nonpiper
06-14-2009, 03:03 PM
Hi, my name is Roger and I'm a composer/orchestrator with fairly little knowledge about bagpipes.
For an orchestration project I'm working on I was asked to score one particular melody for bagpipe. I like the idea, it would be very nice to have a bagpipe marching in in the middle of the concert to play as a soloist. However, I'm not certain if the melody in question is suitable for a bagpipe...
The melody uses the mixolydian scale and lies over a root drone all the way, so far so good. However, say I put it in A mixolydian and the bass drone is A, then the range of the melody is D-D (D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D). From what I've read this is at least not achievable on a standard Great Highland bagpipe. Is there a type of bagpipe that is capable of playing a range like this? I can transpose all of it freely, so it doesn't matter what key the pipe is in. If the pipe exists and isn't an extreme rarity, then I'm sure the producer of the concert can hunt one down.
Another alternative would be to find a pipe like the Highland pipe but with C# tuned down to C. This way I would score the piece in D mixolydian with the dominant (A) in the drone and the melody range would be G-G (G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G). But I don't know if a pipe like this exists or if it's possible to tune a Highland pipe like this.
Also about the tuning, I've read that bagpipes are tuned differently than traditional western concert tuning and the bagpipe A is commonly slightly higher than concert Bb. Is it possible to tune the pipe down a bit so that the bagpipe A would correspond with concert Bb and have it play in tune with the orchestra?
Thanks in advance for any informative answers!
Roger
For an orchestration project I'm working on I was asked to score one particular melody for bagpipe. I like the idea, it would be very nice to have a bagpipe marching in in the middle of the concert to play as a soloist. However, I'm not certain if the melody in question is suitable for a bagpipe...
The melody uses the mixolydian scale and lies over a root drone all the way, so far so good. However, say I put it in A mixolydian and the bass drone is A, then the range of the melody is D-D (D-E-F#-G-A-B-C#-D). From what I've read this is at least not achievable on a standard Great Highland bagpipe. Is there a type of bagpipe that is capable of playing a range like this? I can transpose all of it freely, so it doesn't matter what key the pipe is in. If the pipe exists and isn't an extreme rarity, then I'm sure the producer of the concert can hunt one down.
Another alternative would be to find a pipe like the Highland pipe but with C# tuned down to C. This way I would score the piece in D mixolydian with the dominant (A) in the drone and the melody range would be G-G (G-A-B-C-D-E-F#-G). But I don't know if a pipe like this exists or if it's possible to tune a Highland pipe like this.
Also about the tuning, I've read that bagpipes are tuned differently than traditional western concert tuning and the bagpipe A is commonly slightly higher than concert Bb. Is it possible to tune the pipe down a bit so that the bagpipe A would correspond with concert Bb and have it play in tune with the orchestra?
Thanks in advance for any informative answers!
Roger