it's been stitched with string, if you ask me. Do you think seasoning might help in this case? If not, short of having someone stitch the bag on the inside of the original seam, is there anything else you could suggest? I quite fancy trying to learn the pipes, but don't really want to fork out too much money, just to find it's not my thing. Thanks in anticipation, and keep up the good work.
The best thing you can do with these Pakistani pipes you've bought is to burn them. So that their horrid sound and your inability to play them never poison the ears of mankind.
Burn them is a simpel solution. You can hang it on the wall as decoration, but some handy people can make Medieval pipes out of them. First: get another slung (or make it yourself. Turn the drones flat on a lathe. (Better use one drone or two). Put another chanter on it in A or G. You can buy them or make it yourself on the lathe. Rebuild the valve on the blowstick and replace the platic mouthpiece with one from bone. On top of the drones you can turn some bells. But.......use it as a Scottisch set is not done.
