I’m not even sure I know why a person would want to try, but if I wanted to play along with some pipers, what whistle would I use? With my limited knowledge and brainpower I’ve concluded it would be a high F. Right? And whatever the correct answer is, does it even make any sense to think about doing it? Or would it be the equivalent of a male chihuahua trying to strike up a really close interpersonal friendship with a female Irish wolfhound?
By the way, this is not only my first post at chiffandfipple, but my first anywhere, so I’d really welcome some reinforcing response. Thanks.
This was part of the “Whistle Jokes” thread:
On 2002-06-09 21:51, rossmpfc13 wrote:
On 2002-06-08 15:58, Rod Sprague wrote:
On 2002-06-08 15:19, rossmpfc13 wrote:
Q-A whistle player and a piper fall off of the Empire State building. Who hits the ground first?
-RossWhat is the appropriate tune to play if you have been throw from a tail building and find you have a piper to accompany you? Aren’t most pipes tuned to something close to Bb? The best I could think of was Amazing Grace, but you would probably hit the ground before you were done.
ha.
Well, the Highland pipes are somewhere between a Bb and an A. I think you can get tunable ones. Well, they’re all tunable. But to a concert pitch.
If I was thrown from a tall building, I would play Ashokan Farewell by Jay Ungar.
lol
-Ross
A tunable F whistle might work, I think.
Hi there!
I might be able to help a little bit…
I’ve had to play guitar with bagpipes before, so I was forced to figure out excactly how a bagpipe relates to other instruments.
The bagpipe scale, starting at A, has an F# and a C#, just like the D major scale! So if the bagpipes are tuned to concert A, you should be able to just play a D whistle along with them. If the pipes are pitched around Bb, probably an Eb whistle tuned sharp would work best.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Forest
I agree with Forest. If you are really going to play with highland pipes you probably will want an Eb whistle as it has all the notes of the bagpipe scale. Some people like Bb though even though it is missing the lowest note of the pipe scale. I have played with small pipes tuned in A and found a D whistle to be satisfactory. It’s nice to play with small pipes because they aren’t as loud as highland pipes. Shuttle pipes are good too. I think they’re tuned in A. They aren’t loud at all.
I’m not sure why you’d want an F whistle. You and the piper would be playing different scales.
Steve
I’ve done it before (yes, recovered very nicely, thank you) and second the last post: Eb or Bb. The lower Bb flat is a bit more pleasing to the ears, but that might not be a consideration, since you are already subjecting your audience to the GHB. The Eb is able to play the Ab (xxx ooo), but realize that you can do just as well on the Bb whistle, if you play any Ab’s an octave up (oxxxox on a Gen Bb).
I recommend earplugs, by the way (and that is not a joke).
On 2002-07-18 08:31, Bloomfield wrote:
I recommend earplugs, by the way (and that is not a joke).
Wimp! 
-David
Pardon me, what did you say? I couldn’t hear you.
How about a 12" Mance Grady Highland bodhran. Vance makes this size to play along with the pipes, that way you wouldn’t have to worry about which key to play in.
Bodhrans make life life easy.
MarkB
It should have read Mance Grady.
Nemo
[ This Message was edited by: MarkB on 2002-07-18 11:19 ]
Sorry Bloomfield. I couldn’t resist 
Hey if the piper can stand being so close…y’know. GHB isn’t as bad volume-wise as some other European pipes. Take the Breton biniou. Louder than GHB and an octave higher (ouch!). A pipemaker friend of mine brought a gaita pitched in D that he had made to an Amherst session once (and only once thank God). Practically peeled the paint of the walls it was so loud.
Cheers,
David
[ This Message was edited by: Feadan on 2002-07-18 10:50 ]
On 2002-07-18 10:43, MarkB wrote:
Bodhrans make life life easy.
Unless you like actually having friends. 
Ah Bloomfield I knew you would rise to the occassion.Your rants against bodhran players are widely known on this board.
MarkB
Well, I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Anyway, sorry if it gets to be a bit grating, it’s all in good fun. Some of my best friends are bodhran players.
Best!
Feadan, just saw you’re response. At that very same Amherst session, several weeks in a row, a GHB piper showed up and actually played. Let me just say that I think he was rushing the 7-years/7-years/7-years thing a bit. I can appreciate music as well as the next guy without clinging to such old-fashioned concepts as melody and rhythm. But the sheer volume was amazing. Amazingly painful. I actually like the term War Pipes, because it suggests that that thing should be played on a battle field, and not in a crowded 1000-square-foot pub.
BTW: Welcome Durt! Both to the wonderful world of whistling and zaney realm of Undisputed Online Whiste Journalism.
Actually Bloomfield I have admonished my bodhran students in a session, if I thought that they were playing to fast, to loud, or just weren’t listening to the music being played. But at the same time I have also told them to stop playing if other musicians start to blaze to fast rather than try to keep up.
In gigs we have done, I have stopped playing on stage if the other players are speeding up to the point were the tune is almost unregonizable.
And I have accompanied pipes on the bodhran indoors, not nearly as loud as a snare drum or as sharp.
Mark
On 2002-07-18 11:16, Bloomfield wrote:
Feadan, just saw you’re response. At that very same Amherst session, several weeks in a row, a GHB piper showed up and actually played.
I was talking about an Old Amherst Alehouse session years ago. A good GHB player would be sensitive to the fact that it is not a session instrument and not do repeated performances that way. No wonder you wanted earplugs. Your ears must’ve been ringing afterwards.
-David
P.S. I have to say as a bodhran player I have always found your quips quite funny!
I remember when I told my Mom that I wanted to learn the Highland bagpipes, because after all, it is a double reed, and I needed to learn a double reed…
her response was:
“NOT WHILE YOU’RE UNDER MY ROOF!!!”
I play Highland pipes and I have to agree, it’s not an optimal session instrument. A bagpipe can be reeded to be fairly tolerable volume wise but even then it takes a different sort of piper to play with other instruments. Most of your pipe band and solo pipers would have a hard time with it. In B.C. a couple weeks ago I was at a good session but it was just pipes, dumbek, and djembe (and a drunken, old lady falling down while she danced). It was good fun and quite loud but the majority of the crowd were pipers and drummers themselves. And for those who wear earplugs, I know lots of pipers who wear them while they play so your not as wimpy as some would say.
But outside of the session environment, such as at a concert, even the pipes are amplified. At Tannahill Weavers or Clandestine concerts the piper’s chanter and drones have microphones and go through the mix board with the rest of the instruments.
Slainte!
Aaron
[ This Message was edited by: AaronMalcomb on 2002-07-18 15:54 ]
I too am a piper(but play swing tenor drum with a local band) and probably half of the band pipers wear ear plugs during practice. Our pipe major just recently had a hearing test and had significant loss. He’s now one of the pipers with ear plugs. If you think one piper indoors is loud try 12. That’s painful and beyond. Especially when, for some reason, an awful lot of pipers have trouble KEEPING THE BEAT.Maybe it’s because after the 7/7/7 thing they really can no longer hear?
Yeah, it’s been done before. Check out some Battlefield Band, or Tannehill Weavers CDs
Phizz