I took some photos of my stuff this morning.

This is everything in its housing. Starting with the red ribbon and moving clockwise, there’s the Uilleann pipes, some flutes/whistles, my wife’s concertina, some electronic bagpipe stuff, the Uilleann pipe bellows, and the Uillean pipe bag with the air hose on top.

Electronic Pipes

Since they can play drones, I guess this instrument counts as “pipes” and not “a pipe”.

This instrument runs on a single AA battery, and outputs to a 3.5mm stereo earphone jack. There’s a way to wire it up as a MIDI controller as well, but I’ve never tried it.

The bag is nothing more than a switch. You have to squish the bag to close the switch, simulating the extra pressure required to make real pipes jump into the second octave.

The electronic bagpipes aren’t as expressive as real pipes, and they’re also not as finnicky. I was able to learn scales and a number of tunes with this setup, and this lasted me for 3-4 years, until I was sure I wanted real pipes.

I made a tiny “bag” for the technopipes, for travel. It’s just a momentary switch with some foam around it to make it thick enough to trigger under my arm.

Since the electronic pipe is the only instrument I have that can play through earphones, it’s what I usually bring with me on travel. I do a fair amount of travel for work, so this is handy. Maybe one day I’ll get confident enough on the whistle to bring one on a trip and drop by a local session while I’m away!

David Daye Half Set

After years of playing the Fagerstrom Uilleann Technopipes, I ordered a half set from David Daye. He calls his pipes the “penny chanter” and “budget drones”, making extensive use of commercially-produced plumbing equipment, which I find appealing. They are about half the price of a comparable set, and people seem to appreciate the tone of them.

I find the styling of this set appealing. It’s got a minimalist feel to it that’s right up my alley: it lacks a lot of the ornamentation and flourishes of a more traditional set. It also lacks ivory, heh.

These pipes came as a kit, and it took me about 3 months to get into a state I consider “finished”. The instrument takes a lot of maintenance, and I agree with David that assembling the kit teaches you a lot of maintenance tasks you’ll need to keep them in good working order.

Everything packed up fits into a little backpack. The big items are the bag and the bellows, all the actual pipes roll up nicely into the little sleeve we sewed for it.

Inside the sleeve is all the pipes. From left to right are the drone stocks, the chanter, the bass drone tuner, the baritone drone tuner, and the little tenor tuner. There’s a yellow chamois under the chanter: this goes over my knee to help seal off the chanter’s bell, and keep air from leaking out when all the toneholes are closed.

My bagpipes: a half set. This consists of a bellows to pump air into the bag, the bag, a set of drones attached into the bag, and the chanter coming out the narrow part of the bag.

Because the bagpipe’s double reed is made of natural cane (bamboo), I have to be careful about the humidity I expose it to. If I ever want to take it someplace humid, I’m going to have to leave the reed at home, and make a new one for the high humidity environment.

Aerophones

The flute, the whistles, and the electronic bagpipe, all fit into this roll-up sleeve.

Everything has essentially the same fingering as the bagpipe, and everything is inexpensive, so I’m learning all of them at about the same pace.

I have no other flute to compare mine to, but it makes a nice enough tone that I wouldn’t hesitate to play it in public. You can make your own using the 3D files and a little waxed thread for the joints.

I find the flute to be more challenging than the bagpipe, which probably isn’t what people would expect to hear. Decades of playing the oboe has made it difficult for me to adapt to the flute embouchure, and I find the fingering awkward and hard on my tendons, especially in my left hand.

Below the flute are the tin whistles. I didn’t get serious about the tin whistle until after I printed the flute. The whistle is very nearly the same fingering as the flute, but doesn’t have a difficult embouchure or cause tendon discomfort, so I’m able to play it longer and faster than the flute.

The topmost whistle is a black Clarke original, which my wife bought on a lark maybe 10 years ago. We didn’t play it much, until I printed the flute. The original has an airy sound, with lots of white noise. It requires about twice as much air volume as the other whistles. That means you have to stop to breathe more frequently.

Below that is a green Clarke Sweetone. It sounds lovely to me. I can play about twice as long as the original with one breath. In my opinion, the essential nature of a tin whistle is that it’s inexpensive and easy to play. The Sweetone checks both boxes: if you’re looking to get started on a whistle, this is the one to start with.

At the bottom is a McNeela Wild Irish whistle. It’s very nice, but not drastically nicer than the Sweetone.