Scottish pipes with two chanters

[OC Richard]

Here's a thing I cooked up recently.

I had a set of Cornish Doublepipes but I really wanted something that uses Scottish fingering.

So I got two Gibson practice chanters and plugged some of the holes so that there's one chanter for each hand.

The great thing about ordinary Highland Bagpipe fingering is that whenver one hand is fingering a melody note the other hand is in effect fingering Low A. So with this doublepipe I can play any ordinary bagpipe tune using ordinary bagpipe fingering and an constant Low A happens automatically, what's called a "virtual drone".

But, at will, you can play harmonies simply by playing a note with the other hand that harmonises with the melody note.

Here's a video I did the other day demonstrating this thing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4lw8-3Jf9w

The first time through that part of that jig there's a fixed A drone under the melody, but on the repeat I'm holding open long C#s and Ds to make a simple harmony.

[chasem]

I like that! Sounds great.

[thescot]

I really like what you put up there, OC.

I'm just confused trying to follow it all.

[BoldHighlander]

That was cool!

[OC Richard]

Here's another tune, the Christmas carol Adeste Fideles or O Come All Ye Faithful.

It's cool when a nice descant/countermelody line can be found that works as a harmony. In this case the low hand is playing D C# B A B C# D while the upper hand is playing the melody at the start of the second phrase.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8MDtCMlPRQ

I'm going to try to get Gibson to make me a pair of cocobolo A smallpipe chanters with certain holes missing so that this thing will play in a more normal key and also look more like a Renaissance pipe.

There are numerous carvings around Britain showing that bagpipes with two chanters were quite common at one time. For some reason they died out leaving only single chanter pipes.

[Dram]

Here's a thing I cooked up recently.

I had a set of Cornish Doublepipes but I really wanted something that uses Scottish fingering.

So I got two Gibson practice chanters and plugged some of the holes so that there's one chanter for each hand.

The great thing about ordinary Highland Bagpipe fingering is that whenver one hand is fingering a melody note the other hand is in effect fingering Low A. So with this doublepipe I can play any ordinary bagpipe tune using ordinary bagpipe fingering and an constant Low A happens automatically, what's called a "virtual drone".

But, at will, you can play harmonies simply by playing a note with the other hand that harmonises with the melody note.


I like it a lot Richard. I recognize that last tune. Wasn't it popular in the 1990's?

Here's a video I did the other day demonstrating this thing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4lw8-3Jf9w

The first time through that part of that jig there's a fixed A drone under the melody, but on the repeat I'm holding open long C#s and Ds to make a simple harmony.

[BoldHighlander]

Here's another tune, the Christmas carol Adeste Fideles or O Come All Ye Faithful.

I really liked that Richard!

I'm going to try to get Gibson to make me a pair of cocobolo A smallpipe chanters with certain holes missing so that this thing will play in a more normal key and also look more like a Renaissance pipe.

There are numerous carvings around Britain showing that bagpipes with two chanters were quite common at one time. For some reason they died out leaving only single chanter pipes.

I remember seeing some of those illustrations. Who knows, you just might just usher back in a resurgence of these long missing pipes

[OC Richard]

There has been a resurgence of British doublepipes going on for some years, mostly centred around reviving the extinct Cornish pipes.

There are a number of church carvings around Cornwall showing pipers playing double-chantered pipes, dating to the Renaissance period. This has led to the inference that these doublepipes where perhaps associated specifically with Cornwall in some way.

So a number of makers have been making these things, which of course are largely hypothetical in their details, as no actual instruments survive.

I used to own a set of Julian Goodacre's Cornish Doublepipes. His are based on the famous Alternun Church pew end carving, showing a musician in full Renaissance livery playing a set with two very long cylindrical chanters of unequal length. Other Cornish carvings show more normal-sized chanters of equal length, evidently sllightly conical. These Cornish pipes seem to always have a single drone, up on the shoulder.

But carvings of double-chanter pipes exist all over England, and also in Scotland, showing that these things were once widespread.

What I'm doing different is getting a set going which uses ordinary Scottish fingering, simply for my own convenience.

[Highlander31]

...It's cool when a nice descant/countermelody line can be found that works as a harmony. In this case the low hand is playing D C# B A B C# D while the upper hand is playing the melody at the start of the second phrase.

Very nice sound.

I'm going to try to get Gibson to make me a pair of cocobolo A smallpipe chanters with certain holes missing so that this thing will play in a more normal key and also look more like a Renaissance pipe.

Gibson says, they are willing to do any custom work. Are you going to use the stock two tenors and the bass drone configuration, or will you be replacing one of the tenor drones with Gibson's baritone drone?

[mull]

Fabulous sounds. I hope you post many more for us to share.