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How to Balance the Bagpipe Volume

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

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

Views: 438 | Tags: instrument, tuning, wind, reeds, pitch, scottish, highland, drone, volume, bagpipe, bagpipes, Scotland

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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

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Video Transcript

How to Balance the Bagpipe Volume

NEIL HUBBARD: Balancing the sound of the chanter with the sound of the drones is a very important part of creating a pleasant-sounding instrument. If the chanter is too loud in relation to the drones, it just doesn't make for a good sound. Probably worse than that would be drones that are too loud compared to the chanter. So, the ways to manipulate the volume of the chanter are, again, use of this rubber band around the reed to quiet it down. You can also shave off part of the reed, sand it off, to make it easier to blow, therefore a slightly quieter reed. With the drone reeds, the way to adjust their sound is mostly through manipulation of the reed. This particular reed has a nose cone that you pull off and you--there's a screw inside of here that changes the pitch and it will change the loudness of the reed. Also, this O-ring here on this particular reed, if you move it more that way, it lets more air in under the tongue of the reed, making it louder. If you move the O-ring back this direction, it shortens the length of the tongue of the reed, making it quieter and making it take less air. So those are the ways to manipulate the volume of the drone reeds and the chanter reed.

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