Modern Pipe Band Drums

[Nathan]

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.

Sure, to a certain extent, especially regarding ornaments, but I've seen mass fiddlers 100+ at the Glendale concert and group Gaelic singing at milling frolics and the rhythm is fundamentally different. I actually think it has more to do with the fact that the bands themselves (and the soldiers they help to keep in step in a military context) are marching. This pushes the down beats to align with the body rhythm of walking rather than facilitating the dancing that jigs, reels and strathspeys were composed to motivate originally.

[TheOfficialBren]

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?

Ah...a common trope. The abuse of technology and tools is one thing. Augmenting a performance is another.

Literally every genre uses Autotune. It's pretty standard procedure in today's recording world. The difference is how transparent it is to the listener. The threshold can be adjusted from "off" to "full monty" and every manner of sensitivity in-between.

Listen to Katy Perry's "Dark Horse" (they got REALLY lazy in a few spots and forgot to clean those spots up).

Sometimes it's intentionally hard (the Cher or T-Pain effect comes to mind) for aesthetic purposes.

Now listen to Josh Groban. Yup. An amount of Autotune is certainly used...but you can't "hear" it (you hear it but you don't notice it).

[HootinHoller]

"The electronic thing that comes to mind, with bagpipes, which would greatly improve the sound of 'lower grade' bands, is to have a tiny mic at the top of each drone, and have the tuning slide have a little motor, and have a little computer chip that reads the pitch of each drone and constantly adjusts the drones to stay in perfect tune with whatever pitch is pre-set by the band.

A more complex thing would be to have the chanter reed set in a little motorized device and a mic reading the chanter's Low A, moving the chanter reed to keep the chanter in tune to the pre-set pitch.

Even more sophisticated would be having the computer read all the notes of everyone's chanters and choose the pitch that best balances the high notes and low notes of the band as a whole, and adjust everyone's chanter reed and drones accordingly."

.........LOL, it's still another ten months until April 1st !

I hadn't seen the rant or the comments of Rab Wallace, Bob Worrall et. al.
But if the 1980s recordings of the 78ths may reveal (in my opinion) far more tuneful playing than today, but if you want really, really pointed, tuneful playing....it's back to the 60s and the likes of the Edinburgh Police.

"What I'm tired of hearing are the elaborate transitions that nowadays are put between just about every tune in the medley. It makes me desperately want to hear a good old-fashioned transition, where you just go straight from one tune to the next, the effectiveness coming from the choice of tunes themselves and not from contrived segues."

Wow, I forgot to mention that!! Well said. They are indeed, in the most part; bloody awful.

I can't recall when medleys first came in to the competition scene. Circa 1980s (?)
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. Certainly not the 'finger-exercises' that are given names and referred to as tunes nowadays.

I was reading this and thinking yeah, that could all be done with pretty much off the shelf tech, then someone mentioned autotune and I had a DUH moment. LOL

[eaglemo]

I'm an old drummer from the 60's, and would love to hear the snares loosen up a bit!

[TheOfficialBren]

I started marching in Middle School and did so into High School. We competed and watchex DCI competitions. The snares are tighter to provide less wiggle room. It forces the players to be more accurate because the drums are less forgiving.

Looser snares sound warmer, though. Think blues drumming versus tech-metal drumming.

[ASinclair]

<snip>
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

Atholl Highlanders is one of my favorite tunes. This is dreadful; they've absolutely butchered it!

[OC Richard]

10-15 minutes later have a note start to go sour - usually D or F

These are indeed the notes most sensitive to variances in blowing, the Achilles' Heel of most chanters. If bands 'play out of the circle' in competition where you are, like they do here, you'll hear over and over bands with out-of-tune D's during the competition itself, but then when the band strikes in again to march out of the circle, why, those notes are now magically in tune! Only a few seconds have passed and the weather hasn't changed. What has changed is that the pressure of competition is now lifted and pipers can 'blow tone' on their easy march-out tune, the very pipers that moments before were overblowing their D's.

True that these notes are also the most sensitive to humidity, which you can discover by having the band tune up on pavement, then go and compete on grass, or visa versa.

But I'll stick to what 40 years piping had taught me: the game is 90% blowing tone.

[KentuckyCeltophile]

Hey guys!
I may be a bit behind on this conversation, but thought I would add a thought. About a year ago, I was surfing Youtube on pastoral pipes. There is this video of Remi Decker and Maarten Decombel on "Le Monde est Un Village". The pipes sound like they have a really low pitch chanter. I'm very musically challanged so I don't know the lingo when it comes to key, pitch, etc. I really like the deep drone sound this makes and would love to get the song. Can't find it anywhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZMFuUycwfs

Maybe you can tell more about this sound.
KC