new pipe music collection

[OC Richard]

Is it (the key) always the same (since you can't easily change the drones - can you?) and you certainly can't direct the drones to rest

You bring up an interesting aspect of most piping traditions: playing in a number of keys over a fixed drone.

So, thinking of the written pitch of Highland pipe music (A Mixolydian or D Major, that is, two sharps in the key signature) the following keys/modes are relatively common, all played over the A drones:

A Mixolydian

B minor

D Major

E dorian (that is, a minor scale with a raised 6th)

G Lydian (that is, a Major scale with a raised 4th)

This last is perhaps the oddest, but is very old and deeply rooted in Highland pipe tradition. Many old piobaireachds, strathspeys, and reels are in G Lydian and modern composers are still generating new tunes in that key.

It has odd tonality in another way: the Tonic chord is G Major, the Dominant chord is A Major.

Most if not all of these tonal centres are used for various gap scales, which can give the effect of a key the pipes don't actually produce.

The most often-heard example are the vast number of tunes which the ear hears as being in A Major. In fact these tunes have no G's in them, so strictly speaking they're neither Major nor Mixolydian, but the impression is of a Major scale.

The Irish uilleann pipes, the French cabrette/cornemuse, the Bulgarian gaida, and so forth all play in a similar number of different keys over the same fixed drone note.

By the way, I was reading something about modern scholars being confused about mediaeval choir music, where two choirs were trading off singing in two different keys, and a fixed drone was mentioned. It dawned on the musicologists that the drone was playing the Tonic of neither choir.

You can imagine the effect when you think of one piper playing a tune in D Major with a drone at the 5th, and another piper playing in G Lydian with a drone at the 2nd, both drones being the same note, A.