I’d like to play whistle along with some of my piper fiends. Sorry, friends. (No, sorry again, right the first time.)
Eb? D? C? Pi times the diameter squared?
Which key would work best? (Guess it would help if I knew what key pipes played in, huh?)
Find out what key the pipes are in. Highland pipes and smallpipes are often more or less in Bb. If so, then use an Eb whistle. A Bb whsitle will not give you the whole range of the pipes since it doesn’t go down to the Ab that the pipes do. Some smallpipes shuttlepipes are in A. Use a D whistle to play with them. Uilleann pipes are most often in D but not all of them.
Steve
For Highland Bagpipes I would reccomend Eb. That would give you the full range of the GHB’s one octave of Bb mixolyidian plus the Ab below that is needed on many pipe tunes.
Cheers,
David
Bb is the whistle to use with highland bagpipes. I’ve done it several times and it works wonders. E.g. whistle starting the melody and bagpipes joining in and taking over. Makes crowds go mad!
the area of a circle is pi times the radius squared, not diameter.
Just so you know…
Not sure what kind of pipes you’re referring to (there are quite a number:-) ), however, uilleann pipers in a group of other musicians usually have concert pitch which is key of D. This is certainly the most common, however there are many pipers with B, C and C# and occassionally the odd Bb, but generally you’ll find pipers with a D set.
Cheers,
Paul
There is a good explanation of bagpipe scale theory Bagpipe Tuning
On that page, there is a “Play along with bagpipes” hyperlink about 1/2 way down the page which recommends:
- Tunable Eb whistle for accompanying new (sharply tunable)pipes
- Tunable D for accompanying pipes tuned to concert A