Hey baby, wanna grow your volume?
Well, I've made my rauschpfeife teaching debut, such as it was. As it turns out, my friend has a rather severe reed issue, and that was what was causing a lot of his intonation issues -- he'll still need a lot of practice with a tuner, but the first thing he needs is a reed that doesn't cause *my* instrument to go out of tune as soon as we try putting it in. :)
However! Lo and behold, it also turns out that my reed has seen better days, because his exact same instrument, purchased from the same dealer, is approximately one and a half times louder than mine... and when we put his funky reed in my 'pfeife, while it did destroy my tuning, it also INCREASED MY VOLUME BY AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
(It's remarkable how often I wind up cackling and/or using all caps when I write about my 'pfeife, isn't it?)
Anyway, we wound up doing mutual instrument petting zoo for a while -- he has *lovely* Abell whistles, and probably the most pleasing silver Boehm-system flute I've ever had in my hands, but he'd never gotten to play with the softer historical buzzies before. He also hadn't worked with much early repertoire beyond Praetorius, so I pulled out a bunch of tunes to play through together, and now he's interested in coming to play dance music with the Branslers. w00t!
As a side bonus, he had several backup reeds to start breaking in, so he left me the funky reed to play with -- when I got a little crazy and stuck it in my soprano crumhorn, it made my scale slightly erratic BUT VERY VERY LOUD i am now restraining myself from cackling again lookit me being restrained!.
Man, I love me some buzzy instruments. So much happiness. :) And now off to suck up the international shipping charge and order some more 'pfeife reeds!
ETA: Yaaaarrrggghhhh, the reeds are £29.95 per!!! Not including shipping from London!!!! Ok, ok, I can handle this... what do I need more, turnshoes sans holes in the soles or reeds? Clearly reeds. OK. But still, ack!
However! Lo and behold, it also turns out that my reed has seen better days, because his exact same instrument, purchased from the same dealer, is approximately one and a half times louder than mine... and when we put his funky reed in my 'pfeife, while it did destroy my tuning, it also INCREASED MY VOLUME BY AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
(It's remarkable how often I wind up cackling and/or using all caps when I write about my 'pfeife, isn't it?)
Anyway, we wound up doing mutual instrument petting zoo for a while -- he has *lovely* Abell whistles, and probably the most pleasing silver Boehm-system flute I've ever had in my hands, but he'd never gotten to play with the softer historical buzzies before. He also hadn't worked with much early repertoire beyond Praetorius, so I pulled out a bunch of tunes to play through together, and now he's interested in coming to play dance music with the Branslers. w00t!
As a side bonus, he had several backup reeds to start breaking in, so he left me the funky reed to play with -- when I got a little crazy and stuck it in my soprano crumhorn, it made my scale slightly erratic BUT VERY VERY LOUD i am now restraining myself from cackling again lookit me being restrained!.
Man, I love me some buzzy instruments. So much happiness. :) And now off to suck up the international shipping charge and order some more 'pfeife reeds!
ETA: Yaaaarrrggghhhh, the reeds are £29.95 per!!! Not including shipping from London!!!! Ok, ok, I can handle this... what do I need more, turnshoes sans holes in the soles or reeds? Clearly reeds. OK. But still, ack!