Baby steps

What's pleasant about learning the pipes as a second instrument is that I don't have any problem reading the music. The range of a set of Northumbrian smallpipes isn't much more than two octaves if that (it rather depends on the design of the chanter, which varies), and it fits very comfortably into the range of notes which I'm already very able to read from treble clef due to my recorder experience.

The trick of course is matching those blobs on the page to fingers and keys on the chanter. The fingered notes aren't particularly difficult, it turns out. They progress nicely up the chanter, and each note requires only one hole to be exposed, so although the fingering system is odd, it's not taking me a great deal of time to get used to. What's really throwing me is the keys.

Fingered notes: lift the right finger, get a note.

Keyed notes: find the right key, press it with the right finger, get a note.

Okay so there are only two fingers to choose from for the keys - the left little finger and the right thumb, which are the only two digits unoccupied with finger holes. The problem is that on the nine-key chanter I've got, these fingers are together responsible for all nine keys - there are three positioned for the little finger, with the remaining six for the thumb. I'm quite pleased I don't have a seventeen-key chanter right now. They are fully chromatic over two octaves, which is useful to be sure, but the warnings that this doesn't mean you can play easily in any key make a lot of sense. You do not want to be playing most of your notes with just a little finger and a thumb, so it's always best to select music which fits in the range of the finger holes of the chanter as much as possible, especially if you want to play it fast.

The water manometer I mentioned in the first post has been tremendously helpful. Over the last couple of days I've had a few sessions and gained compliments from the family over my progress. I've attempted a few more tunes which are down as fairly easy in the Liestman book, and they do fit very nicely into the range of the instrument. Frere Jacque is quite obviously not an authentic Northumbrian tune - neither is Auld Lang Syne, although the latter is frequently played upon Scottish bagpipes. Both, however, aren't too difficult and help with the learning of the keys for low F#, E and D.

Then there are two proper Northumbrian tunes - Winster Gallop and Whittingham Green Lane. I have a recording of Kathryn Tickell playing the latter. Needless to say her version is far superior to mine! The bag is still presenting problems. If I didn''t have to worry about it I don't think the notes would be particularly difficult to deal with in these tunes, but I find myself forgetting to fill the bag, or overfilling it, and generally having difficulty maintaining a nice constant pressure while playing. This results in notes bending their pitch all over the place, and the result isn't pleasant.

Things to work on over the next few days: learn to refill the bag while playing a tune without mucking up the pitch and without stopping the tune until the bag's full.