Piobaireachd High G sound

[cafi95]

Hi Patrick,

I'll try to find an answer on that question ... surching in pipe organ technical books.

In fact, a bagpipe works exactly like a pipe organ and there's plenty of old books dealing with that subject.

For example Don Bedos (famous XVIII century French organ maker) wrote a monumental reference book that's of course still used ... most answers can be found ... and probably this one.

Patrick Molard played in front of me an exact reproduction (exact mesurements have been taken on the original instrument) of a Glasgow's museum bagpipe (I guess from the early XIX century). Only 4 instruments or so have been made.

The pitch is much lower than modern bagpipes. I've never seen such large drones !

The sound coming out from that pipe is something incredible you cannot even imagine and you'll never forget !

So I do believe a lower pitch generates more audible sounds (harmonics or combinations of harmonics than a higher pitch).

Dealing with organs, big instruments (16 feet or 32 feet, so with a lower fundamental) sounds with a more colourful sound than small ones (8 feet). Because of the incoming of low (some beats between some big pipes generate even harmonics under the fundamental !) and high harmonics. Too high pitch harmonics are not audible. So the sound seems to be poor.

Well, I try to explain that with my own words and I must try to get some more accurate informations than personnal feelings !

Give you that within a few months.

Kindest regards.

Philippe

[keydetpiper]

A good piobaireachd high G is not something I can tell you how to achieve. I get something resembling a decent piob high G about 50% of the time, and I wish I could tell you how that happens. I can definitely tell when it's bad, but it's a lot harder to tell when it's good.

[Gr8_Piper]

Shawn hit the nail on the head

[pipermacbear]

Agreed, I'd say listen to some good piobaireachd recordings and you'll get the idea...fast

In any piobaireachd, a proper high G sounds a little wild and dangerous. Like a herd of rampaging stags that you can't hear over your loudly singing pipes.

[Ken Gordon]

Originally Posted by cafi95

From another hand, I do believe that the constant pitch increasing of the chanters nowadays makes them more difficult to get rich tones due to a kind of lack of harmonics (that's probably the same problem with the drones) ... and perhaps the piob high G becomes a bit more difficult to obtain.

I am thinking that this lack of harmonics might have much more to do with the almost universal use of plastic chanters vs ABW or Ebony chanters?

Back in about 1977 or so, when plastic chanters were first being made and used, I and a Grade 1 piper made some oscilloscope-photos of the waveform produced by two chanters, one of plastic, and one of ABW, both made by the same maker. We used the same piper, the same pipes, the same chanter reed and the same drone reeds, doing everything possible to eliminate as many variables as we could.

It was extremely clear almost immediately that the plastic chanter had a much more "pure" output which was missing very significant overtones and harmonics which were NOT missing from the ABW chanter!

What led up to this experiment was that **I** could definitely hear a difference between the two chanters, but some could not, so I set out to prove or disprove that I was correct, and what, if anything that difference might be.

I still have the photos if anyone is interested.

I am absolutely certain that this difference effects Piob hi-G.

[Patrick McLaurin]

I'd love to see those images. My email is freely available with a little research or you can post the images yourself. I'll have to do this experiment myself.

[Ken Gordon]

It appears that I cannot (yet) post images to the forum.

I have a personal website to which I will upload those (as soon as I find them) and will post a pointer to those as soon as I have done so.

From the oscilloscope photos, it is very clear what the differences are.

No one here will have any trouble discerning the differences, believe me!

This is one reason I have always stuck with ABW or Ebony drones and chanter, and cane reeds. I.e., they just sound better and fuller to my ears.

I do so love the pipes!

[Patrick McLaurin]

No one can upload to the forum, you have to link or use the IMG BBcode, er whatever it's called.

[Ken Gordon]

Originally Posted by Patrick McLaurin

No one can upload to the forum, you have to link or use the IMG BBcode, er whatever it's called.

OK. Thanks. The reason I asked is that I have seen some photos that some have uploaded, and have not yet figured out how they did that.

The forum FAQ is, quite simply, wrong on what it says about that.

[macdaddy65]

Originally Posted by colinmaclellan

The Hi G used in piobaireachd is typically 23 cents flatter than the normal one. The sole reason it is used in piobaireachd is quite simply that it needs to be that way in order to fit into the scale correctly.

Sooooo...would that be -51 cents on the tuner then?

Here's one...if the needle on the tuner is jumping around (super sharp...then super flat) then it is unstable, eh?? good sign of instability??? What if you just tune the HiG where it is MOST stable, regardless of any actual Hz number...is that an option for tuning this note, since its actual tuning seems to be a matter of personal prefernce/open to interpretation/a cause for debate, etc...????