RNPS

By Nathan Colbern, RNPS Member and P/M Rose and Thistle Pipes and Drums

Campbell asked me if I would write a piece for the RNPS web site on tuning the Great Highland Bagpipe (GHB) with a concert band, based around experiences I’ve had with the Royal Naval Volunteer Bands and the Royal Marines, especially the latter.

To set the scene, the quality of the concert band (tuning and ability) and pitch of the GHB chanter being played will largely depend on how the overall sound will come across.  My experience playing with the combined bands of the Royal Marines band during “Prom in the park 2010” (http://www.southcoastproms.com/) was a fantastic experience, but had me spooked at our initial rehearsal due to the massive separation in where our instruments were tuning to.   I was playing the old favourite Highland Cathedral as a solo, but instead of being accompanied during the 2nd part by a side drummer, the RM band's woodwind section played.  Fine I here you cry, but the tone between the pipes and woodwind section can only be described as a dockyard’s width apart. The Conductor (Lieutenant Colonel NJ Grace)  immediately stopped us and asked us to play a scale together. It was horribly obvious that I was considerably sharper than the woodwind section. Nick asked me to tune down which I promptly attempted in front of 75 RM musicians (tuning at ~480 Hz). I lifted my chanter reed as high as possible but still could not match the tone of the clarinet.  One of the Clarinetists and I were sent away and encouraged to try harder! The pitch of my Sheppard 2009 chanter and Warnock reed was not going to become flat enough to match the tone of the clarinet. I had a sudden wave of inspiration and stated that for us to play at the same pitch as the RM band, the pipers would need to change their chanters to a 1970/80’ish vintage, an age where pipe chanters were tuning significantly flatter. I suggested this to my accompanying pipers who agreed as none of knew how to fix the problem with less than 20 hrs to the first nights performance.

We did so the following night (with 5 matched Warnock chanters), and tuned in perfectly with the RM band. The following link takes you to our web site where the videos of the event are hosted http://www.rose-and-thistle.co.uk/?p=videos One of my fellow pipers found a very useful web site that managed to explain why we were tuning so far apart. We read this with great interest http://qanda.themacleods.net/qanda then navigate to the side menu and click on “music and musical key” then navigate to expanded menu to “in what music key does the bagpipe play”. The key statement on the page is; “The low A on the modern chanter of great highland bagpipe (and the drones) are commonly tuned to above concert B flat, which is 466.16 Hz. With the application of some tape and a bit of adjustment of the reeds (upwards, to become flatter), the instrument can be adjusted such that low A on the chanter (and the drones) vibrate at 466.16 Hz. This is a concert B-flat tuning of the instrument, but it is not necessarily the key.  (Please note that most bagpipes today tune at 476 to 480 Hz! This is roughly halfway between B-flat and B. Setting up a concert B-flat bagpipe can be challenging.) By changing our chanters, but still using modern reeds, we managed to bridge the gap and were tuning just above 466 Hz, considerably different to the 480 Hz we’re currently use to.

Typically we play Highland Cathedral and Amazing Grace with the Royal Naval Volunteer and RM Bands, which dependent upon the tuning and ability of the band, necessitates an amount of tuning flatter by the Pipe Corps. However before you  start tuning your chanter flatter, first assess how far apart you are, as you may find that due to the climatic’s and ability of the concert band (blowing harder), you’re in tune. This has been the case at times when we’ve been playing in the beer halls during the evenings in Cologne with the Volunteer bands, so check first!