Middle Earth Ranger Forum

To me, a Jew's harp sounds a little too "hokey" for the Dunedain...too happy, bouncy, and light for their culture. I'm sure they had happy music, but the instrument is just too bizarre and light to make sense in MY opinion...but that's just me.

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Oh, wow...I need to go find my ocarina. I have an old ceramic 2-octave STL Ocarina lying around somewhere. Never got nearly as good on it as I am on my whistles, but that WOULD be really easy to transport...

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I've been working with my NA flute and working on making my own as well. I love the sounds one can get with these. I chose to make a flute quiver that will balance the arrow quiver on the other side of the pack.

Having a bit of music at night 'round the fire is an awesome thing.

Siani

I have one of those ceramic flutes as well, I got it years ago in Germany at a Renaissance Festival, and a neat flute that I got from a gypsy. But, I am not musically inclined. I do write poems, however, and I am sure that the Rangers would tell tales and sing songs around their campfires.

Ceramic flute? Really? How fascinating! I wasn't aware they made flutes from ceramics. Learn something new every day.

Siani

Siani wrote:Ceramic flute? Really? How fascinating! I wasn't aware they made flutes from ceramics. Learn something new every day.

Siani

I mistyped I have an ocarnia from the Renaissance Festival and a wood flute. Though I am sure there are ceramic flutes out there. Regardless, I can't play either. Part of my Ranger charm, I suppose

I have an ocarina and a tin whistle. I am slowly learning the whistle. Once you know one wind instrument I think it would be easy to pick up the others, and I find that I have more of a feel with wind than with string instruments.
What is a jew's harp?

I think a flute or whistle is the most "rangerish" instrument. They're easily accommodated among the ranger's equipment. A percussion instrument can be improvised from a hollow log or hardened sticks or rocks.

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I have a native american flute that I want to try and learn how to play, I just need to figure out the scales, etc.

I also want to pick up an ocarina, preferably a 4 hole pendant ocarina. Here's an idea:

http://tinyurl.com/rdcaex

Whaddya' think?

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My favorite campfire instrument, my Uilleann Pipes (pronounced Ill-an...it's gaelic) are a royal pain in the butt to haul around if you bring the whole set, drones and all. They're heavy by bagpipe standards, and they're ridiculously heavy by ranger's pack standards.

Here's what a full set looks like:


I don't actually own any of the drones or regulators (all that stuff bundled up coming out of the side of the bag) but the chanter (the melodic part of the instrument, played on the knee) sounds a bit empty by itself without either another instrument's accompaniment or drones.

So I've found a solution!

They're very rare, and only a handful of pipemakers make these, but I recently discovered side-mounted drones, which attach to the chanter's top rather than the bag, allowing you a very compact drone. This one, on a chanter in the key of C (which is not standard...irish instruments are traditionally made in D) was made by Eugene Lambe, a wonderful pipemaker in the UK.



Most all Uilleann pipemakers don't follow a form for their design like, say, a trumpet or saxophone maker would. The internal specs are fairly rigid to conform to necessary tonal and pitch requirements, but the actual pipe layout is very much up to artistic interpretation. Case in point, the better a pipemaker is, the more flexible and exploratory in pipemaking they will be.

So hopefully before this coming projected summer/fall Ranger Moot, I will be ordering a pair of side-mounted drones. I've never seen a chanter with more than one drone on it, but I know of a maker who I think could pull off two drones for two-tone chord on my chanter. This would actually make my instrument small enough to carry strapped to my quiver inside a fur case, with the bag and bellow wrapped up inside my bedroll or inside my pack, while still maintaining the wonderful sound of a pair of drones. Essentially, a never-before-seen compact set of pipes, engineered for rangering.

I'm kinda excited...did you notice?

That sounds awesome Greg. I had a chanter once when I was learning the bagpipes briefly, and as an instrument by itself it was definitely too mono-tonal. The addition of a couple of drones would be inspiring.
I agree with the comments you made on the Jew's harp. The D tin whistle is great, but it strikes me as potentially too shrill for a ranger in the wilderness, liable to attract unwanted attention. Low D whistles are rather large too, I'm sure it could fit in a quiver. NA flutes look interesting, and you can't beat the ocarina for size.

What kind of pipes were you learning? Uilleann or Scottish? I'm assuming here...there are hundreds of kinds of pipes...

The B or A Whistle, being two or three scale degrees lower than the standard D, is far less shrill. They've both got some of the earthy qualities that the Low whistles do, without being unweildy for travel. If I can make it to the ranger moot this summer/fall, I'm bringing my Bodhran along too. We could all use some rhythm!