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Hey everyone,
This is exciting to find all of these people interested in Gaidas! Ok, So I bought a new Gaida from Bulgariana.com and everything looks great, except the reeds seem to be broken. They look great but when I try to blow on them it takes MASSIVE amounts of air to even produce a sound. When I stick it in the chanter its almost impossible to get any sound out of it. If I take use all of my energy with HUGE amounts of pressure on it, I can get a sound, but not more than a few seconds of it...... and don't even think about putting it in the bag! The pressure that comes from the bag is not enough to make any sound....
Where can I get good reeds?
any insights into this problem??
I would prefer not to go through bulgariana.com just because it takes so dang long to get anything. I ordered my gaida on 10/23/07 and didn't receive it until 1/31/08.....yeah...
This is exciting to find all of these people interested in Gaidas! Ok, So I bought a new Gaida from Bulgariana.com and everything looks great, except the reeds seem to be broken. They look great but when I try to blow on them it takes MASSIVE amounts of air to even produce a sound. When I stick it in the chanter its almost impossible to get any sound out of it. If I take use all of my energy with HUGE amounts of pressure on it, I can get a sound, but not more than a few seconds of it...... and don't even think about putting it in the bag! The pressure that comes from the bag is not enough to make any sound....
Where can I get good reeds?
any insights into this problem??
I would prefer not to go through bulgariana.com just because it takes so dang long to get anything. I ordered my gaida on 10/23/07 and didn't receive it until 1/31/08.....yeah...
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Re: Gaida Reeds?
Thu, January 31, 2008 - 4:51 PM<I ordered my gaida on 10/23/07 and didn't receive it until 1/31/08>
Yeah, that sounds about right. I think Bulgariana gets their stuff shipped directly from Bulgaria ... by donkey.
I wish I could help you, but ... my replacement reeds came from Bulgariana, too. I have more-or-less successfully rehabilitated cheap, sticking reeds by unwinding and rewinding the strings a little less tightly ... I've also taken a business card or playing card and slipped it beneath the tongue and left it like that over night; this seemed to loosen up the tongue just enough to allow it to play ... but there are much more knowledgeable players on thsi tribe who'll probably offer you much better advice ...
Good luck! -
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Re: Gaida Reeds?
Thu, January 31, 2008 - 5:29 PMthanks for your post, much appreciated, I will give those tricks a try. It just seems like there is no way the gaida can build up that much pressure to play with the reeds that came with it! -
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Re: Gaida Reeds?
Sun, March 2, 2008 - 6:25 AMHello ! Excellent reeds can be had from two San Francisco gaida makers
(who are both very fine players as well):
Hector Bezanis - (510) 234-1880
Vasil Bebelekov (you can get his coordinates from Bezanis ...)
Wishing you success, Sasho -
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Re: Gaida Reeds?
Wed, June 4, 2008 - 1:26 AMThank you so much for your help! i will contact them!! -
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Re: Gaida Reeds?
Thu, April 30, 2009 - 6:56 AMI agree with what's been said, a local expert is the best option at first .....and then look into making reads for yourself, it's not black magic; just a lot of fiddling and trial and error, i recently managed to make a reasonable elder chanter reed for my Kaba Gaida and i've got a GHB bass reed in the drone with a sort of muffler at the other end because it was playing too high and loud. I was told that the pipe makers gather the elder twigs in the winter, cut them into lenghts and let them dry slowly for a year.
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