Learning the Pipes...

pandscarr · Post by **pandscarr** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 12:41 am

Last Sunday I saw Chris Norman in concert - and he played the ?small pipes for one of the sets... (the ones with a small bellows which straps onto the waist).

Have any of you fluters taken up these sorts of pipes after learning the flute - and was it difficult? Are the fingerings the same as the flute and whistle, or is it an entirely different system?

Just wondered...

Pamela

Jayhawk · Post by **Jayhawk** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 5:20 am

Aren't those the Uilleann pipes? If they are, we had a piper join our session the last time we met. Fingers are the same, but the low D requires a funky physical pop up of the chanter (is that the right term?) and the higher notes are achieved by pushing on the bellows harder and I believe he said also on some finger techniques.

Anyway, it looked way hard to me...but I love their sound!

Eric

beowulf573 · Post by **beowulf573** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 5:50 am

It could have been a set of Northumbrian Smallpipes too.

Uilleann pipes are apparently very difficult to learn and play, a saying I heard years ago was that it took 21 years; 7 years of learning, 7 years of practice, and 7 years of playing. Make a keyless simple system flute seem trivial.

Still, they sound fantastic in good hands.

If you're looking for CDs, there's no shortage of good one, I've been listening to "Callan Bridge" by Niall and Cillian Vallely recently, great stuff.

Eddie

Tony · Post by **Tony** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 6:03 am

His website didn't have much information
http://www.chrisnorman.com/
There is mention of him playing small pipes.
I saw credits for piper Eric Rigler performing on one of his CD's

Uilleann pipes are played with the chanter resting on the knee, small pipes are not.

pandscarr · Post by **pandscarr** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 6:40 am

So, since he played them standing up - and the chanter wasn't resting on his knee, that would make them small pipes...? Great sound, whatever.

pamela

Post by **Nanohedron** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 9:49 am

Yes, you can play the Scottish Smallpipes standing up. The fingering is usually like the Great Highland Pipes (makers can vary this somewhat), so no, they're not fingered like a flute. The octave D, or back D (work with me here: smallpipes can be tuned in D, C, Bb or A) as it's called, is sounded via a hole for the left thumb on the back of the chanter, and the right pinkie has a hole for a flattened seventh below the tonic; on a D set this would be low Cnat. Also, like the highland pipes, the seventh interval up from the tonic is flattened: high Cnat on a D set. What you have then is a Mixolydian scale of nine notes and no more, just like the highland pipes, but far more quiet; it's an indoor instrument. The same repertory and techniques are applied, although I've heard some playing that was quite outside the strict confines of competetive highland piping. Smallpipes tuned to A tend to be the most popular for their rich mellow tone; Bb is fairly close to the highland pipes; C has been described as "bright", and D some describe as shrill. It helps to have really small hands to play a D set!

Then there are the drones...

Suffice it to say that the standard is three, and they all extend together out of a common stock, and laterally across the chest. Usually the tuning is tonic/fifth/octave.

If you're planning to get a set, deal with a smallpipes maker, not a maker of highland pipes who does smallpipes as a sideline. Really.

AaronMalcomb · Post by **AaronMalcomb** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 10:30 am

Nano's right about buying smallpipes from a smallpipe maker. Even the best Highland pipe makers don't make the best bellows pipes. Some good bellows pipe makers make good Highland pipes though.

Popular makers are Hamish Moore of Dunkeld, Nigel Richards of Edinburgh, and Ray Sloan of Northumberland, to name a few.

You may wish to check out The Lowland and Border Piper's Society website. They have also just published a new tutour.

I'm sure you'll be able find pipers in your area that will let you try their pipes. It would probably help a lot to get a practice chanter like Highland pipers learn on so you can get used to the new things you'll be doing with your hands. You'll be using a lot of Highland technique though a lot of bellows pipers use other techniques so your whistle and flute experience will be handy... no pun intended :roll:

Cheers,
Aaron

phcook · Post by **phcook** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 2:14 pm

Another very famous smallpipe maker: Dave Shaw at http://www.daveshaw.co.uk/Scottish_Smal ... pipes.html

Smallpipe uses a fingering close from GHB's; uillean pipe belongs to same family (right hand fingers closing holes for high notes).

Both are difficult, but you won't be desoriented for a long time if you're skilled enough in flute playing. I find very interesting trying to play more than one instrument; I can't practise enough time with each instrument, but the pleasure is worth spending more years to become a good player.

Ph

glauber · Post by **glauber** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 2:16 pm

phcook wrote:Smallpipe uses a fingering close from GHB's; uillean pipe belongs to same family (right hand fingers closing holes for high notes).

Do you mean it's the opposite as in the whistle, the right hand is above the left? Doesn't sound right to me.

Post by **Nanohedron** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 4:12 pm

Glauber, the left hand in this case is indeed at the lower tone-holes, and those holes are stopped when the higher notes are opened. This is for proper intonation; sort of a semi-closed fingering somewhat related to what goes on in uilleann pipe closed-style fingering.

Some makers of smallpipes provide alternate fingerings from this.

glauber · Post by **glauber** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 4:22 pm

This may be just terminology but i still don't understand. For example, here is a fingering chart for Scottish small pipes:
http://www3.telus.net/ereiswig/ssp_fing.gif
and it shows the left hand on top, like on a whistle, recorder or flute.

sturob · Post by **sturob** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 4:40 pm

No, Glauber, your chart has it right. If you play pipes right-handed, the left hand is the upper hand.

I think Nano's just stressing that Highland fingering is half-closed, meaning that the right hand is down when the left hand is up and vice-versa.

But Nano, what the heck do you mean by, "Glauber, the left hand in this case is indeed at the lower tone-holes, and those holes are stopped when the higher notes are opened." Huh?

Smallpipes are nice. Most pipers come from the Highland tradition, so (we) use highland gracing on them. You can play SSPs with simple gracing, but the complex highland stuff sounds nice.

D is basically a useless key for the SSP, in my opinion. The chanter is SO small (even Hamish Moore's "wide-spaced" high D chanter) that you have to have teeny tiny hands to play it. C is a lot more comfortable, and it makes a nice smallpipe . . .

Stuart

Post by **Nanohedron** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 4:45 pm

My mistake! "Right" and "left" are a bit problematic with me...usually I point and say, "Go this way."

Sad but true. At least I can put my shoes on correctly, and my trousers usually have a standard orientation to them.

AaronMalcomb · Post by **AaronMalcomb** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 5:08 pm

Stuart's right about D chanters... way tiny. They're like trying to play a high G whistle. Gary West, current host of Pipeline, can play some tidy tunes on them though.
Some uilleann gracings work on smallpipes. At a recital Bob Worral played March of the King of Laois and played cranns. Otherwise you'll use mostly GHB fingering which in a lot of cases are the same as whistle and flute only with different names. A cut is a gracenote, a tap is a strike and a short roll is a gracenoted strike. I don't know what it's called in uilleann piping but there's an embellishment sometimes called a pele (named after the Brazilian soccer icon) that consists of two cuts and a tap. Some fun GHB embellishments are the crunluath and the birl. The crunluath is starts on the bell note, goes down to the flattened 7th, is followed by a cut, another cut, back to the bell note, then a thrid cut up to the 5th. All of this played as quick and tidy as a Matt Molloy crann. A birl is a double tapayed by the pinky on the flattened 7th.
GHB embellishments are usually written in the sheet music but I've seen a lot of smallpipe scores that have the embellishments left out for the piper's artistic license.
Cheers,
Aaron

sturob · Post by **sturob** » Wed Sep 17, 2003 5:34 pm

Actually, Aaron, cranns are GHB gracenotes. They were in piobareachd (classic highland pipe music) probably way before there even WAS an uilleann pipe.

And usually, the terminology is different from what you've mentioned . . . a tap is a cut (a low G gracenote on D, for example), and a roll is a cutting or a double cut (the way I learned it). Long rolls are called hornpipe cuttings. Probably the most common of the flashy short stuff is the grip, or lemluath, which is like a short cran (bellnote-grace-bellnote). There are things like rolls which don't go below the graced note called doublings. I still play highlands and this is the terminology used in the US and Canada, at least, but it matches printed tutors I've seen from Scotland.

As for the gracing . . . it's written in highland music mainly because it's considered part of the arragement (or setting), and all players in an ensemble have to play the same gracing for the whole "ensemble" thing to work. SSP music traditionally doesn't have the gracenotes written because the style is more a solo one, and the gracing is up to the individual.

If you want to hear REALLY complicated gracings, listen to some piobaireachd . . . it's like Highland ragas. There's a base melody called an urlar, which then goes through variations with increasingly complicated gracing . . . from lemluath to taorluath to crunluath and onward!

Stuart