when i was busking yesterday someone came up to me to ask a couple of questions and make some observations - he mentioned something about the pipes i was playing having a different number of notes in an octave to the scottish pipes (who have 7) - i told him that an octave always has 8 notes and he responded that this isn’t always the way with music from other traditions - perhaps he was using the term octave to mean the same as ‘scale’. Even so, whilst Indian music, say, might be based on different combinations of notes or scales which may not exist within the parameters of an octave-interval, this isn’t the case with scottish pipes is it?
Your friend might be using the term “octave” as a convenience to denote the nine note range of the GHBs, but by definition, “octave” means “eight”. Period. The terms “range” or “compass” might be better choices for him.
It also means the interval between two frequencies which have a ratio of 2:1. The avant-garde composer Harry Partch devised a scale with 43 notes in an octave, and instruments which can bend between notes have a theoretically infinite series of notes, in a sense.
bows to Kevin
That’s right. The ratio 2:1 in a diatonic scale gives us eight notes, hence the name “octave”. The GHB’s compass consists of one octave plus a flattened seventh below the tonic. Or that’s how I think of it. In any case, the range is one note beyond an octave.
Seanny, perhaps your observer noticed some keys on your chanter, or maybe had heard somewhere that the UP chanter was capable of playing a chromatic scale…12 semitones.