I'm still trying to find a way to be comfortable and this evening nothing worked. It occurs to me that the advice I've seen and been given to wear the bellows as high as possible isn't helpful. The bellows surely need to be adjacent to your elbow, and where that sits depends on the relative length of your arms and body. Actually I see that pipe makers Richard and Anita Evans recommend having the bellows just above your right elbow.
Wearing the bellows low I am still resting my forearm or wrist on the side, which hurts, because I press, rather than rest, the arm to get at the chanter. Looking at picture of other pipers most hold their arms well clear of the bellows. At least, small pipers do, Uilleann pipers all seem to lay their forearms along the bellows...
The bellows also slide around my waist, but I don't think I fancy pulling the strap much tighter. However I am definitely using the bag to control air flow better when the bellows are sitting lower. And setting the bellows lower, to stop me continuing to push the outer half down, is what started this whole thing in the first place.
I'm not sure that looking at other pipers is helping. I think that everyone will hold their pipes in a way that suits the size and shape of their instrument and their own body. It's a very physically intimate instrument in some ways, being cuddled into your body on each side and the drones at the front. There is a way for the two of us to fit together, the monkey and I, without damage to either of us. We'll find it eventually.
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