Chiff and Fipple Forums

Hi pipers,

I'm interested in learning to play the Scottish bagpipes, but I'm not really a GHB type- I'm after something fairly quiet and less dramatic. I've heard that there are such things as "Fireside Pipes," "Kitchen pipes" and "Smallpipes." Are these all names for the same thing? If not, what are the differences? I'm really only interested in mouth-blown pipes. Also, is there a list of makers for these sorts of pipes I could refer to?

Many thanks for indulging my questions,
RCS

Try looking through this;
http://forums.bobdunsire.com/forums/for ... .php?f=356

From what very little I know, the pipes you choose will depend on the music you want to play.

Check Seth Hamon.
http://www.swedishbagpipes.com/

Andy May.
andythepipesmay.co.uk
Both Seth and Andy are board members.

Topics that might interest;
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=87975&hilit=andy+may
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=83584&p=1034770&hi ... s#p1034770
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=82441&hilit=small+pipes

I recently heard Seth's Swedish pipes played in a local open-mic session, and liked their tone -- very sweet, and of course indoor-friendly. But are they fingered the same as GHB?

Anyhow, to answer at least part of RCS's question, there are a variety of Scottish-style mouth-blown indoor pipes, all using chanters with the same fingering as Great Highland Bagpipes (GHB). Most can be blown either by mouth or by bellows. Scottish smallpipes, Walsh shuttle-pipes, kitchen pipes (which are just plastic smallpipes), border Pipes, session pipes, and Gibson Ceilidh Pipes, all have the same basic form-factor: 2 or 3 drones connected to a shared "mainstock" (like on Uilleann pipes), chanter, bag, and blowpipe.

Gibson also makes "Fireside Pipes," on which each drone is tied directly into the bag -- it looks like a miniature set of GHB. These and all the above-mentioned pipes (except Hamon's Swedish Pipes) have a radically different tone color than GHB: in many cases, they sound exactly like a GHB practice chanter. (In fact, kitchen pipes use a practice chanter, plus practice-chanter reeds in the drones.)

So, be sure to listen before you buy, so you know what you're getting in to. Some of these pipes sound much, much more interesting than others.

I own a set of kitchen pipes, and while I'd never go out of my way to hear anybody play them, they're more fun to practice on than practice-chanter alone.

Speaking of which, starting out, you'll definitely want a practice chanter -- it's easy to find bundle deals that include a decent one (you'll want a name-brand) with the standard Royal College green book + CD. The technique, ornamentation, fingerings, etc. you get that way will all be 100% applicable to 95% of the smallpipes you're likely to consider "moving up" to (unless you've got your heart set on the cornemuse, gaeda, Uilleann Pipes, or some other non-Scottish instrument .

So, my best advice is to start there. Besides being the best way to start out, you'll also put out less cash up front.

But if you're absolutely itching for drones ASAP, you might consider Oliver Seeler's kitchen-pipes offer at http://www.hotpipes.com/ -- he swaps out their standard chanter with a Dunbar practice chanter that can be used either alone (with included mouthpiece) or with the kitchen pipes.

Happy piping!

--Mick

MadmanWithaWhistle wrote:Hi pipers,

I'm interested in learning to play the Scottish bagpipes, but I'm not really a GHB type- I'm after something fairly quiet and less dramatic. I've heard that there are such things as "Fireside Pipes," "Kitchen pipes" and "Smallpipes." Are these all names for the same thing? If not, what are the differences? I'm really only interested in mouth-blown pipes. Also, is there a list of makers for these sorts of pipes I could refer to?

Many thanks for indulging my questions,
RCS

If you're looking to play the "Scottish bagpipes," then you want a practice chanter to start. After a year, maybe, you'll be ready to graduate to either the GHB or its little brother, smallpipes. Difference between the three types you list depends on who's using the terms, but "smallpipes" always refers to what's basically a scaled-down, "indoor" version of the GHB.

You can get a (relatively) reasonably-priced set of smallpipes from John Walsh here. Recommend you get them in polypenco (plastic); that way if you decide pipes are for you and you move up to higher quality (= more expensive) you have a beater set to carry around.

Most smallpipes are available in mouth-blown or bellows. I have the mouth because I also play the GHB.

Many sites selling smallpipes, including Walsh's, offer sound clips. Also, searching "Scottish smallpipes" on YouTube should turn up a plethora of videos.

You can start straight on SSP (no practice chanter required, but maybe stopping off the drones as taught by tutors such as Vicki Swan's and the LBPS 'More Power To Your Elbow'). Bellows-blown smallpipes are often given cane chanter reeds where mouth-blown equivalents normally have synthetic. And border pipes and (Garvie) 'session pipes' are really quite different from SSP, having conical-bore chanters, sounding in the same octave as the GHB and producing cross-fingered chromatics where the smallpipes have cylindrical chanters, sound down the octave (practice chanter pitch) and are basically diatonic as standard.

Thanks everyone for your replies. I really like the sound of the Ceilidh pipes, so I think when I start seriously looking at buying a set of pipes to go for those. They sound much prettier than the fireside pipe. Anyone here had the chance to play them and have any observations?

I would avoid various small pipes (of whatever name) that have double blade reeds in the drones. To me they just sound more like musical toys than musical instruments.

Be aware that it's a serious time investment to make real progress towards being a proficient piper.

MadmanWithaWhistle wrote:
I'm interested in learning to play the Scottish bagpipes... I'm after something fairly quiet... I've heard that there are such things as "Fireside Pipes," "Kitchen pipes" and "Smallpipes." Are these all names for the same thing?

Yes for whatever strange reason, just about every maker who makes Scottish Smallpipes (SSPs for short) feels compelled to invent a new name for their product, rather than calling them SSPs.

It's absurd when you think about it, and leads the uninformed astray. I run into people all the time who think that "Fireside Pipes" is a species of bagpipe.

Here are some of the makers of SSPs and their trade names:

Highland Musette (Shepherd)
Fireside Pipes, Ceilidh Pipes (Gibson)
Shuttlepipes (Walsh)
Session Pipes (Garvie)
Studio Pipes (can't remember)

They're all Scottish Smallpipes, that is, their chanter's reed and bore design is more or less like that of the Northumbrian Smallpipes, but the chanter is open-ended and the fingerholes are reconfigured to produce a Highland Bagpipe scale.

These vary in volume somewhat from instrument to instrument and from reed to reed. They can be quite low in volume, able to blend with a single soft-playing fiddler.

BTW "Scottish Smallpipes" seems to be a fairly recent term, derived from the term "Northumbrian Smallpipes". In the 19th century most Highland pipemakers made Scottish Smallpipes but called them "Miniature Highland pipes or Chamber pipes".

SSPs were, and are, made mouthblown or bellows blown, with the drones in seperate stocks or a common stock. These things don't necessarily have an effect on the tone (you can have a mouthblown set with seperate drones which sounds identical to a bellowsblown set with common-stock drones).

Anyhow a great value in SSPs are the John Walsh "Smallpipes in A 2000". They are troublefree and have a nice tone.

Or if you want something a bit louder and more "woody" in tone you can get some lovely Ian Kinnear smallpipes.

Anyhow here, side-by-side, are the instruments the 19th century Scottish pipemakers called (from L-R) the "Great Highland or Military Bagpipe", the "Half-size or Reel Pipe", and the "Miniature Highland Pipe or Chamber Pipe".

The Miniature/Chamber Pipe is around 100 years old, cocus and real ivory, with the original horn mouthpiece

pan Celt

Do your minature pipes have a cylindircal bore? (providing the chanter is original)
or did they usually?

pancelticpiper wrote: Session Pipes (Garvie)
[...]

They're all Scottish Smallpipes, that is, their chanter's reed and bore design is more or less like that of the Northumbrian Smallpipes, but the chanter is open-ended and the fingerholes are reconfigured to produce a Highland Bagpipe scale.

Nope, according to Garvie Bagpipes, the Session Pipes could be described as "Mouth blown border pipes" and have a 17mm chanter end diameter, so definitely conical (see also clip 8, 'Chromatic potential of our border/session pipes illustrated by Nigel Richard on session pipes', on their Sounds page).

pancelticpiper wrote: Studio Pipes (can't remember)

Roddy Maclellan makes the Studio Pipes.

A friend of mine got a set of Walsh smallpipes. I notice they seem to be louder and the drones are more aggressive than my Soutar smallpipes. Both sets are mouthblown plastic.

aye, the Garvie session pipes are very much not smallpipes—he makes those too. Basically border pipes with drones not in a common stock, but on the whole, designed for GHB players who fancy playing in sessions, or just indoors regularly but who want a set of pipes that look and sound and function much like their GHBs while being somewhat quieter and smaller. The set Nigel showed me that he'd just finished when I was interviewing him last year were really very nice... and really quite loud. His smallpipes were an entirely different instrument.


as to the OP, well it sort of depends what sort of music you want to play and in what context. I would go along with the post above in saying that if you are going to get smallpipes, you don't need a practice chanter, in fact, if you're dealing with bellows driven pipes, I'd argue a practice chanter is counterproductive (chanterproductive, heh)

Sorry about the Garvie mixup... but doesn't somebody make SSPs they call "session pipes"? I thought sure I saw that somewhere.

Actually "borderpipes" are almost as bad, with various makers calling them "border pipes", "Lowland pipes", "reelpipes", "session pipes", "three-quarter pipes" etc etc.

Imagine if every maker of uilleann pipes made up their own name for the things: "Elbowpipes" and "Erinpipes" and "Gaelpipes" and "Ceolpipes" and "Feadanpipes" or any other stupid name you could think of... ridiculous.