[Trombone-l] Bagpipes (was Bone guys that play other horns)

[Wessner, John]

Ther is a guy here in Balto, Jared Denhard who is a fine trombonist and arranger and has made a name for himself as a celtic piper. (He plays with our mayor's celtic rock band.)  My wife hired him for a dedcation once and we were going to do a trombone/pipe duet after he marched the people in.  Unfortunately, the program ran long and his composing and our rehearsal were for naught.
jw

-----Original Message-----
From: trombone-l-bounces at server5.samford.edu
[mailto:trombone-l-bounces at server5.samford.edu]On Behalf Of Adrian
Drover
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 7:31 PM
To: 'Keith Marr'; trombone-l at server5.samford.edu
Subject: Re: [Trombone-l] Bagpipes (was Bone guys that play other horns)




> From: Keith Marr
> 
> The Highland bagpipe has three drones, the usual configuration of which is
> two drones tuned to A (5th line of bass clef), and one to A (first space
> bass clef). The chanter plays the "white keys" of the piano from G (2nd
> line
> treble clef) up to A (1st ledger line above treble clef). It follows that
> most bagpipe music is roughly in A major/minor/Aeolian mode. I say roughly
> as the tuning isn't to an even tempered scale. The bagpipes have their own
> unique scale. Hence the untuneful impression to sassenachs like Adrian.



There seems to be a lot of confusion regarding the tuning and scale of the
pipes.  I once had to write an arrangement of "Auld Lang Syne" for Pipes and
orchestra.  I was fortunate in that the solo piper was also a clarinet
player with the Scottish Symphony Orchestra so was able to give me the
complete lowdown.

I was instructed to write the score in Eb.  He also told me that the bagpipe
part is normally transposed down half a tone using the D major scale.  The
diatonic scale has no half tone steps as the C# and F# are tuned a quarter
tone flat (by Western standards) which provides the scale with four
three-quarter tone steps.  Alternately the scale can be written all on the
white notes which would mean C and F being a quarter tone sharp.

A.


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