Thank you for these insights. This is a natural fit for the low A flute of which I had not been aware.
Do you think that other players of GHB would be interested in knowing about the Casey Burns low A flute option? If so, could you recommend a forum for posting this kind of information for the GHB community?
Many thanks,
Grey
GHB (Gamma Hydroxy Butrate)
… In recent years there has been a resurgence of a popular street drug called GHB. … Some people report an increased appreciation for music, dancing, …
I swore off of it years ago.
I knew I had a problem when I would wake up at 4 AM thinking “It’s an E gracenote, not a D!”
Ok, here’s some more clarification on that whole bagpipe issue. The bagpipe scale is in fact in its completeness called A-Mixolydian (a mode not a key). It is capable of playing partial scales in E, Bb, D etc. etc. Hence there is a minor and major cord on the bagpipe.
In the training of GHB pipers however, there is rarely a solid instruction in musical theory. Enough of a grounding for reading music, and understanding time signatures, but many pipers still need to hear what they are trying to play first.
All bagpipe music is written in one scale, from low G to high A, 1 and 1 7th of an octave. Thus, most of us never bother to learn to read music in other keys.
Now to the issue of A whistles and flutes for pipers. Our instrument truly is pitched in Bb sortof (around A=472). But we play an A scale (A-A + low G) the same idea as a whistle with an extra hole below the bell note (on Bb whistle Ab). The low G is in fact the bell note of the chanter, however very few tunes start on it, and most actually start on the A. A piper’s two most common starting positions are E and low A (occassionally high A). So for us an A whistle or flute is essentially identical to our pipe playing except that we don’t have the low G, which we use sparingly anyway.
I hope this helps, I made the conversion to playing whistles and flutes, and did the same thing with an A susato, eventually you pick up enough that you start reading and playing other keys.
Beannacht leat
Though I am interested in the low flutes (Bb and A) it would not be for playing GHB tunes. I find that I use that low G a lot. Although a key would fix that problem quite easily. The Breton bombarde players use a key to play that note.
I find that the GHB repertoire doesn’t mix well on flute and whistle. If at all, it would be note-for-note in which case Eb is the pitch you want. If any GHB tunes come up in a session (Atholl Highlanders, Brenda Stubbert, etc) I find it a great opportunity to sit and listen or have another pint. If I want to play them that badly I’ll get some smallpipes.
You may or may not know, Grey, that your tune “Thunderhead” enjoys another life in the GHB repertoire under the name “Brest St. Mark.” I guess that bagad made it popular on pipes. There is even a wild version which drops into 7/8 time on certain bars.
Cheers,
Aaron
I’m just entirely addicted to Mixolydian, and I find myself missing that flattened low 7th a bunch on a flute (in D anyway).
Hrrm. Throw the equivalent of an F natural and you could get low A dorian . . .
Really simply, what I was getting at is that for a piper to pick up an A whistle and realize that he only lacks low G and that the high A is oxxxxx, makes for an easy transition.
And the pipes are like anything else, not all of their repertoire will fit the whistle, it really depends on what you are dealing with.
As far as the use of the low G, yes of course it comes up rather often and we do use it alot. But to forget about it in terms of gracings, the A whistle is still quite a good flip. Yes for tunes that have Low G as a fully valued note there’s not a real substitute.
Still, for someone without the background to play in D etc. its one way to go.
Beannacht leat
It depends on your perspective. Your A Mixolydian “bagpipe scale” (as you said) is the dominant scale in the key of D major or the leading note scale in the key of B nat. minor.
Generally speaking, in the quaint chromatic-unfriendly western music staff notation system, people will find A Mixolydian written in D major / B nat. minor key signatures.
People often confuse the termimology relating to keys and key signature because of short cuts used to describe things. For instance, a key signature is a “programming” of the staves of the western notation system. But that does not mean all the music in the programmed staves will have the keynote used to describe the signature. That is a separate issue.
To say that A mixolydian is not a key is about as non sequitur as saying D Ionian (D Major) is not a key. A Mixo and D Ionian are in the key (when this means “key signature”) of D major/B nat. minor. And, when we mean keynote or tonic by the word “key”, then A Mixo. is obviously in A and D Major is in D.
(Hello - Mrs T here- I think, at this point, it would be useful to say that A Mixolydian is a Mixolydian scale beginning with the note A.)
(She’s on holidays and at home. “She who must be obeyed”!
I have to go weed the garden now … )
She has a science degree major in zoology. This is how we met! 
A note to say that I played Grey’s A flute body when he
received it; it’s remarkable in that the A and the Bb bodies
finger almost the same, no sense of an additional
stretch to play the A.
Also I have a CB boxwood C, which is simply
lovely.
Back on the topic of the Burns low flutes, do y’all think that getting metal rings is pretty much a necessity for it? I’ve always heard that on a wooden flute it’s a very bad idea to not have something to counteract the swelling of the wood.
I don’t think that it’s necessary if the area around the joints is thicker, like on the CB flutes. They are reamed so that the outside diameter is bigger around there, the wood will not be as weak as if the wood would be thinner there, which it would be if the outside diameter wouldn’t compensate for the thinner wood of the sockets. 
Not the answer my wallet wanted to hear. Yer bad, Henke. Got me into the M&E and now maybe a Burns.
I was speaking from a standpoint of terminology. Whereby A mixolydian is a mode, and is not classified as a key. True, it is a full an excellent scale. However, there are other partial scales on the bagpipe, this is just the complete one that it has available. And some tunes do work out that way, where the six finger plus high note transition works on D, others however do not and work on an A whistle.
Having done that myself prior to learning more of theory, that’s just how it can pan out.
Anyway, thanks everyone for your Burns flute ideas, I think I may wait for the tuning slide.
Beannacht leat Mark
Are you thinking about getting keys for it? I was thinking that a Cnat (IE same position as Fnat on a D flute) would be really handy for playing in a session - as it would provide all the notes available on a D flute.
Really, what I meant with the previous post was that you can cope without the rings cause the wood is thicker (reinforced) anyway. Having said that, I personally would have the rings on there anyway, because I prefer a flute that is not all wood.