Been messing about with midi for sometime with the band
Taran
and thought I would have a go at making a midi pibgorn. Usinging an existing Yamaha vl70m wind controller module and a BC3a as the midi wind sensor plugged into a £10 viking helmet off ebay as the horns added to my technopipes, the results are very very good, if a little crazy.
The bc3a vents air out of the top horn hole and sends wind midi data to the vl70m, and the bottom hole sends standard note change midi data to the module. I have fitted a bulk head( top half of a kinder egg) between the two hole to stop moisture passing through and a small vent hole at the top of the horn so not to blow the pressure sensor of the bc3a.
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A practical guide on how to make an elder pibgorn by Gerard KilBride, in the keys of C or D.
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Tools
The Pibgorn chanter is made of Elder-Sambucus nigra
It can be found near ruined buildings and farm hedges.
There is much myth about the elder tree, it is called Ysgawen in Welsh and is known as the Queen of Trees, Hylde-mošer, the Elder Tree Mother, she rules the 13th moon in the Ogham calendar, the ending of the old year and beginning of the new at Samhain.
More can be read here..
http://www.whitedragon.org.uk/articles/elder.htm
I cut the chanter blanks in October when the tree is shutting down for winter and the berries have all gone. Great care must be taken as there is much superstition surrounding the cutting this tree. As a gesture I always tidy around the tree and only cut what is needed. You will find the chanter length is naturally defined by the distance of the knots in the wood growth.
My chanter is 220mm long, with the tenons being 20mm long leaving a central section of 180mm. I cut between knots in the elder branch which I aim to be about 250mm long. The Ideal finished width of the chanter is about 20mm when the bark is removed so the ideal cut raw width should be about 26mm.
I would look for elder that has a slight bend, which they naturally do. This curve can be seen in the old pibgyrn at the Museum of Welsh Life, St Fagans.
The diameter of the pithy centre varies from piece to piece, but in the branches I cut it's roughly 6mm. I debark the elder blanks straight away, care should be taken as the bark is a strong purgative, its use dating back to Hippocrates. It can make you feel very sick. I use an old coat hanger and push out the pith centre, then I use a long 5.5mm hss drill bit to clean out the centre.
I leave the chanter to dry in the workshop for a few months, you can use them straight away as I am sure they were, but the tenons will shrink and if you try to put waxed hemp on the tenons they will distort. The holes will vary and tuning will be needed to be redone many times.
When dry I round off the the chanter with a block plane. It normally ends up oval with a finished width about 20mm but this varies.
I finish off with sandpaper and leave it without any varnish or stain, as in time it will take on its own patina. Varnish if you like but I would wait until all the holes are drilled and tuned, and it has dried.
Cutting the tenons is done with a craft knife and then a flat file, available from
http\\www.dick.biz
The finished size should be 14mm wide and 20mm long, I don't use cotton thread on the finished tenons, but if you make them a little small you can put some cotton on, but not too tight as this will distort the tenon. I would use a bow-rope lapping technique with waxed thread. Start with a horizontal thread and then wind backwards over the thread and finish off with two timber hitches.
Widen the central bore hole to 7mm along the lenght of the chanter, which should give you an approximate C base note, at the reed end widen the bore to 7.5mm for the whole length of the top tenon 20mm and no more, this is called the reed seat and is need to be widened to accommodate the reed.
I mark the holes from the bottom end of the reed tenon, marking 18mm down and then place the first hole, then working downwards marking equal spaced centres of 26mm . I use a 3mm drill bit to start. The thumb back hole is drilled 12mm down from the top tenon.
Tuning.
I begin by using a reed that I know works well. I know this is a bit chicken and egg but it may take many reeds before you make a good one, or you could buy one from an established maker. First, adjust the chanter to make the octaves in tune, by moving the reed in and out of the reed seat. When the octaves are set (without worrying which note is produced) we should be roughly around C to D. You can lower or raise the bass note later. I then tune each note by ear working from the bottom up, enlarging the holes to raise the pitch of the note. I use tone hole cutters bought from:
www.dick.biz
You will need the 3 smallest sizes. You can use a tuner if it is easier as it will take many fine tuning runs to get it right.
You will most likely need to raise the pitch of the whole chanter, which should be between C and D. To do this the central bore can be enlarged. By drilling out the central bore hole, you will raise the pitch and a drill bit .5mm wider will raise the note by about 25 cents of a note.
I buy the drill bits from
http://www.axminster.co.uk
try and get extra long hss wood bits.
If you need to lower the chanter pitch the reed tongue can be lifted slightly which will drop the scale or you can add mass to the reed by placing a small blob of beeswax on the tongue end.
see also the reed adjustment section.
I have recently made a closed fingered chanter as an experiment in preparation for some work on the st fagans pibgyrn. Using the same spacing but different hole sizes, it works well but a very different playing style and sound.....picture to follow>
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A practical guide on how to make an elder pibgorn from start to finish in the key of C or D. With photos, descriptions, links and measurements.
Watch this space.
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Boiling the Horn
Luckily, I have a vet who provides me with fresh horn, mainly from the Hereford breed of cattle, which tend to be a little smaller than Welsh Black horn.
Most vets just dispose of the horns, so try asking a farm vet if they can pass a few your way.
To remove the inside flesh you will need to boil the horns in water for several hours. I would do this outside as it is pretty smelly.
After a about 1.5 hours the insides of the horn will soften and you will be able to prise them out relatively easily.
If they are still solid you will need to leave the horn simmering for a bit longer, when the inside is soft I use a kitchen knife to cut around the inside of the horn, a bit like an oyster, and then pull the soft tissue out with my hands. It will still be very hot???
Once the horn is cleaned out I leave them overnight in a bucket of Baby Bottle sterilizing solution to reduce the smell and then leave to air dry and season for several months.
the traditional method is written as...
"the horns of a fully grown bullock, with a gentle curve and perfectly free from blemish, were cleaned and rubbed, in front of a fire, with as much hog's lard as they would absorb and then left to mature for a year in a cool, dry place. After this, they were scraped out carefully with very fine sandpaper and a flexible cane, and the outside was scraped and polished until the horn was of the requisite thickness. The horn was then put into a very hot mixture, consisting of 9 parts of linseed oil and 2 of turpentine. with a piece of beeswax about the size of a large walnut and a small stick of dried oak bark. There it was kept for three days, being kept hot all the time, After this is was hung in a chimney to dry and harden, after which it received its final polishing with fine sandpaper and was varnished with a fine solution of beeswax turpentine." ....Shore Shineyn
Apparently the term "green horn" was used for new settlers in the Americas who didn't wait to season their horns, resulting in a green fungus/mold growing on them?
You can buy fresh horn from
http://www.highlandhorn.com/
Buying seasoned horn.
Mysticum in Germany sell them as drinking horns, you will need the 0.2 litre horn as the others are too wide.
http://www.mysticum.de/Horn-work/Drinki ... -horn.html
also
Texas Leather craft sometimes have steer horn in stock
http://www.texasleathercraft.com/
Carving
I use an Opinel knife to remove horn quickly and later on I use the knife as a scraper. I also use a craft knife and a small woodworking chisel. I have heard that if you warm the horn with something like a heat gun it becomes easier to carve but I have not tried this yet.
I aim to make the walls of the horn 2mm thick, so it becomes like fine porcelain, it develops a timbre when it is thin enough a bit like tapping parchment. You will hear it start to ring as you work on it. You must leave extra thickness at the tenon end, at least 5 or 6mm wall thickness if you intend to have a flower-globe artichoke pattern.
Some people use a sanding linisher, which works well but is messy, noisy and everything happens so fast that can loose the sense of getting to know the horns properties and flaws.
I drill out a 13mm hole to take the chanter tenon, which ideally should have a depth of at least 15mm otherwise the horn will wobble on the chanter as it won't have long enough sides to grip.
Finishing
I like the horn 'scraper-finished' with visible tool marks. For a finer finish you can go down through the grades of sandpaper, starting at 80 grit and finishing with 1200 grit.
by Johnathan Shorland
by Gerard KilBride
by Gerard KilBride
Then you can use ground pumice stone, wire wool, burnish in a drill and finally, wax the horn or use t-cut car polish.
One great tip given to me by Osses the alboka maker was to cut a small bit of blotting paper and fit it into the top horn, this then keeps some moisture away from the reed and then you can change the paper at will..
Examples
by Gerard KilBride
by Gerard KilBride
by Gerard KilBride
by John Shorland
by Gerard KilBride
by John Glenydd
by John Tose
by Gerard KilBride
by Gerard KilBride
by Gerard KilBride
By Arnoud Jespers
By Arnoud Jespers
by Gerard KilBride
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