Chiff and Fipple Forums

Beg my foregiveness on posting here, but I really didn't know which forum would be best to post my question. Thinking that there are some x-highland pipers or upipers here that might have some knowledge or words of wisdom to pass on.

My question is this: A young woman has joined our session, with a set of Scottish small pipes with the chanter in D, she also plays the highland pipes. But trying to play along with her (with fiddle, flute and whistles) in tunes in the key of D, it doesn't sound right.

Is the tuning in D on her small pipes somewhat different from what we would expect for an Irish flute or whistle?

Is there a way to play along with this instrument in a session.

I don't have any music theory background or enough experience to figure it out, all I know is that it doesn't sound right when we play with her.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

MarkB

First off, check a D scale on her small pipes against an uilleann pipe or D whistle. If that's in tune, the problem gets more difficult. You or the other musicians will have to find tunes that are based on a D to D scale(with C natural) instead of A to A or G to G. If her barritone drone is playing, it is blowing a constant A. This would really clash with something like Peter Street Reel or Garret Barry's. She's just going to have to learn to lay out on tunes that don't work with the limited scale of a highland like(but in D) set up.
Marc B.

a lot of the tunes played on the small pipes are slighty different from the whistle, up, fiddle tune.
Because the small pipes just have 1 octave and one note, some part of a tune can be played on the third or forth, or something different from the original tune ...
Before the Up, I tried to play small pipes on session, but it was pretty hard ! but when possible, very nice

Check out Yahoo! groups: bellowpipes.
Those guys have alot of knowledge with borderpipes as well as smallpipes.
I've asked similar questions at that group, but responses were way over my head.
Marcpipes and Birl seem to have a grasp on it.When I play my smallpipes in sessions, we just play the tunes that we can collectively figure out..... very
technical, I know.
War.

Another possibility is that her pipes are not tuned to a=440Hz concert pitch, as the (traditional) highland pipes aren't. They say they're in A, but in modern concert pitch they are more or less at Bb.
Just had this issue with a set of Nurthumbrian Smallpipes.

If they're smallpipes in D, then they're in D. Whether she's actually in tune is another matter entirely...

To clarify the NSP tuning issues, the traditional key is somewhere around F# but there are sets in concert G and F. Unfortunately for sessions, G sets are relatively rare verses F and F#ish sets. I regularly play with a guy that has a G set (with a UP Bass Drone) and it's great to play NSP repertoire as written.

John S

I have played bellows-blown SSPs for about 6 years. I found them very inflexible for playing with others: limited to 9 notes, nonstandard tuning, etc. It's one of the reasons I am learning UPs. (Now my challenge is to develop a large enough repertoire that I get to play a little at session.)

I find my SSPs to be a nice solo instrument, especially for indoor gigs where my GHB volume would be unwelcome. I bet a lot more people would hire out pipers if they knew they had the option of SSPs. I enjoy them very much.

Dave Jones

There's just not a lot of tunes in your average Irish session that will accomodate the limitations of Scottish smallpipes. I've played my A440 set at a session only once, and I only played on tunes which really fit the smallpipes.
I wouldn't even consider trying to fudge the melody line of a tune in order to make it fit on the smallpipes. Way too much bother and distraction for all concerned. I don't have smallpipes pitched in D, but I imagine that transposing on the fly couldn't be a whole lot of fun either, and you still have the "only nine notes" problem. I once considered acquiring a D set, but dismissed the idea since all the notes I needed to play were to be found on my trusty UP chanter - so why bother?

I would gently nudge the session smallpiper in the direction of finding a more suitable instrument for your Irish music sessions.

You might suggest that she follow the guitar player's chord progressions and play notesthat would be something like a regulator. It could be interesting.
Marc