Long time since I last posted. Yes it’s me the Singaporean piper and it’s my 10th month since I started on my practice set in D. I managed to go up to the second octave by the first few days and hit my very first top D note by the end of first week.
Some Irish/Celtic music fannatics hunted down for me (cos I’m currently the only uilleann piper in Singapore) and started inviting me to play for functions, churches etc. Just 2 months back I started playing UP for my church’s sunday mass. I soon realised that my UP can only jam in for songs in D and G major. It is quite often we get songs in the key of C, Bb, E, F, Eb and worse still; minor keys!
I play music by ear and don’t really understand the physics of music. Can someone please enlighten me?
Cowan, holy cow! There are entire books describing what you are asking for, even for beginners. If this stuff is really that new to you, you should perhaps sit at a piano or organ keyboard and get someone to show you the keys and their names. The different key signatures will quickly become apparent to you if you work out doh, re, mi for each key.
You are correct. Your pipes can’t play in more than a few key signatures, unless you get keys added to your chanter for all the in-between notes, or you learn to half-hole the in-between notes. Either way, your drones and regulators will not be able to change. A D set is a D set only. G doesn’t sound too bad, but Eb won’t work against your drones at all. If you are the only instrument, you can transpose tunes written in other keys to D or G, but if you are trying to play along with others you won’t be able to play in those other key signatures.
You could always get several sets of pipes in different keys, but that would be silly and expensive. If you are with other players, and you can’t play in the key they are using, you are best just to sit out that tune.