Quick Picks: How to Tune a Bagpipe Drone
 
Sign In Sign Up — It's Free!

How to Tune a Bagpipe Drone

Viewing videos requires the latest version of Adobe's Flash Player.
Get the latest Flash player.
Showing 1-5

Part of the video series: Prepare a Bagpipe Before Playing it

left_arrow right_arrow
Add to My Playlist What is a playlist?

Summary: Learn how to tune your drone in this free video series that will show you everything you need to know about playing the bagpipe.

Views: 463 | Tags: instrument, tuning, wind, reeds, pitch, scottish, highland, drone, volume, bagpipe, bagpipes, Scotland

Get the latest Flash player.
Email Video Add to Favorites
About the Expert

Neil Hubbard Neil Hubbard has taught the Scottish Highland bagpipes to individuals and groups since the early 1990's. In addition to coaching the Seattle Firefighters Pipe... read more

Hide Comments

Conversations About This Video

  • Comments
    (0 comments)
  • Questions & Answers
    (0 questions) (0 answers)
Be the first to comment on this video.
Have a question about this video topic? Ask our community members and let them share their knowledge with you!
Ask A Question

Video Transcript

How to Tune a Bagpipe Drone

NEIL HUBBARD: So, the drones that are up over my shoulder here are tuned to the chanter. The two tenor drones are tuned one octave below the low A on the chanter, and the bass drone here is tuned two octaves below the low A on the chanter. There isn't much of an adjustment on these tubes, lengthening the tube flattens the pitch, makes the tube longer, therefore a lower pitch. Shortening the tubes slightly increases the pitch, makes it a slightly a higher pitch. But ultimately, it's a very small range of movement that changes the pitch of these pipes in order to tune them to the bottom note on the chanter. With the bass drone, you generally always leave the top of it set so that there's just a little bit of the hemp line showing and the bottom joint here is where you make your changes on tuning the bass drone.

Watch these related videos

Wind Instruments Ads

Community Members who...

  • Favorited this Video
  • Rated This Video
Read these related articles
See more articles

Top Tags

accordion accordions american bagpipes beginner blues care chords clarinet embouchure flute flute lessons flutes harmonica instructional instrument instruments ireland Irish Irish flute japanese jazz key mouth musical musical instruments native nativeamericanflute notes orchestra pipes play player playing polka reed reeds repair scale scales Shakuhachi sheet squeeze symphony techniques theory traditional tuning wind wooden
Check out what people are watching now
left_arrow right_arrow