Modern Pipe Band Drums

[TheOfficialBren]

Richard, the easiest approach would be "Autotuning" each mic channel. Set up a mic for each drone and one for the chanter. Use a gate with a hard threshold so as to kill any bleed from other mics.

Easy as pie. Pipes have a very limited scale. That makes it immensely easier than most instruments.

Come to think about it...any pipers wanna help me with an experiment?

[Carlo]

The easiest approach would be to select a recording and play that.


I just don't see why you should "autotune" pipes. We wouldn't want the pipes to turn into pop-music, would we?

[KD Burke]

There are rumors about of a well-respected woodwind reed manufacturer which is verging on release of a synthetic chanter reed which is far superior to previous efforts in that arena.

Should such a thing come to fruition, it would relieve lower grade pipers from the tyranny of temperature and humidity that confound us so often now.

I can foresee a future when an innovative pipemaker chooses to offer threaded tuning slides. Without the need for vast adjustments, such a slide would be easier to fine tune and less likely to be bumped out of tune.

[OC Richard]

There are rumors about of a well-respected woodwind reed manufacturer which is verging on release of a synthetic chanter reed which is far superior to previous efforts in that arena.

Should such a thing come to fruition, it would relieve lower grade pipers from the tyranny of temperature and humidity that confound us so often now.

Yes indeed! It would be a great thing. I've not seen a synthetic pipe chanter reed that's any good, so far. I did use a horrible Clanrye reed for one gig, playing up on a cliff for 53 straight nights, where I had to play Amazing Grace solo one time, then be joined by a symphony orchestra the 2nd time. (The symphony orchestra itself was down below in its orchestra pit, however much I wished that they too had to schlep up that mountain every night.) So my tuning had to be perfect each night in spite of outdoor conditions. That Clanrye reed had a horrendously sharp High G but hey, there ain't no such note in Amazing Grace! So I left it sharp.

I will say that nearly all of the out-of-tune-ness of lower level pipe bands is due to bad blowing, not to reeds or weather, and no reed can fix that.

[OC Richard]

I can only recall playing MSRs in the early 80s but in the latter half of that decade, I certainly remember playing a medley at competitions. But the tunes certainly weren't being played in that awful rounded style of today, I think only one or maybe two tunes were played with seconds and there was no more than one hornpipe and one jig in the set.....and they were good tunes.

We were playing Medleys here in the late 70s, when I started playing in bands, as I recollect.

Yes the medleys were one tune of each idiom: march, strathspey, reel, air, hornpipe, and jig (often in that order).

Harmonies were either not used at all, or only in the air.

What changed everything, I think, was the rise of what amounted to a new idiom, the 'undotted hornpipe' I guess I could call it. Ironic that Highland pipers, who strongly dotted jigs and reels (idioms that were usually undotted outwith the piping world) would start playing a traditionally strongly dotted idiom, the hornpipe, undotted. Thus Highland Piping created a species of tune to occupy the undotted quick cut time dance idiom vacuum which had been caused by the dotting of reels (playing reels like traditional hornpipes, in fact).

The first such I can recall hearing were Donald MacLeod compositions.

Anyhow pipe bands started playing these neo-hornpipes as march-in tunes, further blurring the traditional idiomatic boundaries. And undotted reels borrowed from traditional Irish music or Scottish fiddling could now be freely coupled with these neo-hornpipes, there now being no musical distinction between them.

Back in the 90s band after band, every band in a contest, would march in to one of these newly composed pentatonic hammering undotted so-called hornpipes, leaving me desperately wishing that somebody, anybody, would march in to a MARCH!

Here's the first 'undotted hornpipe' I can recall hearing, Duncan Johnstone, composed by Donald MacLeod. And here it is being played as a 'march in hornpipe' in the manner so typical of the 1990s, a manner which isn't quite yet dead. The idea, I suppose, is to grab the judges and audience right away with an exciting hammering tune. For some reason these tunes are nearly always in the same mode, the pentatonic A mode (A B D E G A)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6ywFJZRMXg

And now, after decades of these, some top bands are tossing out the 'march in hornpipes' and marching in to retreats.

Here's a band marching in to the wonderful retreat Castle Dangerous. I love all the harmonies! But I wish they would have finished the tune, rather than having a gimmicky segue to the jig. (Note the elaborate midsection work, the variously pitched tenor drums)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2WwEOTwKWM

Marching in to something slow and easy like this has great benefits for the pipe corps: it settles everyone's nerves, gets up people's confidence, gets them concentrating on 'blowing tone'. Elaborate 'finger exercise' tunes right from the get-go can get the pipers off their blowing, and even shatter somebody's nerves if they have a bobble. (There's tremendous pressure to win at these things.) However Castle Dangerous is a bit of a risk, due to the key of D, and the note D in particular, being the most difficult to blow into tune.

Anyhow shouldn't this whole thread be moved to the "Celtic music talk" forum?

[Ron Abbott]

"Back in the 90s band after band, every band in a contest, would march in to one of these newly composed pentatonic hammering undotted so-called hornpipes, leaving me desperately wishing that somebody, anybody, would march in to a MARCH!"

Indeed. I couldn't agree more.
Another trend, along with the grey colour jackets that were all the rage in the mid to late 80s, the pipe band emblem on the covers in more recent years, the hellish pure white hose, the 'hunter' style sporrans worn by band after band, the wearing of vests/waistcoats without jackets....and more etc. etc.

I suppose depending on point of view, you could also add 'an over-proliferation of snare drums'....so much so that some bands could almost be re-named Drum Bands given that they almost drowned out the pipes.

The odd 'undotted' hornpipe (as you quite suitably describe them) doesn't bother me, it's when they play one after another and even half of the other tunes be they jigs, strathspeys or reels.....are also played in a similar manner; that I hate it. Add in harmonies in almost every tune and you are left wondering what the actual tune is and when it started and ends!

[OC Richard]

There was a lovely march-in tune a certain band played a few years ago that I started to transcribe off the album... but when they got to the 3rd part there were so many harmonies going on, and the harmonies were so loud, that I couldn't figure out where the 'tune' was!

While we're on this sort of a rant, the other thing that bothers me, though it finally seems to have runs its course, is mutating various tunes into 'waltzes'.

The first time I recall hearing this is when a band took The Foxhunters Jig, which is in 9/8 (123 456 789) and turned it into a 'waltz' (1& 2& 3&).

It was pretty cool the first time I heard it, but then it became a cliché with every band figuring out how to take, say, a four-beat tune and altering it to three beats. After hearing this same thing done hundreds of times it wore out its welcome and it left me wishing that bands would just leave tunes alone.

[Nathan]

There was a lovely march-in tune a certain band played a few years ago that I started to transcribe off the album... but when they got to the 3rd part there were so many harmonies going on, and the harmonies were so loud, that I couldn't figure out where the 'tune' was!

While we're on this sort of a rant, the other thing that bothers me, though it finally seems to have runs its course, is mutating various tunes into 'waltzes'.

The first time I recall hearing this is when a band took The Foxhunters Jig, which is in 9/8 (123 456 789) and turned it into a 'waltz' (1& 2& 3&).

It was pretty cool the first time I heard it, but then it became a cliché with every band figuring out how to take, say, a four-beat tune and altering it to three beats. After hearing this same thing done hundreds of times it wore out its welcome and it left me wishing that bands would just leave tunes alone.

The soul of Highland music is in its rhythm. Pipe bands have been messing with the timing of traditional tunes for a couple of hundred years. I often hear pipe band repertoire and recognize the Gaelic song from which the tune was derived and I marvel at how robotic the band rhythm is as compared to the lilt and drive of a fiddler or Gaelic singer approaching the same notes. There is a long tradition of reimagining a tune as a different kind of dance, strathspey as reel for example, but this must be done with care and a deft hand. Jig to waltz is overdone and runs the risk of losing great jigs.

[OC Richard]

Here it is!

I think the first band to do it, the 78th Fraser Highlanders.

It's at 3:05, where The Foxhunter's Jig shifts from 9/8 (3+3+3 /8) to 3/4 and becomes "Foxhunter's Waltz"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Sj2Yt9dD1A

Yes indeed Gaelic music has always done stuff like that. In Traditional Music in Ireland Tomas O Canainn gives several examples of the tune of an air also occurring as a jig or other dance idiom, and the tunes of jigs and reels being re-purposed as polkas, mazurkas, and other dance idioms when these came to be danced in Ireland.

Cutting Bracken is an old melody that occurs as a air, strathspey, reel, etc.

Here is the Los Angeles Scottish marching into a 4/4 (or 2/4) 'hornpipe' version of the 6/8 march (or jig) The Atholl Highlanders

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qxvJ28W-7k

[EagleJCS]

I will say that nearly all of the out-of-tune-ness of lower level pipe bands is due to bad blowing, not to reeds or weather, and no reed can fix that.

Richard, I take exception to that remark. We have a lot of issues with humidity around here that does affect our tuning. Most of our experienced band members are very steady blowers. We can get our chanters tuned perfectly, both the master chanter using a tuner, then with each other against the master chanter, then 10-15 minutes later have a note start to go sour - usually D or F - almost uniformly around the circle. No one has moved tape or done anything else to manipulate the reed or the chanter. Just a function of the environment affecting the reed.

I often hear pipe band repertoire and recognize the Gaelic song from which the tune was derived and I marvel at how robotic the band rhythm is as compared to the lilt and drive of a fiddler or Gaelic singer approaching the same notes.

Nathan, I think that's partly due to needing to get 5, 10, 20 pipers all playing the same tune at the same time to sound like one big bagpipe. Imagine trying to get the same number of fiddlers, singers or whistle players to do the same (sounding like one instrument/voice instead of 20) using the same embellishments, etc.