Border Pipe Contrabass

[Will Woodson]

Hi all. Nate Banton and myself have been hard at work over the last year developing a contrabass drone (an octave below the bass drone) for Scottish bellows pipes. I've recently finished my new personal set, which has five drones in total including the contrabass. I recorded a few tunes on the set the other day, which can be heard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlSkWHe ... ata_player

Let me know what you think.

[dunnp]

Really enjoyed the piece nice to hear drones coming in and out.

What are the tunes?

Why not try a reg or two? I heard of a set of Northumbrian pipes with regs but never saw or heard them.

There are probably those who would say leave that to the uilleann pipers but I'm all for doing as you've done here and exploring.

The pipers of the past did.

[mke_mick]

Suh-weet! I, for one, commend the notion of cherry-picking elements from the uilleann evolution, and back-porting them to more Scottish-sounding pipes. I love the UP, but it's a big world, and our instrument is not the be-all and end-all of bellows-blown pipes.

And it isn't like modern (sic) UP are that much like UP made 150 years ago, anyhow, nor should they (all) be. Power to you, and congratulations!

Cheers,
Mick

[bogman]

They sound great Will, glad someone is doing something different. Pipes have become very uniform over the last century. As I'm sure you know pipes had many more varieties in the past. Some good examples of some of the diversity here... http://www.nms.ac.uk/collections/result ... escription

[Will Woodson]

Thanks for the kind words, all. The air is one of my own, and the reel that follows it is a nameless tune (#46, I think) out of the 19th century "Celtic Melodies" collection, which you can find over at Ross Anderson's page: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/music/

I'd be lying if I said that my own music wasn't influenced by uilleann pipes and piping, but I grew up playing Scottish music on Scottish pipes, and the sound and repertoire of instrument is really my first language. I'm lucky enough to be making a living by playing and making Scottish bellows pipes, and the intersection of the crafts of musician and maker has been partially one of developing new or improved facets of the instrument to meet my wants and needs as a working musician. Modern Scottish bellows pipes are heavily reinvented versions of historical instruments, and I see no reason why the reinvention should halt now. There's certainly more to be done on that front, and we're hoping to be rolling a few more things out of the shop in the next few years.

[kintailpipes]

Nice piping and wonderful sound, now just add some regulators and you have a modern pastoral pipe. Very cool. Nate is a great pipe maker!

[benhall.1]

That was lovely, Will. I really enjoyed that. Fantastic sound you're getting out of that set.