Hi there: I am a bagpipe player/collector in Valparaíso, Chile way too far away from any maker. Here I play gaitas, smallpipes, and borderpipes… Here for a while I have been looking for some kind of bagpipe I could play along with choirs and other singing groups I usually I play with… So far smallpipes are rather too quiet and my A borderpipes go to the loudy side. So I have been looking for alternatives such as the pastoral pipes, some galician gaita or french cornemuses in G and now I have been thinking about uilleann sets. Pastoral pipes seems to be the more chromatic of the bunch and it also allows to play standing up but there are too few makers and they are rather expensive… Cornemuses are more affordable with a different chromatism with the second thumb hole. Finally, uilleann pipes have more range but you have to be sit, besides fingering is way different from the pipes I already know… I wonder from your experiences… what bagpipe/maker would you suggest?
thank you,
I know exactly what you mean, wanting a bagpipe that’s the perfect volume in between Scottish Smallpipes (too quiet) and borderpipes (too loud).
I play uilleann pipes and they’re usually just about perfect for playing with a choir in church etc.
Sounds like what might be ideal are Central French pipes. Many of those are about the same volume as the uilleann pipes, and they’re chromatic.
The potential trouble is the range. Most choral music (at least the church hymn music) is written around a C-c range. If the tune has a bit bigger range it works upward and downward evenly from that C-c starting point, say B-d then Bb-eb and so on. For example most choirs around here sing Amazing Grace in the key of F, giving it a C-c range. Be Thou My Vision, which has a large range, is sung in Eb, the range being Bb-eb.
So, if your choir does the same, you’re going to need a chanter with a “six finger note” of C, and possibly multiple chanters in Bb, C, and D.
Trouble is, the most common French pipes are in G, not at all what you need.
You might want to check out Jon Swayne’s pipes. Here he is playing his big “border pipes” in D. I had a Jon Swayne chanter and they’re rather lower in volume than normal “border pipes” and more like French pipes. A big Jon Swayne chanter in D and/or in low C might be the ideal thing for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVZkJmcGfrw
Note how much that chanter sounds like an uilleann chanter, and how big the range is: at one point in the tune he goes up to high G. So, a C-g range, quite large enough for most Church choir music.
I find that having uilleann chanters in D and C covers most of the choral music. If I also had uilleann chanters in Bb and E, I could play nearly all of the common church music around here.
On occasion things are in six or seven sharps or flats and I have whistles in C#, B, Ab, and Gb to cover those things.
Every sunday I do play woodwinds and laúd with a 12 voice strong parish choir. As you say C, D, G, A,and E along with their relative minor keys are the most common keys we have to play/sing with. I do play gaita in processions, funerals and wedding ceremonies but I cannot do it at masses and the smallpipes are rather too quiet, so what is left to play with… just flutes, whistles, panpipes, and harmonica, and I have been thinking about to try out an oboe o duduk at least because what I really would like to add is the reedy sound of a sweet bagpipe.
I have been comparing already a G Swayne borderpipe versus a G Varela gaita that have been offered to me… both of them have the second thumb hole and are almost crhromatic on a 1.5 octave range, but still I have my doubt with regard to volume and G# crossfingering… also there are other cornemuse style bagpipes I have been considering made by Guenzi, Dominic Alan, Franz Hattinck, John Burke, among others that might work also… a low D/C chanter also might work as a pastoral style but who sell just the chanter? I wrote sometime ago to Guenzi but no anwers so I guess he preferes like most makers to build whole sets. I have already 7 bagpipes in the common keys such as C (gaitas and hummelchen), D (smallpipes, gaita), and A (borderpipes and smallpipes) so I am looking for for some really versatile axe that actually I could play with the choir at least a bit at mass. I have been suggested a two drone bagpipe set, but the key? G is the standard cornemuse key, and it is the doubt I still have perhaps go uilleann… so any opinions are welcome…thanks,
Sounds like you have great music in your Church!
Yes Jon Swayne will make you just the chanter, if that’s what you want.
The problem with bagpipes with a “six finger note” of G is the range is way off the typical choral C-c range.
I think a Swayne “border” chanter in Low D would be a great “axe” for you. It can do the chromatics and can go up into the 2nd octave and you’ll have the keys of D and G covered.
But I don’t know if he makes a Low C, which would cover the keys of C and F.
I did a big church gig a couple weeks ago with a huge “praise band” consisting of several guitars, piano, synth, various drummers/percussionists, a horn section (trumpets, trombones), a string section (violins, viola, cello), and two sax/flute guys. There was a large choir, around 100 people. We played in a stadium for thousands of people and various Cardinals and Archbishops and what have you were in attendance. The music was a blend of contemporary Church music including songs in Vietnamese, Tagalog, Swahili, Spanish, and English. The point is, I could do nearly everything using my uilleann chanters in D and C. The only exception was a piece in E.
A number of the pieces modulated, luckily mostly from F to G, or from C to D, so that all I had to do was switch chanters. Be Thou My Vision went from F to G and finally in C, all good for the pipes.