Great Highland bagpipe

What it is

The Scottish bagpipe: a mouth-blown bag feeding one double-reed chanter and three single-reed drones (two tenors, one bass). Played standing, outdoors or in halls, solo or in a pipe band.¹⁵

Also called bagpipes.

Range

A#2 to A#5⁸115 Hz – 920 Hz

115 Hz (bass drone) to 920 Hz (high A), our conversion; pipes tune A to about 470-480 Hz

The sound

The piper blows into a bag, which keeps air flowing past the reeds; all four reeds sit inside the instrument, so there is no articulation or dynamic control, and grace-note embellishments separate notes.¹⁵

Where the sound goes

Two sources. The chanter is directional: the piper's body shields the rear, so it is about 12 dB louder in front than behind at 1 m. The drones sit above and behind and radiate about equally all round. Stamler found ten pipers and four bass drummers in a stone chapel "louder than the Who".^9,4

About the range

The chanter plays nine notes (low G, low A, B, C, D, E, F, high G, high A), from a whole tone below the tonic to an octave above; the drones are tuned to the tonic A. Modern pipes tune to about 470-480 Hz, close to Bb4. Dr Patrick Potter gives the fundamentals as 115 Hz (bass drone) to 920 Hz (high A); that is about A#2 to A#5 (my conversion). Energy extends to about 8 kHz.^15,8

How loud

Sound pressure level measurements as published. Different kinds of figure (a playing level, a peak, a dose at the player's ear) can't be compared with each other, and neither can figures at different distances.

Potter: peak fundamental energy about 93 dB; levels in the several feet around a solo piper are 85-90 dB SPL, six pipers 95-102 dB, and more with the drum corps. Alex Carruthers (Piping Times, 1979): the chanter is about 95 dB at 1 m in front of the piper and 83 dB at 1 m behind. A forum piper's meter read about 100 dB at the left ear at about 2 ft (informal, converted by a poster to about 95 dB at 1 m, no weighting stated).^8,9,10

Recording it

Recording, studio: an engineer on a video forum says close miking is a mistake: in a studio he used one mic 10-15 ft away (little room echo), and outdoors a spaced pair of U 87s about 10 ft from the pipes and 30 ft apart; "with bagpipes, 10 feet is close micing". Bartlett's opposite approach is a flat condenser or mini mic 8-12 in from the chanter fingers and a mic over the drones. A piper's home set-up: one MXL 990 condenser at chanter height from a few feet, plus two MXL 603 at 120 degrees at ear level about 4 ft behind. Search-result text suggests ribbons close to the chanter and one behind the piper 18-24 in from the drones (source thread not opened). A Gearspace engineer recorded Great Highland pipes from about 10 ft with a blend of a Schoeps and a Royer R-121.

Recording, hall: Stamler recorded ten pipers and four bass drummers in a stone chapel with an ORTF pair of SM81s; his KM 84s overloaded even with pads engaged.^2,5,1,3,4

Mics i

No mic is named by more than one source yet: each names its own.

On stage

Kaufman says to point a cardioid at the middle of the pipes from about 8 in. Shure suggests two MX150 lavaliers, one on the shirt front near the chanter and one worn over the ear for the drones (search snippet only).^6,7

Problems to watch

Very high SPL (overload of small condensers), reverberant indoor sound ("never meant to be heard indoors"), two source directions.^9,4,2