Purchasing A Practice Chanter
by Dylan Rocca
(Gibralter)
Where can I buy a practice chanter and how many years can it take to learn how use a bagpipe?
Bills Reply
Hi Dylan,
You can buy a practice chanter from bagpipe makers you can find on line. Some that come to minds are: Naill; Strathmore; Shepherd, Soutar; R.G.Hardie; or The College of Piping; or The Piping Centre - all based in the U.K.
I advise you to consider a plastic long-span practice chanter which is cheaper than the African Blackwood or the like practice chanter, and just as good. If possible have one that has an O ring joint between the two parts of the chanter to save having to renew binding periodically. The chanter should come with a practice chanter reed usual a plastic variety. It might be wise to ask for a spare reed in case of mishandling.
Depending on your age, aptitude, and really good regular application, it could take you six to nine months to be ready to play the pipes after having learned properly most of the basic fingering, embellishments, music reading (it is relatively easy), and playing about eight relatively simple tunes well from memory.
As you appear to be remote from a good teacher, you might consider my Beginners' Guide Interactive DVD - details of contents etc., in our site.
Some examples you can see in our site when clicking on the left of the main page in the squares entitled Bagpipe Lessons and Bagpipe Tunes.
The ones in the Bagpipe Lessons are incomplete because essentially they are not hyperlinked from text to video and MP3 audio as in our DVDs (computer compatible only with DVD reader)- more one to one on the PC monitor.
Very few if any other basic tutors are hyperlinked and as detailed as mine.
I also have with the DVD customers free short checkups available either on Skype, or with e mail sound files of not more than 10 MB at a time per day.
Any questions on this - simply ask directly through my e mail.
I trust this helps.
Bill Robertson
