Worst piper in the band

[OC Richard]

I played an entire rehearsal with all three drones.

It's a "dirty little secret" ... but you would be surprised how many upper-grade bands have all the pipers' middle tenor plugged.

The theory I've heard is that 1) it helps bring out the bass and 2) it helps bring out the chanters... like the "V" seen on the EQs on some mixing boards.

Some bands, when tuning up, even go through the charade of pretending to tune the (silent) middle tenor, because oftentimes when a band is tuning up they're being watched by the other bands.

Note, when watching a top band doing the drone tuning process, whether or not the middle tenors (for some mysterious reason) require less time to tune than the other drones

[Jack Daw]

It's a "dirty little secret" ... but you would be surprised how many upper-grade bands have all the pipers' middle tenor plugged.

The theory I've heard is that 1) it helps bring out the bass and 2) it helps bring out the chanters... like the "V" seen on the EQs on some mixing boards.

Some bands, when tuning up, even go through the charade of pretending to tune the (silent) middle tenor, because oftentimes when a band is tuning up they're being watched by the other bands.

Note, when watching a top band doing the drone tuning process, whether or not the middle tenors (for some mysterious reason) require less time to tune than the other drones

Well now, that's letting the cat out of the bag....so to speak.