WHAT CAME YE TO SEE? A REED SHAKEN BY THE WIND?

It was Pete who drew my attention to a moment  in pipemaking that should be a treated as very special. This is when a brand new chanter is fitted with a new reed and plays it first notes. It is a moment of alchemy...  two separate creations are brought together and they combine to produce musical notes.

I admit that until Pete drew my attention to this I had never even thought about celebrating it.  To be perfectly honest I had always previously listened with critical ears at that time and concentrated on what I didn’t like about the individual notes that the fledgling chanter had played.  Of course ultimately I do need to know if any notes need adjustment, but I lose sight of the magic if I do not take time, even only for a second, to celebrate this first stage in its journey towards it making sweet music.

I have only been involved in the recent part of its creation. Stepping further back from my part in creating it, I see that it has been on a long, long journey..... Some of the woods that I use for making a chanter come from trees that can be at least a couple of hundred years old. A seed becomes a sapling which in time matures into a fully grown tree. Once it is felled I cut it into manageable sized pieces and leave them dry for a minimum of 3 years.  Some of my woods have been lying waiting for over 25 years. The next stages are boring, reaming, tuning, oiling and drilling the finger holes.

But a few hundred years of tree growth, plus the brief years in my workshop, is like the blink of an eye when one considers the age of the previous physical form of the constituents that go into my reeds. I make these out of plastic and brass; petrochemicals and minerals. Now we are talking about millions of years!

Anyway.......  the next time I reed up a new chanter I plan to take a moment to celebrate this first alchemical moment when it produces it's first few (possibly) faltering notes.

November 21st 2016