New Member bearing gifts

Hi folks.
I bumped into this site whilst searching for a Highland Pipe chamter
in A 440Hz.
I read a few posts about HBP Chanter scales, and I thought you might
be interested in my take on the situation.
Bellow is a post I put on mudcat.org in reply to a question asking if
the events outlined in the song "A 100 Pipers" could have actualy
happened

Subject: RE: Standardised bagpipe tuning?
From: Pied Piper - PM
Date: 20 May 03 - 07:51 AM

This is an interesting question. Surprisingly few 18th century
Highland pipes have survived, mostly due to the clearances and the
actions of the "wee Free" Church which actively tried to suppress
dancing and therefore piping right up to the beginning of the last
century. Any Pipes that were found were burned.
By the 18th century most Bagpipes were manufactured by specialist
makers in large urban centres like Edinburgh, using the latest
techniques. I think it's reasonable to think that these instruments
would have been standard for a given maker.
As to pitch and scale, reeds play a surprisingly large role in
overall pitch and the intonation of specific notes within the
compass. As far as I know, no 18th c Chanter reeds have survived, so
it's quit difficult to know for certain what the pitch and Scale were.
I think as stated above overall pitch would have been lower than
today, giving the pipes a more mellow tone.
Reconstructing the Scale might seem very difficult, but fortunately
Highland (and many other) Bagpipes depend on the acoustic properties
of Chanter and drone combination to produce stability, and this
implies certain notes for the scale.
Essentially the Chanter and Drones are not acting independently, but
are acoustically coupled. This coupling comes about between the
Chanter notes and the harmonics of the Drones.
The drones harmonics are hole number multiples of the fundamental
frequency. The Bass drone is 2 Octaves below the Chanter Key-note, so
assuming a pitch of A=440Hz, the Drone fundamental will be 110Hz. The
harmonic series this produces is

110 220 330 440 550 660 770 880 990 1100 1210 1320 1430 1540 1650

For the Tenor drones 1 octave below the Chanter key-note

220 440 880 1100 1320 1540 1760 1980 and so on.

If the Chanter scale is chosen for maximum consonance, and therefore
acoustic coupling the following results.

Note, Freq. ratio, ham 1 Hz, Harm 2 Hz, harm 3 Hz
G 7/8 385 770 1210
A 1/1 440 880 1320
B 9/8 495 990 1430
C# 5/4 550 1100 1540
D 11/8 605 1210 1650
E 3/2 660 1320 1760
F# 13/8 715 1430 1870
g 7/4 770 1540 1980
a 2/1 880 1760 2200

What's interesting is that the frequency ratios of the Chanter could
be written as bellow

7/8, 8/8, 9/8, 10/8, 11/8, 12/8, 13/8, 14/8, 16/8

Which is an almost complete "Otonality Scale" in
Harry Partch's system
This scale produces the maximum overlap of Chanter and Drone
harmonics leading to maximum stability.
This is not the Scale played by modern Pipers and I am not saying
that it is necessarily the scale used in the 18th century.
The modern scale however does have most of the scale notes the same,
apart from.
1/ D 11/8 which has been converging on a 4/3 perfect fourth interval,
which is much, more pleasing to modern ears.
2/ F# 13/8 which is usually 5/3 Perfect major sixth
3/ g 7/4 which is nearer to 16/9

In short if the hundred Pipers had instruments made by one person, or
by a small group of makers that new each other then it could have
happened, though I'm a bit sceptical.
Pipes were solo instruments in the Highlands at this time and Pipe
Bands only came in after the "45" when the highland regiments were
raised as the cannon fodder of the British Army.

All the Best John S

>

Dear john S!
Nothing is more consonant that the scale you suggest, but due to the nature of the music which
had to repeat from quite some length, it is nescessary to have a scale that has its own built in
tension to "propel" the music forward. I have quite a few bagpipe tunings collected
here at the world scale depository
http://www.anaphoria.com/depos.html
page 2, 3 ,and 4
these scales have been authenticated from other scorces also. For one Glenn Prior who worked quite a
bit with Ivor Derrig later with Erv Wilson. One time i had a Live music /silent show but only one
projector, so glenn hid behind the screen and when the "reel change" came up he started playing his
bagpipes all dressed up and wandered from behind through the audience and out the front door, by
then the film began again.

>
> From: "jsnelsonone" <jsnelsonone@yahoo.co.uk>
> Subject: New Member bearing gifts
>
> Hi folks.
> I bumped into this site whilst searching for a Highland Pipe chamter
> in A 440Hz.
> I read a few posts about HBP Chanter scales, and I thought you might
> be interested in my take on the situation.
> Bellow is a post I put on mudcat.org in reply to a question asking if
> the events outlined in the song "A 100 Pipers" could have actualy
> happened
>
> Subject: RE: Standardised bagpipe tuning?
> From: Pied Piper - PM
> Date: 20 May 03 - 07:51 AM
>
> This is an interesting question. Surprisingly few 18th century
> Highland pipes have survived, mostly due to the clearances and the
> actions of the "wee Free" Church which actively tried to suppress
> dancing and therefore piping right up to the beginning of the last
> century. Any Pipes that were found were burned.
> By the 18th century most Bagpipes were manufactured by specialist
> makers in large urban centres like Edinburgh, using the latest
> techniques. I think it's reasonable to think that these instruments
> would have been standard for a given maker.
> As to pitch and scale, reeds play a surprisingly large role in
> overall pitch and the intonation of specific notes within the
> compass. As far as I know, no 18th c Chanter reeds have survived, so
> it's quit difficult to know for certain what the pitch and Scale were.
> I think as stated above overall pitch would have been lower than
> today, giving the pipes a more mellow tone.
> Reconstructing the Scale might seem very difficult, but fortunately
> Highland (and many other) Bagpipes depend on the acoustic properties
> of Chanter and drone combination to produce stability, and this
> implies certain notes for the scale.
> Essentially the Chanter and Drones are not acting independently, but
> are acoustically coupled. This coupling comes about between the
> Chanter notes and the harmonics of the Drones.
> The drones harmonics are hole number multiples of the fundamental
> frequency. The Bass drone is 2 Octaves below the Chanter Key-note, so
> assuming a pitch of A=440Hz, the Drone fundamental will be 110Hz. The
> harmonic series this produces is
>
> 110 220 330 440 550 660 770 880 990 1100 1210 1320 1430 1540 1650
>
> For the Tenor drones 1 octave below the Chanter key-note
>
> 220 440 880 1100 1320 1540 1760 1980 and so on.
>
> If the Chanter scale is chosen for maximum consonance, and therefore
> acoustic coupling the following results.
>
> Note, Freq. ratio, ham 1 Hz, Harm 2 Hz, harm 3 Hz
> G 7/8 385 770 1210
> A 1/1 440 880 1320
> B 9/8 495 990 1430
> C# 5/4 550 1100 1540
> D 11/8 605 1210 1650
> E 3/2 660 1320 1760
> F# 13/8 715 1430 1870
> g 7/4 770 1540 1980
> a 2/1 880 1760 2200
>
> What's interesting is that the frequency ratios of the Chanter could
> be written as bellow
>
> 7/8, 8/8, 9/8, 10/8, 11/8, 12/8, 13/8, 14/8, 16/8
>
> Which is an almost complete "Otonality Scale" in
> Harry Partch's system
> This scale produces the maximum overlap of Chanter and Drone
> harmonics leading to maximum stability.
> This is not the Scale played by modern Pipers and I am not saying
> that it is necessarily the scale used in the 18th century.
> The modern scale however does have most of the scale notes the same,
> apart from.
> 1/ D 11/8 which has been converging on a 4/3 perfect fourth interval,
> which is much, more pleasing to modern ears.
> 2/ F# 13/8 which is usually 5/3 Perfect major sixth
> 3/ g 7/4 which is nearer to 16/9
>
> In short if the hundred Pipers had instruments made by one person, or
> by a small group of makers that new each other then it could have
> happened, though I'm a bit sceptical.
> Pipes were solo instruments in the Highlands at this time and Pipe
> Bands only came in after the "45" when the highland regiments were
> raised as the cannon fodder of the British Army.
>
> All the Best John S
>
>

-- -Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU 88.9 FM WED 8-9PM PST

Hi Kraig.
Thanks for the link, feel free to use what I've written if you find
it useful.
While I'm here, do you no anything about sending system exclusive
scale information to a Yamaha MU 90 sound module? I tried a couple of
years ago but couldn't get it to work.

All the best

John S

John,

You could try it with Scala:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~huygensf/scala

You need to do SET SYNTH 108.

Manuel

Thanks for that Manuel.

All the best

John S

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "jsnelsonone" <jsnelsonone@y...> wrote:

> If the Chanter scale is chosen for maximum consonance, and
therefore
> acoustic coupling the following results.
>
> Note, Freq. ratio, ham 1 Hz, Harm 2 Hz, harm 3 Hz
> G 7/8 385 770 1210
> A 1/1 440 880 1320
> B 9/8 495 990 1430
> C# 5/4 550 1100 1540
> D 11/8 605 1210 1650
> E 3/2 660 1320 1760
> F# 13/8 715 1430 1870
> g 7/4 770 1540 1980
> a 2/1 880 1760 2200

i disagree. for example, an F# of 5/3 seems superior by far in terms
of consonance and acoustic coupling than 13/8.

> This scale produces the maximum overlap of Chanter and Drone
> harmonics leading to maximum stability.

this, too, is false. using the same example, the 5/3 interval
produces considerably more harmonic overlap than 13/8.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "jsnelsonone" <jsnelsonone@y...> wrote:
> What's interesting is that the frequency ratios of the [fictitious]
> Chanter could be written as below
>
> 7/8 8/8 9/8 10/8 11/8 12/8 13/8 14/8 16/8

Yes, this is fun, but it probably messes up the melodic structure of
the three overlapping pentatonics that much pipe music depends upon.
And you need to consider the actual spectra of the chanter and drones.
Odd harmonics up to the 7th dominate, 3rd or 5th harmonic can be
significatly stronger than the fundamental.

See figure 7.3 of
http://www.tufts.edu/as/wright_center/physics_2003_wkshp/book/7_power_spectra1/7_power_spectra1.pdf
also
http://soma.npa.uiuc.edu/~mmaciver/bagpipe_notes.html

Note that the drones are 1/2 and 1/4.

Tuning an 11/8 by ear against the drones relies primarily on aligning
the second harmonic of the chanter D with the 11th harmonic of the
bass drone, or the 4th harmonic of the chanter with the 11th harmonic
of the tenor drone. None of these are very prominent. Similarly for
13/8 on the chanter F(#).

However the nearby ratios of 4/3 and 5/3 would seem not to fare much
better, assuming the drone spectra are similar to the chanter spectra.
4/3 aligns the 3rd harmonic of the chanter with the 8th harmonic of
the tenor drone and 5/3 aligns the 3rd harmonic of the chanter with
the 10th harmonic of the tenor drone. While the chanter 3rd harmonic
is very prominent, I wouldn't expect the 8th or 10th harmonics of the
tenor drones to be so.

This would allow the pitch of these notes to be varied away from
simple ratios, in the service of melodic structure, without clashing
too much with the drones, and indeed, this seems to have happened in
the past. But C(#) has apparently also been away from 5/4 and high G
away from 7/4 (fundamental of chanter with 5th or 7th harmonic of bass
drone - quite obvious). So this can't be taken as an "explanation" of
why they have varied.

Is there any chance that the great highland bagpipes once had drones
that were not tuned in octaves below chanter low A (e.g. in octaves
below chanter E)? Seems unlikely.

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "Dave Keenan" <d.keenan@b...> wrote:

> However the nearby ratios of 4/3 and 5/3 would seem not to fare much
> better, assuming the drone spectra are similar to the chanter
spectra.
> 4/3 aligns the 3rd harmonic of the chanter with the 8th harmonic of
> the tenor drone and 5/3 aligns the 3rd harmonic of the chanter with
> the 10th harmonic of the tenor drone. While the chanter 3rd harmonic
> is very prominent, I wouldn't expect the 8th or 10th harmonics of
the
> tenor drones to be so.

i think they are prominent enough to be capable of generating
significant beating, and i think there are also combinational tone
effects at work.

i have noticed, though, that 4/3 is often played *beating* against
the drone, and if my ears aren't deceiving me, is actually played
*low* (maybe halfway toward 21/16) rather than *high* (which the
reprted mid-50s practice of using 27/20 would be) . . .