Category Archives: Great Highland Bagpipe Solo

People playing solo great highland bagpipes.

Prototypes and Diddly Tunes

Drone Sounds of the GHB, Great Highland Bagpipe Solo

It’s been about 2.5 weeks since I played last due to a head cold. What that has allowed is some prototype products to arrive at my door. One is a gorgeous blackwood chanter and the other is a set of drone reeds. The last prototypical product is a Shawn Husk chanter reed, but he’s selling those now; but I got this one free and before he opened up shop so it still counts! The other two will remain unidentified as their products are still in development and are not currently for sale. I’m playing my Gellaitry drones with the prototype chanter and Husk reed in every file, what changes is the drone reeds, tune selection, and crapy-ness of playing. These are kitchen piping tunes!

Kinnaird Drone Reeds – Polkas – I don’t know the names of these, Ger the Rigger might be one of them (the first?)

Kinnaird Bass Reed & Prototype Tenor Reeds – Reels – Swallow’s Tail, Gravel Walk, Sleepy Maggie major, Sleepy Maggie minor, Dick Gossip’s, Dancing Feet

Prototype Drone Reeds – Jigs – Scarce o’ Tatties, Queen of the Rushes, Fraher’s Jig, Rocking the Baby, Glasgow Police Pipers, Kesh jig

Husk 3.0 chanter reed & SOS, Gael, and Kyo chanters

Great Highland Bagpipe Solo

Believe it or not, Shawn Husk has steadily improved his reeds over the last month or so. I’ve had the chance to play 3 versions, which I’ve named 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. The reason for major release numbers is that each reed was different. 2.0 was a little longer than 1.0 and 3.0 has a little ridge on it. Anyways, his 2.0 matched the best reeds I’ve ever gotten to play. His 3.0 is a real cracker though! Popped it in the SOS chanter in the Gellaitry pipes in the bedroom and away we go:

Newmarket House and Hen’s March

Next, I wanted to test the Husk 3.0’s pitch, so it went in the Gael. After a suitable warm-up, I had it a 466 Hz. That’s with the reed pushed in a little and the high A taped to sharpen some middle notes up to the low A. I also realized the chanter timbre I was hearing on the “Pipers’ Controversy” album was in fact just a bunch of chanters with flatter pitches. I had to add hemp to my tenor reeds and the tenor tops were still almost falling off! The rest of the recordings were done in the walk-in closet as the kiddos had gone to sleep. The remaining also played on the 1950’s Henderson’s.

Newmarket House and Paddy’s Leather Breeches

Scotland The Brave and Wings

Well, you’re probably tired of hearing Newmarket House but I’ve got a competition coming up and I still need to get the parts straight. So here I’ve moved on to the Kyo with my band reed (Gilmour with a corner missing) followed by the Husk 3.0. We’re tuning around 485 Hz as a band, with the Husk 3.0 it came down a bit to 482-3 Hz or so (I have to guess because the analog tuner only goes to 480 Hz, so I have to roughly convert cents to hertz).

Newmarket House and Glasgow Police Pipers with Gilmour reed

Newmarket House and Alan MacPherson Of Mosspark with Husk 3.0 reed