How Bagpipes Work

my friends hello it is lovely to be seeing you today I am excited to be bringing you a very long overdue video which is an in-depth discussion of how the bagpipes work so if you've been one of the many who have been wondering for a while now stay tuned and enjoy the video [Music] before we get started with the specifics of how they work it is important that you have an understanding of the terminology and the overall anatomy of the bagpipes so that is where we're going to start with today's video to start the three pipes that sit on the player's shoulder are called drones there are three drones in total the bass drone the longest one closest to the Head the middle tenor and the outer tenor the bass drone plays the lowest bass pitch and it I'm gonna ignore them and just let leave The Barking in the background it's character it's it's personality it's authenticity and the two Tenors play the same pitch in unison the drones are connected to the bag we know the bag and the bag acts as a reservoir for air so in order to fill that bag with air we need a mouthpiece which connects to the plier and the lungs and that is the blowpipe now the one where arguably the most important things happen is the chanter that is where the hands go that is where all of the melody is played on the instrument so to recap we have chanter mouthpiece or blowpipe and the three drones which are all connected to the bag this is where a lot of people start to lose the understanding the mouthpiece and the chanter are not connected so because all of the air goes into the bag the bag supplies air to all four of those different pipes otherwise there would be no way for me to Supply Air to the chanter and four different pipes at the same time using just one mouthpiece that is what the bag does and that is why I am able to play and fully remove my face from the instrument and have the sound continue unhindered now we have to understand a little bit more of the inner mechanisms of the bagpipe because that aids in your understanding of the instrument as a whole all four of the main sound producing pipes the three drones and the chanter have Reeds inside the chanter read is most reminiscent to its cousin the oboe or bassoon because it is a double cane Reed connected the airflow goes through the bag and causes the two cane pieces to vibrate together which makes that bright classic bagpipe sound the cane is a little bit thicker and more triangular on a bagpipe than it is on a bassoon or an oboe because you don't put it in your mouth in order to make the pieces vibrate together it vibrates together through the air pressure solely from the bag the Drone reads are a little bit different they're more cylindrical and they have sometimes a synthetic tongue most drone reads have a synthetic tongue that vibrates against it as the air passes over the Reed the bass drone read is a little bit longer because it is meant to produce a lower pitch lastly and arguably most importantly is this thing called a flapper valve some players and on one of my bagpipes I've opted for a moose valve which serves the same function But ultimately this is a thin piece of rubber plastic that causes the airflow to be disrupted when you take your mouth off of the mouthpiece so for example if you blow air through the mouthpiece the flabber valve is pushed open and then when you stop the air pressure from the bag pushes it closed so no air can leak out through the mouthpiece hitting you in the face or causing you to lose air out of the instrument that is very very important the majority of people who have issues keeping air in the bagpipe is usually a flabber valve not working properly because that causes so much air to be lost from the back so flapper valve very important not known by most non-pipers the last thing to kind of Hit Upon varies from player to player but that is a moisture control system I have a very standard tube trap in most of my bagpipes and actually the Moose valve can act as a bit of a water trap as well and that's all I use in my McClellan bagpipes that you see in most of my videos if I'm playing Outdoors on a humid day I will opt for additional support just to collect some moisture but ultimately the water trap is just a long tube that basically acts kind of like a spit valve on a trumpet it collects condensation and then you can dump it out after you're done playing there are tons of different types of water traps and moisture control systems I can't really go over all of them some have little beads that you can cook in the oven and dry them out you can put them back in I've used those before but all of it will just depend on each player's moisture production um I don't happen to have a lot of moisture that gets produced into my bagpipe so I don't need any of The Crazy Ones but that will just depend on each individual player now that you more or less know all of the anatomy of the bagpipe we're going to get into how they work which by this point should hopefully be a little bit more understandable and self-explanatory you will blow air into the mouthpiece which will fill up the bag then I strike the bag to force all of the air at a similar pressure into all four of the pipes the drones come on at one pressure all three of them should ideally be the same pressure we manipulate this by adjusting the Reeds through a process called calibration to make sure they all take the same amount of air so I strike the bag which pushes the air through the drones and gets them activated and on at the same time tuck the bag under the arm continuously refilling making sure it's full of air then add a little bit more pressure and the chanter will come on something very important to maintain while you're playing is a steady pressure once you start playing your bagpipe you are at that same volume for the duration of your playing pressure is going to affect pitch not volume so if I drop my pressure it's not going to make the instrument quieter it's just going to make it Go Out Of Tune so it's very important to keep a steady pressure and we do that by using our arm so I'll fill the bag keep it full and then when it's time to take a breath just a slight push from the arm it's not drastic or else the pitch is gonna go all over the place the bag can be very sensitive to pressure so just a slight push from the arm most of the time I'm just using the weight of my arm while I take a quick breath if you see somebody playing or you yourself are playing and you're noticing your arm is moving a ton you very likely have some sort of issue within the bag in terms of it being able to maintain air there's probably a leak somewhere and you are going to want to find out where that is could be the flapper valve could be a reed issue could be a hole something not connected right ultimately your arm shouldn't be moving a ton and you shouldn't be struggling to keep air in the bag so I've made a video before with a silly little diagram and I'll include the diagram over here it is 10 out of 10 art skills so the air goes into the mouthpiece hangs out in the air reservoir of the bag and with pressure is dispersed through all of the four pipes that in essence is a crash course on how bagpipes work now the fun part because the bagpipes are just continuously having air flow through those Reeds that means I can't do this I can't tongue the notes and cause a quick stop to occur in the chanter or else it's gonna sound like this which is obviously not pleasant so the way we work around this is by using embellishments on our fingers to separate the notes called Grace notes and we have a myriad of other embellishments as well which are very fun together [Music] which can provide some rhythmic and dynamic interest in the piece and also help us to maintain a fun Rhythm so hopefully this video has offered you a little bit of insight into the bagpipes how they work and maybe this will reach the right people and people will stop saying that I'm faking it when they see me breathing on the internet breathing is good we want breathing all right if you guys have any additional questions comments or concerns about the function of the bagpipes you may leave them in the comments below and I'm excited to continue this educational series about the instrument that I love so dearly just popping in really quickly to let you know a few ways that you can support me and my content creation I have everything linked Below in the description but I do have a patreon where I post these videos a little bit early and we have fun discussions and my patrons also give me ideas on different content that they would like me to create additionally I do have music on all major streaming platforms under the name piper.ally including a physical copy of two CDs which are linked at my bandcamp store and I also have other fun merch on that store as well like stickers and things of that sort so check out all the links if you would like to support me additionally if not that is okay I love you anyway and I hope you have a great day I'll see you in the next one [Music] foreign [Music] excuse me oh

Channel: Ally The Piper

Views: 285,398

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Id: VMyO2z4qLvs

Length: 10min 28sec (628 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 13 2023