Over the last year I’ve had stability issues with my Glencoe pipes. Amazing how much life a bag seasoning (Airtight) and a new set of reeds will give. No stability problems now. Here they are with Canning drone reeds (carbon fiber bass) and my Gellaitry’s Colin Kyo chanter with Shawn Husk chanter reed. I think I need to just face the recorder head on as there’s a bit too much drone in all of these. 2 of them have the recorder on my tenor side (left) and one it is on my bass side (right). Any talking or door slamming you hear is courtesy my 3 year old son, Elliott, who is about as clueless as a hammer.

Sandy’s New Chanter, Mark Sheridan, and Angus MacKenzie of Dumbarton – tenor side

Sleep Dearie Sleep, Borve Lorry S&R, Sleepy Maggie, Dancing Feet – tenor side

Snuff Wife, Thief of Lochaber, and Kenneth MacDonald’s Jig – bass side

I’ve got the G1 chanter in and have been playing it a little bit at band practice and here at home. Giving it a few days before I come to any major conclusions but be on the look out!

On Michael McGoldrick and John McSherry’s album, At First Light, they have a set, Lady Lane, Farewell to Whalley Range, Michael Russell’s, which ends with one of the coolest tunes you will ever hear. I’ve always wanted to figure out how to play it on the pipes (original recording is flute and uilleann pipes). I’ve recorded it with two other tunes (this is an all Irish music post) for your listening pleasure (listen before reading further, please):

Drops of Brandy and Michael Russell’s

Kitty Lie Over and Michael Russell’s (Kitty Lie Over is a tune I got from Mick O’Brien & Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh from their album, Kitty Lie Over)

Does the title of this post make sense now? We have long been plagued with only 9 notes (okay 11, maybe 12 if you really know what you’re doing). Who’s to say the lowest should be low G? The bagad bands in Brittany have long ago developed a chanter that instead of a low G played low F#. Their chanters (here’s an example) are designed to tune differently however, in that the drones are tuned up to B, meaning the offsets from ET usually used must be applied to one note higher than usual (I think). My drones here are obviously still tuned to low A and I’m not using a Bagad chanter. I’m using my Colin Kyo chanter with one of the tone holes taped over (you’ll notice the special bagad B chanters only have one tone hole).

I’ve known of this effect for quite some time, but never found a cool enough tune that for the most part only needed the low F# and not low G since you lose low G (in the original score there are some passing low E’s and low D’s but with a little rewrite they disappear). The sheet music I’ve derived for the tune can be downloaded here.