Kevin Fraser Bagpipes – The Man in the Kilt
Loud Pipes Save Lives!
An octave is eight notes (whole tones).
In the physics realm of music, going up one octave is the doubling of the frequency of the pitch.
Concert B flat (standard pitch tuning for concert bands and orchestras) uses 440 HZ (Herz – cycles per second) for the A, otherwise known as A440. The next octave up, the A would have 880Hz.
The bagpipe Low A is tuned near the B flat of the A440 scale which would be about 477Hz.
Practice chanters are sensitive to extreme temperatures.
Make sure you always separate joints by grabbing onto the top and bottom of the joint immediately beside the joint before you twist. DO NOT leave a great space between your hands. The stress of the twisting motion can cause the chanter (or other part like a drone) to break, especially if it is wood.
On the newer practice chanters that are plastic, they usually have rubber o-rings for sealing the joint so hemping isn’t normally required. However, on wooden chanters it is required. Due to the air pressure required for the reed to sound, we need to ensure that the joint between the top section and the bottom section is as airtight as possible. This is accomplished by wrapping the pin with hemp. The hemp is coated with paraffin or bees wax to help make the hemp water resistent so that it doesn’t rot. The hemp also helps prevent the hemp from spinning on the pin.
To hemp the joint:
Form a loop with the hemp. The top of the loop is at one end of the pin and the free end of the loop is at the other. At the free end, start wrapping the pin with hemp by filling in the grooves (practice chanters that need to be hemped will have grooves). Once you have wrapped to the loop end, you insert the running end of the hemp through the loop, and then pull it under the wrappings by pulling on the free end of the hemp.
Continue adding layers of hemp as required such that the top section will fit snugly on the bottom section.
NOTE: If you haven’t used pre-waxed hemp, you will need to wax each layer of hemp as you have finished the layer.
Wipe down the outside of the chanter.
Wipe down the seat and around the pin (inner part of joint).
Insert your cloth up into the upper section of the chanter to absorb moisture that may be in the chanter.
You may also need to hold the bottom section upside down so that moisture drains from the chanter.
Wipe down the reed.
If there is moisture in the reed (it makes a gurgling sound when played) you can blow from the staple end of the reed and this will blow most of the moisture out of the reed.
Don’t use harsh chemicals on your chanter. Usually wiping the chanter down swill suffice, but if that isn’t sufficient, use luke warm water with a very mild soap.
Carefully line up the base section and the top section. Ensuring that you don’t scrape the reed on the inside of the top section, insert the base into the top so that the pin on the base is snugly in the top.
Store your practice chanter in a cool dry location. I usually store my chanter in my pipe case.
When experiencing something, our mind puts the experience, knowledge, etc into short term memory. If we process something three times, the memory becomes stronger. The next time we sleep, those memories are then moved into long term memory.
The more often we process something, the stronger the memory becomes. If we process something similar but slightly different, we now have 2 memories competing against each other. To reduce this internal competition and to strengthen the true memory we want, we need to compare what we learned versus what we wanted to learn. In terms of music, this means comparing what we played versus what we were trying to play.
We will take the bigger picture parts of piping, and break them down into smaller chunks so that we can focus on small items. This focus will allow us to process it enough times to get the knowledge or technique into long term memory.
To enable our best learning, we need to have Ownership, Enjoyment of the activity, and intrinsic Motivation. If we don’t have these 3 things, we aren’t going to put the effort in to master what we are learning.
Sound is vibrations that are within the range of human hearing. When an object vibrates, it displaces a medium like air. The moving air then moves parts of your ear which is translated into an auditory signal in your brain.
On the bagpipes, sound is created by the air moving past the lips of the reed. This causes the lips to vibrate, leading to the sound produced.
If an object vibrates at one frequency it has what is called a pure tone. When the object vibrates at multiple frequencies at the same time and there is a mathmatical relationship between the frequencies, you have a rich tone. If the ratios between frequencies is not whole numbers, you end up with noise.
The pitch is determined by the frequency or frequencies of the vibrating object. Since the speed of sound is constant in a medium, the frequency is strictly dependent on the wavelength.
frequency = speed / wavelength
In an instrument, the wavelength is determined by the length of the tube that the vibrating air is passing through. The longer the tube, the smaller the frequency (less vibrations per second) and therefore the lower the pitch of the sound. Another example of this though not sound producing is a pendulum (think clock). The longer the pendulum arm, the slower the swing. A guitar string is the same; the shorter the string, the higher the frequency.
Further details as it applies to bagpipes can be found at https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/w/index.php?title=Acoustic_resonance .
While the pipe chanter is a cone, the open tube is close enough for both the chanter and the drones. The theory around False Tones also applies, as you can get harmonics out of the drones if the tuning aligns just right.
On the chanter, we alter the length of the tube by covering or uncovering the holes with our fingers. The more fingers that are down sequentially, the longer the tube and therefore the longer the wavelength resulting in a lower frequency.
A musical note is more than just the base frequency – there are overtones that make up the tone of the note. The first (strongest) harmonic is a perfect octave (2x the frequency) of the main frequency. The next overtone is 3/2 the frequency. The exact mix of the overtones is what changes the tone (overall sound i.e. tonal quality) of the note from warm to cold. When all of the overtones are added together you end up with the waveform of the sound.
Computer generated waveforms are square, but non square ones can be simulated by adding a whole bunch of really short square ones at appropriately different strengths to make the round/triangle/ waveforms desired.
Below is the elementary setting of Mairi’s Wedding.
Chorus
Step we gaily on we go
Heel for heel and toe for toe
Arm in arm and row on row
All for Mairi’s wedding.
Over hillways up and down
Myrtle green and bracken brown
Past the shieling through the town
All for sake of Mairi.
Chorus
Red her cheeks as rowans are
Bright her eye as any star
Fairest of them all by far
Is my darlin’ Mairi.
Chorus
Plenty herring, plenty meal
Plenty peat to fill her creel
Plenty bonny bairns as weel
That’s the toast of Mairi.
Chorus (Twice)
Seeking some input from pipers and those that want to learn how to play the pipes! Anyone who fills in the quick few questions will receive a free lesson! Ensure you are logged in to get the credit for the survey response.
Seeking some input from pipers and those that want to learn how to play the pipes! Anyone who fills in the quick few questions will receive a free lesson! Ensure you are logged in to get the credit for the survey response.
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While some of the details are slightly incorrect, it is a very nice article. For example, I’ve been teaching for 20 years, not that I am 20 years old. I started teaching seriously 2 years ago. Dad took over a militia unit, not a military base, great grandparents came from Scotland… But otherwise 🙂 … Continue reading “The interview with the Echo has been published”
While some of the details are slightly incorrect, it is a very nice article. For example, I've been teaching for 20 years, not that I am 20 years old. I started teaching seriously 2 years ago. Dad took over a militia unit, not a military base, great grandparents came from Scotland... But otherwise :)
http://www.airdrieecho.com/2015/01/27/bagpiper-passes-on-music-knowledge
I was just interviewed by a writer for the Echo. The article is expected to be in next week’s paper, though it might be delayed a week. We spoke about Scottish Culture, heritage, the bagpipes, learning the pipes, etc.
I was just interviewed by a writer for the Echo. The article is expected to be in next week's paper, though it might be delayed a week. We spoke about Scottish Culture, heritage, the bagpipes, learning the pipes, etc.
As it is the season, I’ve started looking at what traditional Christmas Carols will work on the pipes. Note, the “play” button may not show but it is to the left of the time indicator. First up, Jingle Bells and Oh Christmas Tree.
As it is the season, I've started looking at what traditional Christmas Carols will work on the pipes.
Note, the “play” button may not show but it is to the left of the time indicator.
First up, Jingle Bells
and Oh Christmas Tree.
Same as with my last post, I did some sounds effect editing (eq, treble boost, etc) to try and smooth out the quality of recording (vice quality of playing 🙂 ) on a 3 part harmony. This one fades out, so it sounds like the band is marching away 🙂 Here, without the fade, … Continue reading “Steam Train to Mallaig, 3 part harmony”
Same as with my last post, I did some sounds effect editing (eq, treble boost, etc) to try and smooth out the quality of recording (vice quality of playing :) ) on a 3 part harmony.
This one fades out, so it sounds like the band is marching away 🙂
Here, without the fade, but more post processing…
For comparison, here is just the Melody, no post-processing.