The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #47006   Message #699095
Posted By: Pied Piper
26-Apr-02 - 10:51 AM
Thread Name: Pipe Tunes in D-Trad
Subject: RE: Pipe Tunes in D-Trad
Hi Nick I'm not shore exactly what you're after but I hope the following will be helpfull. If you read music there's know problem playing the tunes on a whistle. Pipe music is written with a key signature of two sharps (D major) so all the notes are available on a tin whistle in D without cross fingering. The drone for the Highland Pipe is on A and this is the most common tonic for the tunes. You will have to ignore the small "grace" notes that you find, as these are what Pipers use to achieve dynamics. The situation is complicated by the fact that actually Pipes have the drone and tonic on Bb not A. All this means is that if you want to play along you need a whistle in Eb a semitone higher than D.In sessions some pipe tunes are played in G so you have to use the crossfingered C natural. As to sources, the music is available on the Internet as written (gif), midi, abc, and specialist bagpipe formats bmw and bww. Just enter "bagpipe gif" ect in the search engine and Bobs your uncle. All thebest PP