You might enjoy this article if you’re interested in discussions on temperament or are just curious about how Ronaldo Reyburn is doing:
3 Likes
Interesting article.
Thanks for posting it.
1 Like
Great article. Now I want to hear/see two whistles played side by side, of each tuning system, through some music or note runs that demonstrate the difference. Also, it would be good to see those two whistles playing along to something that can’t change it’s tuning within a song, such as a piano or guitar, as their note relationships are set. This alternate tuning issue is a HUGE issue with harmonicas, as they are often used to play chords. A flute player can adjust the frequency of a note by altering the air stream, but that’s very difficult once the tempo of the note changes goes above a certain speed, so it’s not often used outside of slow tunes. I’d love to hear what a piano tuner has to say about this issue.
1 Like
Not trying to be argumentative here, but you actually can change tuning of notes on the fly when playing a guitar, or other fretted stringed instruments. You just flex the string with the fretting hand. People bend notes all the time.
Similarly, with free reed instruments like accordions, you usually have more than one reed for the same note, and these reeds vibrate simultaneously. Sometimes there are 3 or 4 reeds per note. Interestingly, the reeds for the same note are very often tuned differently to each other, and deliberately so. So even a single note can be considered an interval! And the reason its done this way is because it sounds better in certain contexts.
There are actually very few instruments for which tuning can not be adjusted on the fly. And careful studies of piano tuning show that even pianos are rarely tuned precisely to 12 tone equal temperament tuning.
1 Like
I don’t play guitar, so what do I know.
But when you pull on a string the pitch goes up, correct?
While the principal difference between ET and Just, in practice, is that the Just 3rds are lower.
In any case a guitarist who is strumming chords behind some fiddlers playing reels is probably unlikely to change all the 3rds.
Pipe organ builders, mechanical action ‘trackers’ mostly, often use historic temperaments for whatever reason. In fact, some will not build an organ in equal temperament. IMHO, they are out of place in your average American church just because, but… check your local churches. When you find one, you’ll hear the difference very quickly and sometimes in ways so not subtle as to make your teeth rattle!
1 Like
Yes, that is true, but you also have the choice to tune (or detune) your strings to get the effect you want for whatever you are playing. It is likely, but not a given, that a fretted stringed instrument player will be tuned to 12TET, especially with open tunings. For anyone interested in a guitar specific detour about non-12TET tuning, this video is nicely done:
Thanks! Your request was similar to the experiments Brenda and I did when we first started receiving batches of whistles from Ronaldo Reyburn.
At the time, Ronaldo built us matched duet sets of High D whistles in both Equal Temperament and his own “Just-Tempered” modal voicing approach, including both session and narrow-bore models in brass and aluminum. We compared:
- ET whistle against ET whistle,
- Just-Tempered whistle against Just-Tempered whistle,
- ET against Just-Tempered,
- and then whistles against fixed-pitch piano intervals.
We were using the ClearTune app with Equal Temperament, Standard Just Intonation, and Pythagorean settings back then. More recently, I began experimenting with Airyware, which visually graphs the intervals and shows the data that allowed me to make the attached Temperament system comparison chart.
This new attached graph compares Ronaldo’s October 2025 target interval values for one of his modal whistle voicing concepts against the other temperament systems I showed in the first graph embedded in the article.
The attached YouTube link shows us recording a short comparison video demonstrating:
- ET vs Just-Tempered whistles together,
- and the same whistle measured against both Equal Temperament and Ronaldo’s own modal interval profile.
I updated the graph to make it a bit more readable.
Here is the attached YouTube video you requested:
Good clarification. You are correct. I might have overstated the rigidity of those instruments. Traditional instruments seem to live in a negotiated intonational space.
Also, thank you again for all the book and literature recommendations you gave me earlier. They genuinely helped push me deeper into the acoustics side of this rabbit hole.
The “just” tuning thing is an inescapable constant in the world of bagpipes because every note of the chanter scale is heard over a fixed drone.
Seems that in most (or all?) bagpipe traditions the really good pipers have their chanters tuned so that the notes blend with the drones’ harmonics.
Just to see what would happen I once tuned my Highland pipe chanter ET. It sounded horrendous, with most of the notes clashing badly with the drones.
Where the “Just” Highland pipe scale could potentially cause problems, in practice, is when you’re hired to play along with Pipe Organ, choir, piano, etc. in a Church.
I did rig up one Highland chanter to play ET, for which I shut off the drones.
Generally, though, sticking with the normal Highland “just” tuning works fine if I tune my entire instrument a couple cents sharp so that my 4th (Eb) is at Concert Pitch. Why? First, because most stuff you play at Church services is in Eb, and second because your most out-of-tune notes are your flat 3rd and flat 6th, which are both helped.
So here I’m playing in normal Highland pipe “just” tuning (you can hear the 6th being right in tune with drones at -16 for example, and the 2nd being at +4) yet I’m pretty much OK with the brass ensemble and pipe organ.
1 Like
Richard,
First off, that was an amazing performance. Bravo.
Second, thank you for your years of posts and comments. I have read a large percentage of what you have written here on C&F, and those discussions have shaped much of my thinking over this past year.
I honestly cannot fully put into words what daily whistle practice with a drone does to me when the whistle suddenly locks into that resonance. It is not just something I hear. My whole body feels locked into it as well.
I do not really plan to become a session player, but if what I am experiencing with a drone is even remotely related to what people mean when they talk about “living inside” the music, then I finally understand the emotional draw much better now.
I’ll be digesting the above comments for awhile.
Playing over a drone, or multiple drones, is indeed a wonderful experience. I think it’s what draws people to bagpipes, and to the Highland pipes in particular, playing solo or along with several other Highland pipes, the sheer volume and majesty of your chanter(s) perfectly locked in with the wash of drones.
And by the way the tone of the pipes can only be experienced in person. Somehow it defies every attempt to record it. It’s the way the deep bass tones seem to come up from the earth, and all the harmonics surround you.
But here goes…should give you a taste of what Just Intonation on the pipes sounds like. (It’s better if turned up a bit loud.)
Stuart Liddell Piobaireachd - Glenfiddich Piping Championships 2024
On display is the modern Highland pipe tuning, overall rather sharp of Concert Bb. He’s about A=454.
Ab -31 of ET (Septimal minor 7th) (7th Harmonic) (969 cents over tonic) (ratio 7/4)
Bb 0 (tonic)
C +4 of ET (Major 2nd) (9th Harmonic) (204 cents over tonic) (ratio 9/8)
D -14 of ET (Major 3rd) (5th Harmonic) (386 cents over tonic) (ratio 5/4)
Eb -2 of ET (Perfect 4th) (11th Harmonic) (498 cents over tonic) (ratio 4/3)
F +2 of ET (Perfect 5th) (3rd Harmonic) (702 cents over tonic) (ratio 3/2)
G -16 of ET (Major 6th) (13th Harmonic) (884 cents over tonic) (ratio 5/3)
Ab -31 of ET (Septimal minor 7th) (7th Harmonic) (969 cents over tonic) (ratio 7/4)
Bb 0 (oftentimes pipers like this note to “skirl”, an effect where the note seems flat yet there are Harmonics which seem in tune.)
1 Like
Sorry for the visual effects of the graph. Make sure your sitting down when looking at it!
Wow. I understand your interactions with Ronaldo much more clearly now:
“Celtic music often includes the Uilleann pipes, which are tuned to ‘Just Temperament’, and that some of the notes on a whistle must deviate from the standard ‘Equal Tempered’ scale to fit with this instrument…”
“People coming from a traditional background… have as their first priority a good in-tune cross-fingered C natural…”
That suddenly connects a lot of dots for me.
I’ll go compare this against the data from Ronaldo’s maple-headed Brass Low D after my second cup of coffee.
Also… do not tell my wife this, but I think I may eventually want to learn the Uilleann pipes. 
More just intonation (harmonic tuning) with the Highland pipes.
The beauty of the harmonic relationships is perhaps most audible when you have a group of pipers playing in various parts, such as this quartet
Inveraray & District: Winners of the Quartet Contest 2012
Hard to believe you’re hearing four chanters and twelve drones.
As an aside it’s fascinating how the harmonic-tuning scale is made up of interlocking intervals.
For example, the Major 6th is 16 cents flat of ET, while the Major 3rd is 14 cents flat of ET.
But wait! The Perfect 4th is two cents flat of ET.
So when you play a tune that uses of the 4th as the tonic…the (new) Major 3rd is 14 cents flat of ET.
1 Like
I should mention that some of the intervals of the Highland pipe scale were different in the old days.
These intervals can be heard in older recordings, and many older pipers were still using them in the 1970s.
The differences were the 4th and the 7th.
In 1953 Seumas MacNeil, using then-new technology, scoped the scales used by 18 top pipers of the time. They agreed with each other.
By far the most puzzling thing to me is the old Highland pipe 4th, which was oddly sharp.
Modern: Eb -2 of ET (Perfect 4th) (11th Harmonic) (498 cents over tonic) (ratio 4/3)
Traditional: Eb +19.5 of ET (519.5 cents over tonic) (ratio 27/20)
This sharp 4th can be heard on any old recording.
Also sharper than today was the 7th.
Modern: Ab -31 of ET (Septimal minor 7th) (7th Harmonic) (969 cents over tonic) (ratio 7/4)
Traditional “piobaireachd High G”: Ab +18 of ET (1018 cents over tonic) (ratio 9/5)
1 Like
Richard,
This is all very interesting to me. Ronaldo is hanging up his whistle tools and become a wonderful friend who enjoys exploring these ideas.
Yet, I still want to pursue some of these other ideas with a handcrafting whistle maker. David Furman (Clover Flutes) is working with me on a similar pair of projects right now called THE CHEETAH & THE LION. The Lion will be David’s own interpretation of a resonant Low D for these similar purposes.
Richard, I would be curious what cents sharp and flat you would want a High D whistle to play in both registers (octaves) if it was going to be designed to play along with the Uilleann pipes. I know your specialty is the bagpipes. Yet, I value my hearing and relationship with my neighbors. 
Go for it! Someone (not me) is selling a nice half set made by Kirk Lynch on eBay right now:
1 Like
Here’s perfect harmonic tuning over a drone on a quite different kind of bagpipe…
This bagpipe has two drones, a Bass drone and a “counterdrone” capable of playing two different notes, actuated by the lower-hand little finger.
Next possibly the coolest-sounding drone of any bagpipe, the Bass drone of the Kaba Gaida from the Rhodope Mountains in Bulgaria.
About playing along with the uilleann pipes, much depends on what key uilleann pipes.
The most common key nowadays is D. Uilleann pipes in D are often called “concert” “concert pitch” or “concert D” pipes.
“Concert D” uilleann chanters generally have a couple tuning quirks. Sometimes these can be heard, sometimes they’re masked by skillful pressure control and/or “shading” by the piper, and/or by the skill of the reed maker.
One thing is the octave split on the note “E” which can be 10 cents or so.
Low E is sharper, high E flatter.
I got into the habit of giving a boost in pressure for high E and by “shading” low E to bring them into line.
I don’t know what could be done with whistle design to replicate this tuning quirk.
Usually worse than E is the octave split with the note “B”.
It goes the other way, with high B as much as 20 cents sharper than low B.
(Thus trying to fix flat high E by the reedmaker making the whole 2nd octave sharper only makes high B worse, and visa versa.)
The Michael Burke Low D whistle I used to own had this exact tuning quirk: an in-tune low B and a sharp high B. I’m guessing he did it on purpose for playing along with pipers.
So if you tune low B “just” (around 15 cents flat of ET) then high B comes out around ET, not such a bad thing.
In addition to the sharpness high B tends to be a bit “shouty”. On some chanters you can use an alternate fingering to flatten and sweeten high B.
What I would like is a High B Key on an uilleann chanter, making high B with a smaller hole so it’s softer/sweeter and also in tune.
Wouldn’t a well designed, well voiced and reeded chanter be a better and more elegant solution? It can be done.