Tuning the Drones on the Scottish Smallpipes!

Definitely need to learn to tune your drones!
musicroom.nycke...

[@josevicentejimenez9070]

👏👏👏👏👏Cool,i play a twist trap smallpipe

[@maxwellfan55]

Good advice, nothing better than perfect tuning to sound lovely!

[@m.r.b.806]

What about the baritone?

[@lucygordon7471]

I just dusted off my scottish smallpipes and i seemed to have taped off two of the drones years ago... I notcied you only tuned two, is that what is normally done depending on what key your chanter is in? Thanks!

[@pipervix]

If I’ve got my A chanter on, then mostly I use the two A drones. If a piece is obviously in D then I sometimes use the two D drones. Mostly though I use the two that match the chanter. This is a combined set where I have two different chanters that I can swap in.

[@kimberleyguilmette761]

I’m just learning to use smallpipes with a blow tube, after 8 months on a chanter, I had 2 drones (tenor & bass tuned to A) open & sounding pretty good, but I messed around with them & now they don’t sound so great😳 so I’m guessing the same procedure would work for me! slide them all the way out (flat) and then adjust accordingly. I’m still learning to breathe/squeeze every but I’d like to have a drone or 2 open. This is helpful, thanks so much

[@maxwellfan55]

How are you getting on? Not easy to master but you have to stick with it because the rewards are without limit. Yes, you can reach heaven. Finding a background where the natural acoustics are good really makes the sound special. Like a church. Any trouble with the reeds?

[@kimberleyguilmette761]

@@maxwellfan55 It’s a learning process for me, the reeds are fine, theyre john walsh smallpipes; so they’re not the issue, I just have to continue to work on steady bag pressure, and the tuning is getting bette as I get better. Thanks for responding and asking though, greatly appreciated.

[@maxwellfan55]

@@kimberleyguilmette761 Pleasure. My main instrument is bagpipes. Regards small pipes. I mentioned reeds only because if you have trouble with keeping the chanter in tune (slightly less so with drones) you may find issues with moisture if mouth blown. Well, at least I did. It's why I switched over to bellows, very tricky to master at first (at least for me) but worth it. Helps if you buy real top-quality bellows. Best of luck!