The Double Chanter Bagpipe

Yuri Terenyi September 3, 2015 22:06

Well, now that I'm on, I might as well comment on what I do and why. The clips above use chanters that are essentially smallpipe ones (or "hummelchen" in Praetorius' terminology.) Though they are very slightly conical, I tried to make them just that bit louder. (And Dominique, you were right, the second one is using crumhorn reeds, indeed. I just don't keep track of all my experiments.) Now, while the sound is rather pleasing, I doubt it very much that this type existed before the Renaissance. Simply because the tooling needed is rather precise,and I don't think in Medieval times it was available, or at least, easily available. So at the moment I'm working on a similar (musically) type (that is, the same fingering, same compass), but using single reeds. The reeds I am using are composite ones, not the idioglottal ones in the launeddas clip. With composite ones you have vastly more control and precision over the whole thing. (Think clarinet or sax reed, but tiny, and not lipped.) I'll post clips as they appear, but don't hold your breath, I'm still in the development stage.

Now, a general view of just why I am doing it. (Apart from the obvious, that is playing medieval music as it was played.) Ages ago I came across Julian Goodacre's work on reconstructing the Cornish double chanter bagpipes. To me the diatonic limitation is very , er, limiting, indeed. I realise that most woodwind was probably diatonic at the time, but by the Renaissance it doesn't seem to be the case at all. So I presume that chromatic instruments, including bagpipes and reeds in general, existed way before. And unlike a lot of players, I want to play actual polyphony, as it survived, with as little modification as possible. The more common approach of some pseudo-medievally improvisations is not something that particularly appeals to me, too New Age-y for my ears. And for true polyphony I found I need chromatic instruments. Interestingly enough, while Ars Nova is fantastic on double flue pipes, I found that on the bagpipe it doesn't work at all. It's all Ars Antiqua, and then skipping an era, Renaissance. Which works very well, all the standby's of Praetorius, Susato and others. Just take the top line and one of the others, or a composite of these, and it's wonderful.

Barnaby Brown September 3, 2015 19:40

What a wonderful resource you are building here! This post is relevant to my work reviving double- and triple-pipes and I was kindly alerted by my supervisor, Susan Rankin. A colleague and I are building a resource of a similar nature at www.altpibroch.com, assembling the earliest notations of pibroch - a large repertory of orally-transmitted epic bagpipe solos (roughly 315) which appears to have retained some of its medieval apparel into the 19th century.

A young performer doing marvellous work on double chanters - with and without bag - is Callum Armstrong. His debut on a reproduction of the "Louvre" aulos at the MOISA conference a month ago took this revival to new heights. A video will be appearing soon at www.doublepipes.info where we have been making practical strides reproducing Graeco-Roman instruments and making reeds that respect the evidence.

I find the way Sardinian pipers sing, "vocabelising" instrumental music, and their virtuoso art on the launeddas (a double-chanter pipe with drone) quite inspiring and helpful to imagining what medieval piping may have sounded like:

https://youtu.be/1FGHzem-cvE

Dominique Gatté September 3, 2015 19:37

Carpentras - BM - ms. 0096

XIII - Pontifical à l'usage de Lyon

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