[Trombone-l] Bone guys that play other horns

[ROBERT SLAVEN]

The drones of the bagpipes are tuned to A.  There are two tenor drones, and a bass drone which is an octave lower.  I think the tenor is the A below middle C, but I might be wrong on that.

The chanter plays 9 notes from G (below middle C?) to A (above middle C?).  They're notated as just G-A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A, notated as G above middle C up to A on the first leger line above the treble clef.  However, they aren't your grandma's well-tempered notes.  The F and C could be called sharps (and are sometimes notated as such), and the scale as a whole is more Pythagorean than well-tempered.

For practice, one usually has a "practice chanter", which looks like a long skinny recorder.  The full set of pipes has a mouthpiece (like the top end of a practice chanter), the chanter (like the bottom end of a practice chanter), and the three drones.

I suppose one could change key by changing chanters (and changing or retuning drones), but I've never heard of anyone ever doing it.

Robert

----- Original Message -----
From: John Noxon <jnoxon at verizon.net>
Date: Monday, April 17, 2006 12:55 pm
Subject: Re: [Trombone-l] Bone guys that play other horns

> Do you have to wear something "special" under the Kilt to play 
> bagpipes? If
> you wear just anything people may think it is a horrible monster 
> attacking a
> helpless old lady.
> 
> j
> 
> Now for the serious question what are the pipes and the drones 
> usually tuned
> to. Do they make pipes in different keys or how does that work. 
> Change key
> by changing the canter I think it is called? Does anybody know how 
> thesethings work? I have always thought it would be fun to have a 
> set to mess
> with for a little while, just to see what they are like. Probably 
> make more
> money with those instead of being a bone player!
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Adrian Drover [slide at adios.co.uk]
> Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 1:46 AM
> To: 'Wayne Dyess'; 'John Noxon'
> Cc: trombone-l at server5.samford.edu
> Subject: RE: [Trombone-l] Bone guys that play other horns
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > From: Wayne Dyess
> >
> > Adrian Drover was just being shy.
> >
> > He left off BAGPIPES.
> >
> > Shame on you, Adrian!
> 
> 
> Wayne, if I did play the bagpipes nobody would be able to tell 
> whether I was
> good or not at it.
> 
> A.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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