I’m vaguely considering getting into smallpipes, but I was wondering about their volume. Do they work well in Scottish sessions, or are they too quiet? Are there any particular brands that are loud enough to be heard among a bunch of other instruments?
I’m thinking ahead here - I understand it takes a very long time to learn to play them well, and if I do buy a set, I’ll probably buy something beginner-friendly and quiet. But I’m not sure it’s worth the effort to get into smallpipes if they’re really only good as a solo instrument. I enjoy playing with other people.
I also have a question about tuning: are smallpipes all (generally) tuned to just intonation? Are there any makers that make them with equal temperament tuning instead? I absolutely love the sound of smallpipes, but I really dislike just intonation (sorry if this is heresy!) and I want something that would sound in-tune to a classical musician.
The biggest limitation in sessions (aside from being in A) is the one octave limit. Mine are loud enough to be heard, but I only usually play with other pipers for that reason. If you can get your session mates to play pipe tunes (like, say, “Highland Cathedral” for instance), you’re golden. My other advice is to NOT go cheap. My pipes are made by Rob Felsburg in Pittsburgh - not cheap, but absolutely incredible. His website is: thequietpiper.com
Thanks for the advice! I know of a couple of sessions that often play pipe tunes (despite not having any pipers). Tunes like Rannie MacLellan’s, High Road to Linton, Buntata’s Sgadan, and the High Drive are common. Maybe 20-30% of the tunes would be playable on smallpipes, if I had to guess (which is good enough for me). That’s why my biggest concern is not being completely drowned out.
Do you have any experience with John Walsh? I see that brand mentioned a lot.
Also, how much are Felsburg pipes (he isn’t taking new orders, so I’d have to buy one secondhand)?
Equal temperament just (no pun!) isn’t natural with the drones. Just intonation sounds fine to classical musicians and indeed many of them (e.g. violinists, cellists etc.) use it.
Yes that’s the issue with Scottish Smallpipes in A=440, they’re a bit soft when played with more than one fiddle.
Part of it is that they’re playing an octave below the fiddle.
But that’s what you need, A=440, to play all the Scottish pipe repertoire along with fiddles.
Scottish Smallpipes in D, the tiny chanter hard to finger for some people, play in the same octave as the low octave of the Uilleann chanter, and being higher-pitched and brighter in tone than SSPs in “A” hold their own better. I used to play an SSP in “D” with a group having fiddle, accordion, and guitar and it was fine. However, fiddlers have to transpose all the Scottish pipe repertoire down one string, which usually they don’t have any trouble with.
You can stay in A=440 but get much more volume with the so-called “Border pipe” chanter.
I’ve owned a few by different makers and they tended to be a bit too loud for a duo or trio but can really hold their own in big sessions with fiddles, boxes, etc.
I thought the ideal “Border pipe” volume was the chanter I had by Jon Swayne. It used a dedicated plastic reed and was considerably more mellow that the cane-reed-based “Border” chanters by the other makers I had.
I think equal temperament sounds fine with a drone, and I dislike just intonation because it makes horizontal melodies sound out-of-tune. Also, you can only tune an instrument to just intonation in one major key, and Scottish pipes usually play in 2-3 different major keys. So the rationale for using just intonation doesn’t make much sense, in my opinion. Just intonation isn’t really a good idea unless your instrument is playing slow chords primarily in one key. But if they don’t make equal temperament SSPs, so be it.
Yes, this is what some people tell me. And that’s disappointing, because I love the sound of SSP more than Border Pipes. Border Pipes sound cool, but I just prefer that lower octave, personally.
Another thing that’s influencing my preference is that there some really cool innovations happening with SSP that I don’t see with Border Pipes. I’ve been listening to Lindsay System SSPs and they sound absolutely amazing. A pipe dream of mine (no pun intended!) is to get one of those some day (but I have to start with something more basic, of course).
Since I’m hearing mixed things about whether they’re loud enough for sessions, I guess I’ll just have to go to a session where someone plays one and see for myself.
This whole notion of “in tune” begs the question of “in tune with what?”. When you have a drone playing then the answer to that question is simple: the drone!
If you listen to equal temperament thirds against a drone you’ll get lots of beating because they are out of tune by 15 cents or so. Equal temperament is, by definition, equally out of tune with the tonal center of the music regardless of the key.
Just intonation notes are in tune with the tonal center if the music is in the right key, and close enough in certain related keys. A lot of instruments for ITM tend to target a kind of compromise just intonation that works for the commonest keys in ITM. A close examination of the tuning of flutes shows this very clearly (I’m a flute maker). Music in different keys sounds different, and composers take advantage of that, or at least they used to.
Many instruments have the capability for the player to adjust the tuning of any given note (finger placement on the fiddle, lipping on the flute, etc), and analysis of performances often shows that players play close to just intonation instinctively. Singers certainly do. They do this simply because they use their ears.
The main problem occurs when playing with an instrument such as a piano which has fixed tuning and tends to be tuned such that it plays equally out of tune in all keys (i.e., equal temperament). But how often does that happen in the kind of folk music we discuss here.
Well, I just say all of this because it is the first time I’ve heard someone claim that equal temperament tuning sounds fine with a drone.
I understand your point, but you could argue that when playing against a constant drone you are playing chords the whole time. If your drone is always the same note, then it makes sense to tune the chanter such that all of the intervals relative to that are just.
The thing that confuses me about all this is not the choice of just intonation, but rather why it is so common in piping traditions to maintain the same drone, say A, regardless of the tonal center of the piece of music being played. I assume that it is basically a
requirement more or less imposed by the design of the instrument, and that the musical tradition has evolved to match that. I’m not a piper (well, I’m a novice uilleann piper) so I’m still trying to get my head around that. I’m sure there are people here who can
provide a good explanation .. and I’d love to read it, although perhaps it is a bit of a thread hijack. FYI I found the following article to be very interesting as a starting point for understanding some of these issues.
To me, this is related to your point about different keys sounding different. While some pipers do use different drone tunings for different keys, to me it actually weakens tunes written to exploit the standard ones. So, yes, I’d agree the tradition has evolved to match the instrument(s), as discussed here and probably elsewhere before:
To me, being slightly more in-tune with the drone - and the difference really is extremely slight, which is why Pianos sound great when playing drones, even though they use equal temperament tuning - is not worth the cost of horizontal melody lines sounding slightly more dissonant.
And also, regarding playing in other keys: don’t SSP players sometimes turn off the drone to play in keys like C or G anyway? If the drone isn’t even playing, you get no benefits from just intonation. And you get all the drawbacks when you’re playing in those keys, because C and G are going to sound funky on an instrument tuned to just intonation in A.
This point also applies to Uillean pipes, but to an even greater extent, because it’s quite common to play in a variety of keys on Uillean pipes and to play without any drones at all. So I really don’t see why Uillean pipes would be tuned to just intonation. Seems like a really bad idea.
I don’t see how it’s imposed by the design of the instrument. Nothing is stopping anyone from making a pipe with keys on the drone that, when pressed, change the notes of the drones. In fact, that’s where regulators came from. They were originally just drones with holes cut in them for pastoral pipers who wanted the notes to change. (For some reason, Irish pipes later ended up with both drones AND regulators - which has always seemed to me to be unnecessary and excessive from a cost perspective. And it also seems that pipes might benefit from having keys on the drones themselves, which could essentially allow you to play any power chord you wanted, rather than being limited to a few random chords. But no one is asking for my opinion on this .)
There’s no reason you couldn’t do the same thing with Scottish pipes. In fact, regulators would arguably make more sense for Scottish pipes than they do for Irish pipes, since you don’t need to keep the chanter on your knee all the time, so your wrists are free to press whatever buttons you please, without any awkwardness. If you wanted, you could also add keys that act more like switches, that change the drone note to someone else without needing your wrist to hold down a button continually.
Anyway, thanks for listening to the rant of a non-piper who knows nothing about pipes sharing his opinion about them. My goal at this point is to learn more about the pipes from people who actually understand how they work.
For some reason, Irish pipes later ended up with both drones AND regulators - which has always seemed to me to be unnecessary and excessive from a cost perspective.
Listen to any good uilleann piper playing and you’ll see they have different roles within the greater whole.
My goal at this point is to learn more about the pipes from people who actually understand how they work.
I probably overstated what I meant to say here. I wasn’t saying that you get no benefits from having drones and regulators. I was just saying that to ME, that seems excessive. Adding more pipes to your instrument can improve it in various ways, but at a certain point, you get diminishing returns. A large reason I’ve never bought Uillean pipes is that they tend to cost at least $8,000 for a full set of any quality. And getting a partial set usually means losing some of your harmonization potential.
It seems to me that combining drones and regulators would be an interesting option for people like me who want to save money, while potentially also allowing for some interesting power chord options that the Uillean pipes currently lack (I’m envisioning drones pitched in D, A, and D, with keys that would allow all three of them to change at once). It would also be in keeping with tradition, since regulators originally were just drones with keys. So I think it would be a cool option. I wasn’t trying to dis Uillean pipes or imply that there’s no reason anyone would want both drones and regulators.
The only rationale I’ve ever heard for just intonation is that it makes chords sound slightly more consonant. At least, that’s what random internet articles tell me (I’m no physicist, so that’s about all I have to go on). This comports with my own experience. A triad tuned to just intonation DOES sound ever so slightly less dissonant to me…but a melody line with just intonation doesn’t sound any better (in fact, it sounds rather out of tune, perhaps because I’m simply more used to hearing melodies tuned to equal temperament).
At any rate, I think my point about playing in other keys, at the very least, is valid. Playing in G, C, or D on an instrument tuned to just intonation in A just isn’t going to sound perfectly in tune. So if you’re not playing with a drone, it really seems like just intonation has no benefits and a lot of drawbacks.
I think it is important to realize that these instruments were never intended to be fully chromatic in the sense of playing music in arbitrary keys. They are for playing tunes in a restricted set of keys/modes, so there is no need to sacrifice tuning in the way that 12 TET does in order to make no one key any more out of tune than any other. In other words, you don’t need to sacrifice tuning in a key you commonly use just to make sure that tuning in a key you never use isn’t terrible. You only have to make it work for the desired set of keys/modes. You also don’t have to ensure that a given tune when played in one key will sound the same (aside from overall pitch) as it does in another key. The difference between keys can be (is) exploited by composers to express their artistic intent.
A defining characteristic of many kinds of pipes is that they use drones. If you play with a drone then the tuning of intervals between the drone and chanter notes is going to be very apparent to the player and listener. Different intervals are used for different purposes by composers, and this too has implications for tuning. For example, it is much more important that intervals used for consonance and resolution be in tune (pleasing to the ear, not beating, etc … i.e., just!) than intervals used for dissonance. If you have just intonation and use the instrument to play music in more than one key then the intervals in one key are likely going to differ from those in another key, but this can be taken into account by a composer. For example, if it is known that certain intervals will not sound good in a particular key they can be deliberately avoided.
The above issues mean that the tuning dilemma for pipes is really not nearly as over constrained as that for say a piano intended to play equally well/badly in all possible musical keys. It also seems like a no brainer to use just intonation for the chanter when the instrument will predominantly be played using a single note drone or a related set of drones.
Thanks for that insight Peter! I was beginning to suspect that, and I see it as an example of a composer, or performer, making this choice as a deliberate expression of their artistic intent.
It has been a while since I started to wrestle with my own confusion on this. It all started for me when I was in a flute lesson with Keven Crawford as he suggested that we make it a habit to practice as often as we could playing against a drone. The idea being to help train your ear and intonation. As I started to do this I looked for drones matching the tonal center of the tunes I was playing, but I quickly came across people suggesting to “just use a D drone for everything” (assuming a D flute) and approach this kind of like the uilleann pipes. To me, at the time, this was quite a shock, and made me question a lot of what I thought I had understood about music theory, harmony etc. I’m now quite fascinated by this.
. To me, at the time, this was quite a shock, and made me question a lot of what I thought I had understood about music theory, harmony etc. I’m now quite fascinated by this.
I remember an instance, over forty years ago now I suppose, playing/busking with a fiddler friend who had a fair amount of classical training behind him. We played the Langstern Pony. When we finished he looked at me bewildered and said that he never thought that would work over the drones (never mind what the regulators were doing))and that it cast the tune in a completely different light for him.
Séamus Ennis, by the way, was of the opinion that G was the home key of the pipes, more so than D. If you hear the harmonics between his chanter and his drones crackle, you know why.
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