Hi all! I was at a session recently when the piper’s bass drone slide fell off and drone sounded a perfect G drone, much to his delight! I’ve seen this on a few occasions over the years where the piper would remove the bass drone slide and the drone would sound a G note. I’ve only seen it happen in the past on Dave Williams, Marcus Coulter & Alan Ginsberg’s sets. Does anyone know how this is achieved? I noticed a lot of the time the piper is not aware of it and discovers it by chance!
Yeah, on my set of drones removing the bass slide makes it about the right length for a G. I had it nicely tuned at one point, but now my G is sharp, so I need to adjust the micro-tuning screw on my reed to get it in tune.
I think most sets can do this, all you need is for the drone minus the slide to be the right length, and a reed that can be adjusted a bit.
Also, I discovered it by chance as well!
I tried to do it with the bass drone of my D set but it didn’t work, so I had the maker add a 4th drone which can be adjusted to play G, A and Bb. I can get some lovely rich tones with the 4th drone. The G/A option works great with the D chanter.
The Bb option is great when I play with my Bb chanter, and I tune the D bari and tenor drones up to Eb.
Hendrik Morgenbrodt’s nifty solution for a G Bass drone. My set of his make has this feature.
The G Switch is on a separate tuning slide from the puck, so you can be sure that your G and D are both in tune without fussing with the reed any extra. Sounds terrific :+)