Question about a video of French pipes!!!!

Bagpipes (Non-Uilleann)
1

Hello everyone,
I am really interested in knowing the types of pipes that are in this video!!!
I know that they are French pipes and I probably know the names of the pipes as well!!!
I really want to know in what key these pipes are!!! Specially the one at the far right because is so low!!!

I also don’t really understand the the pouces 14, 16, 18, 20 etc etc Can somebody please explain this. I think 14 pouces is in A, but I am not too sure.

I want to buy a super low Gaita Gallaga and now a days they do make Gaitas very low, but I don’t know if they can be as low as French pipes!!!

Here is the Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNzA_LsGsHY&feature=related

Warm Regards to everyone

2

Cornemuse du Centre (CdC, for short)

14 pouce is A
16 g
18 f (rare)
20 d
23 c
32 (I guess) low G

what you have in the video, at least I hear it to be:
16 p G stage right
23p C centre
32p low G stage left

23? or 22? for C…I forget.

3

Low G is 30 pouces, there is also the Low a in 26 pouces.

Here’s a friend of mine playing on a rare 18 pouces:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_evueoEmQ78

And you can hear and see here the lower french bagpipe (30 pouces) at 33 seconds..:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNg4FL_mivY

In fact, it means 30 inches because the chanter is supposed to be approx. this lenght and in early days, French used the imperial system to measure things (now they know metric system this is the only intelligent system :smiley: )*

  • Just kidding, here in Québec we have both systems

Nic

4

I am pretty sure that they’re two 16p and one 23p. 2 x G/C and 1 x C/F. The piece they’re playing is in C, which is the 6 fingers down note on the big cornemuse.

And the guy playing the big thing at 33 secs. in the last video is Matthias Branschke, he is playing a low G (30p) chanter from the Rogge shop (though he probably made it himself, as he was an apprentice with Andreas Rogge).

5

You are right, it is G/C and C/F pipes. All the tunes by “La Fraternelle de cornemuses” are made to be played by 16 and 23 inches pipes.

The low G pipes by Rogge are fantastic, tried them in 2004 in St-Chartier, very fun to play !