Notes of the drones? (Beginner question)

Uilleann Pipes
1

I know the drones are tenor, baritone, and bass…but on a D set, what notes should they be tuned to?

I’m assuming that they form the notes of a chord, if so which one?

Not knowing much about music theory, do these questions even make sense…

Gary

2

They’re all D’s

3

D D D (bass, baritone, tenor) each one octave above the next.

4

There are some exceptions, like a 4th drone (with seperate shut-off) in A, but that’s a story for another time.

5

sorry if this posts twice. it did not seem to take the first time.

he also asked “what should they be tuned to”. D is not necessarily the only answer.

i was taught by seth (when i picked up my half set 2 weeks ago:) to tune to the A using a 5th intervel, perhaps shading the A a little. this may be due to the instability of the low D in the hands of a beginner.

people used to other instruments should read the article by jeff woof about regulators on the Patrick D’Arcy website (The Uilleann Pipes Obsession Page). Although the main topic is regs, he reviews the idea of tuning chanters and drones on bagpipes and how the concept is different from a piano or orchestral tuning.

I know that experience pipers tune the drones easily in seconds. for beginners i would suggest the following:

  1. clap off the lower 2 drones
  2. tune the tenor a fifth below A.
  3. play the other notes of the chanter, lower register. make minor adjustments so that the drone sounds pleasing with the maximum number of notes
  4. (activate your bypass key if you have one) or remove the chanter, plug up the chanter stock and tune the other 2 drones to the tenor
  5. now again play other notes, and make any minor adjustments

i know many of you feel a beginner should not have drones. i have them because i like the way they look, i was pretty sure i would be wanting them soon anyway, and i want to get used to having them there as it clearly affects posture, how you hold the instrument, etc. i have them shut off 90% of the time. i play them for a few minutes weekly for fun and to let the drone reeds have some airtime. i take off the drones to travel since transport becomes much simpler without them.

never shy about sharing.

meir

6

btw, here is the url of the article i mentioned above:

http://www.concentric.net/~pdarcy/extra/wooff_on_regs.shtml

meir

7

That article of Geoff’s is extremely valuable, even for the physically-challenged, semi-literate piper like myself.

I think your replies are also very sensible, Meir. But in case your advice on tuning the drones is less clear for such a piper, it’s worth stressing that the drones in a standard setup all sound the note D in different octaves - you just use the A on the chanter as a way of fine-tuning the tenor. You then tune the baritone to the tenor, taking advantage of the “beating” phenomenon: in plain English, if the baritone is slightly off, you will get interference between the two, a wobbly sort of Wah-wah sound, so you move the slide up and down to where you get this effect and then find the midway position which minimises it. Then tune the bass against the baritone, and then play all three together and fine-tune as appropriate, including playing the chanter up to high B to allow for the effect of increased bag pressure. When you have more experience, you can try tuning the tenor against the G or against as many notes as possible to optimise what is likely to be a bit imperfect, but that’s probably tuning 201.

I’ve tried using an electronic tuner on the chanter and then on all the drones in turn just for the heck of it, but found that I had to sharpen all the drones slightly when I checked them against the chanter. It’s probably a bumble-bee flight thing.

8

Meir, great article, thanks for pointing it out. It also answered my next question about regulators.

It seems this is something that is probably easier to do than to describe.

As always, I learn something everytime I read this forum.

Thanks again,
Gary

9

Roger, I have found the same thing when using a tuner. Instead, I use the tuner to tune the tenor and baritone drones, then tune the chanter and bass drone to those.

While it is obvious that the various bits of the set need to be in tune with each other, I only use the tuner when I want to be in tune with others, or to a CD, etc. Otherwise I only worry about my set itself, and use the ear method you and Meir have decribed.

djm