First Wind Instrument... help?

[Niko Birbilis]

Hey guys, I'm new to these forums, but I'd love to get involved! I've always loved playing instruments but now, I want to try my hand at actually making a few. Right now what I essentially want to make is something called the "tsabouna" (Greek: τσαμπούνα), which is like a primitive bagpipe. The bag is goatskin, and the pipes and reeds are olive tree roots.

Of course, I don't have goats nor olive trees nearby to use, but I'm hoping to get a similar sort of thing going with some sort of bag (trashbag/balloon?) and some PVC pipes. For the most part, this doesn't seem too difficult, but I hit a bit of a bump when it came to the reeds, since I don't know much about carving or mounting them in something like this. So as a workaround, I'm attempting a sort of "membrane recorder" design by having the air in the pipe blow past a vibrating membrane (plastic bag tied tight on the middle hole of a PVC T-joint), and that seems to work and get some sound out of it. Problem is, the sound only comes out when I buzz my lips, and if this pipe is attached to a bag, I don't think the bag will be buzzing its lips...

(tl;dr) Could anyone give me an idea of how to get that buzzed air flowing through the pipe?

Thanks a lot in advance for your help guys!

[Jim McConkey]

Hi NiKO381,

Please note that we require the use of real full names (first and last) on this forum, and do not accept aliases or "handles". Please let us know your name either here, or in a private message to myself or one of the other staff members so that we can update your username and login details for you (you are not able to make these changes to your account yourself). Thanks.

Have a look in our Library for information. You can make very passable "reeds" out of yogurt containers, which fits well with your use of other plastics.

[Niko Birbilis]

Whoops, sorry about that, I didn't know about that convention... sent you a PM though, so you can go ahead and update my name asap!

[Jim McConkey]

No problem, Niko. Your login is now Niko Birbilis. Welcome to the Forum!

Search on "Arundo Yoplait" in the Library. That is a play on words, Arundo being the genus of normal can reeds, and the species "Yoplait" referring to a popular brand of yoghurt, whose containers make passable reeds. The container has just the right curvature for a reed if you cut the container lengthwise. The library also has a number of bagpipe-specific discussions.

[Robert Seymour]

Hi Niko

From your description I don't think you have assembled your membrane reed correctly. If you are using a t joint you need another longer pipe to sit inside this one. This long pipe will determine the pitch of the note. It needs to be longer than the t joint. The membrane (plastic bag or rubber from a balloon) should be tied across one end of the t joint (not the middle hole) and the long pipe goes into the other end and is pushed up to touch the membrane. You need a good seal between the long pipe and the t joint at the other end. You blow into the middle hole forcing air upwards towards the membrane which flexes to allow the air to escape down the long pipe before flexing back to shut off the air. This sets up a wave in the long pipe which varies with the length. You can drill holes in the long pipe to make a chanter for your bagpipe.

I have attached a diagram which shows the long pipe (green) going into the t joint (orange) and position of the membrane (red). I found that the pitch was quite sensitive to the tension on the membrane as well as air pressure.

There are good examples on youtube of 'membrane reeds' including the use in bagpipe instruments.

Rob

[Yuri Terenyi]

That's a kind of alternative reed, that is used by most makers in Hungary and Slovakia these days instead of the traditional one-piece cane reeds. The body of this one is wood, most makers use copper tubing with a lead plug, some plastic tubing. I think the picture speaks for itself, really. The shaved-off section is done with a small block plane, totally flat, then the plane held at a slight angle the top part is shaved off at some 2-3 degrees. The hole under the tongue is elongated, you drill two round holes a bit apart, and connect them carefully into a longish slit. The tongue is (in this case) a section of an old clarinet reed, scraped until just right.

That's the body without the tongue, just found it.

[Stephen Bacon]

Plastic drinking straw reeds, used with balloon bagpipes and other obnoxious inventions. They can be trained, tuned, and refined. Time to construct-10 seconds.

[Niko Birbilis]

Oh man, thanks a lot for the help guys! Rob, that diagram reaaaally helped, since I was kinda shooting in the dark with putting that membrane system together, and it does work now.

And in the long-term, I definitely think I'll try and learn to make some reeds like in Yuri's pictures... just for clarification though, can the reed in the picture simply be blown from a bag, or does it need a mouth, to play like one would a clarinet?

And Stephen, I'm totally gonna try that easier bagpipe with just straws and all too... so you just cut the straws like that, and blowing into it produces a tone?

[Stephen Bacon]

These straws are skinny and thin . You do have to flatten them at the playing end. The flexy part helps the reed speak. All I do with these is rough sand the tips by putting the tip between folded over sandpaper between my thumb and forefinger and pull. Thicker plastic straws need a small wire wrapped around them and flattened so to be free playing.

[Stephen Bacon]

Oops missed out on editing . The straw reeds shown are of thin plastic and work well free blowing(without lips) some heaver straws need wire bent around them to keep them flat. I have as well has success with this style reed made out of gull feathers. Here is the type of reed usually assorted with the instrument you are building. They are easy to make but hard to master.

[Yuri Terenyi]

"And in the long-term, I definitely think I'll try and learn to make some reeds like in Yuri's pictures... just for clarification though, can the reed in the picture simply be blown from a bag, or does it need a mouth, to play like one would a clarinet?"

These are bagpipe reeds. I'm making bagpipes, though not the tsambouna kind.

[Niko Birbilis]

Ohh I see, so those are bagpipe reeds... still, that general idea does help. Unfortunately among the instruments I play, none involve me actually blowing over a reed, so I really don't know too much about how they work, in terms of producing sound.

And I reaaaaaally like that gull feather reed idea! Are there any resources around on actually going about making something like them?

[Stephen Bacon]

Gull reeds are some screwy idea out of the catacombs of my warped mind. It is not the reed for your pipes as it is too stiff for a free reed and needs the lips to control it. Really it would be much easier to make the cane reeds that are specific for your instrument. Your reed is like a very skinny clarinet reed, usually referred to as a drone reed in bag pipe media. Google "bagpipe drone reeds" images. You will find along with a few cane ones many synthetic ones, hopefully that should spark some ideas. The best balloons I have used are the big 'punch ball' balloons. If you cut the loop at the end you have a place to attach and tie on both reeds. Remember to keep your diameters small for this style of pipe. You may not achieve proper bag air pressure regulation with your kazoo idea, but good luck, so what I am offering is an alternative to that. The straw idea came out of making foolproof balloon bagpipes with kids.

[Robert Seymour]

Unfortunately among the instruments I play, none involve me actually blowing over a reed, so I really don't know too much about how they work, in terms of producing sound.

Niko - all the reeds we have described so far are types of 'beating reed'. They work by opening and closing an opening very fast allowing air to enter the resonating air column (the long pipe of the instrument) and then stopping it. The rapid starting and stopping of the air flow sets up a wave which is the sound we hear. The length of the air column regulates how frequently the reed opens and closes - the longer the column the less frequently it opens and closes and the lower the pitch. Much of the difficulty of reed instruments is getting the reed to work well within the frequency ranges of the air column.

They are called beating reeds because the opening and closing is achieved by the reed beating against something:

The straw reeds are double reeds with both lips beating against each other to open and close. Double reeds made of cane are found in the chanters of many types of highly evolved bagpipes such as the Great Highland Bagpipes, Scottish smallpipes and border pipes as well as the Irish uileen pipes.

Yuri's wood + cane two piece reeds have a single reed which beats against the body to open and close the hole in the wooden body. This type of reed is found as the drone reeds in bagpipes mentioned above. You can substitute thin plastic for the cane - the trick is getting the thickness right.

The one piece cane reeds are also single reeds constructed entirely from the cane. These reeds would be the traditional reed in many types of bagpipe including the instrument you pictures as well as the swedish bagpipes and the welsh pibgorn. You could use a two piece single reed for this application and you may find them easier to construct than one piece cane reeds.

The membrane reed beats against the opening of the pipe. They are fun to mess around with but I don't know of any serious bagpipes that use them.

Rob

[Yuri Terenyi]

I talked once to a Hungarian maker, he has made some pipes with the membrane reeds, and he doesn't think much of them. The sound is all wrong. But. He does see one application, and that is in the drones of some regional Serbian (mostly) bagpipes, which are huge. They normally take up an enormous amount of air. The membrane drone uses much less air, and at that pitch the sound quality is OK. I actually have a toy set, picked up in Hungary, using membranes all through. But while it works, it's not a serious instrument.

[Niko Birbilis]

Thanks a lot for that description of how reeds work... it's really helpful, since ultimately I do want to implement actual wooden reeds instead of my membrane reed, and that gave me a good grasp on them. As for those pictured in Yuri's picture, just to clarify, could you help me see how such a reed would be mounted in a pipe, and how the air flows over it?

For now, since I don't have all of my tools available, I'll settle for a membrane reed just to get something that makes noise, but I'll definitely try carving a reed out as soon as possible!

[Yuri Terenyi]

The bit that has the cotton wrapped around it is the one that fits snugly into a matching bore in the pipe. It's exactly the same as the cotton wrapped part on a whole-body reed. Just the body is slightly fatter, to accomodate the flat shaved area.
The air flows not over, but into the reed (and any other reed, for that matter.) That is between the tongue and the body in the case of single reeds. (And in double reeds, in between the two blades.) Why the tongue vibrates is because when the pressure from the blowing hits it, the air between the tongue and the body travels much faster (there is the same volume of air, but much less room for it. So to pass, it has to speed up.) This creates negative pressure (suction). The tongue closes. As soon as this happens, the suction stops ,as there is no air passing through. The tongue now springs back. All this happens very fast, of course. If the narrow opening between the tongue and the body is too small, the tongue will simply stick to the body, and there will be not enough spring in it to spring back, against the pressure from the outside.