In our previous issue we described the additions to both
technique and chanter design that Callum Armstrong has
developed with the assistance of maker Julian Goodacre. Here
Callum describes his explorations of the potential of the ‘double
chanter’, some of which he demonstrated at this year’s collogue.
W
hen I first heard of a Double Small pipe Chanter I
was intrigued. What was it?
What was the repertoire? What did it
sound like? Could you play harmony on
it? After finding out that it was two 8
holed chanters running parallel to each
other, I decided then and there that I
wanted one. Knowing nothing of the
history, I decided to ask Julian Goodacre to make me one, but with the addition of a second pair of thumb holes for
the right thumb [to give a C natural
option].
In the ensuing months as I waited for
the delivery, I began to think about
what I wanted the chanter to be able to
do, and what was the advantage of
having one. The obvious advantage is
that it will be louder than the average
smallpipe chanter, the disadvantage,
that tuning would be an increased problem, as a second chanter would also
have to be tuned in concordance with
the drones. I decided that the ultimate
goal would be to play two-part polyphony on the chanter, meaning that I
would be able to play two completely
independent lines of music simultaneously. I also decided that the best basic
fingering would be highland fingering,
rather than a covered fingering, as this
would allow the fingers to move more
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freely when playing chords, like on the
fingerboard of a guitar.
The chanter arrived in November
2011, delivered by Julian to me at the
Greenwich Early Music Festival. I remember plugging it in to my smallpipes,
and being amazed at the tone of the
instrument. In particular I noticed that
if the two chanters were perfectly in
tune and in unison then the sound
seemed quite quiet, almost as if, as
Julian says, the sound was being sucked
into the instrument. However, if the
instrument was very slightly out of tune
with itself, the sound was suddenly very
loud and almost electrical.
Although my Chanter is in C with a
flattened leading-note, I will talk about
tuning it as if it were in A like a Highland Bagpipe. Tuning was originally the
bane of the whole project. First of all
precise unison tuning is difficult to obtain if you tune each chanter individually. With one chanter turned off, the
instrument operates at a lower pressure.
This means when you then bring in
both chanters together, after freshly
tuning them both separately, the chanters, now playing at a substantially higher pressure than they were tuned in are
thrown completely into discord.
The Eureka moment came when I
saw a violinist tuning up at college in a
practice room. Violinists tune in 5ths,
by double-stopping two strings at once,
and tuning one string to the other. So I
decided to do this with my chanter.
Tuning one chanter to the other in 5ths.
After establishing what pitch the low G
is at on both chanters, I then proceed
to tune a D on one chanter to the low
G on the other chanter, before swapping the notes around. I then tune the
high A to the D, then the Low A to the
high A and then E to the Low A. With
the main notes now fixed in place, I
tune the F and the C slightly flat so they
sound in concordance with the drones
and make a pleasant sounding chord
against D and C. The only notes that
now remain to tune are the B and the
High G. The High G is tuned in unison
with the low G and the B is slightly
flattened, so it makes a softer sounding
chord against the low G, but more
importantly, so that in B minor it creates a nice 5th with the already flattened
F. The result is a perfectly tuned chanter, with the exception of playing slightly
flat in B minor, due to the lowering of
the B and the F.
I was unable to find any specific repertoire for a double chanter, so I decided
to compose my own music. This allowed me to develop the technique of
the instrument over the various pieces
that I wrote, making the practice time
far more enjoyable than playing constant
exercises. I began by using mainly
parallel 3rds and 6ths. I then started
adding suspensions and contrary motion
passagework. As time progressed I was
able to make the two chanters more and
more independent until I was able to
play a flowing tune on one chanter and
a rhythmical accompaniment on the
other. My ‘Siciliana’ was composed to
exploit these possibilities. I have included a tablature for the basic note combinations F/D,G/E, F/A.
The intermediate notes follow this
pattern; repeated notes use simple gracings, mostly ‘bottom-hand’ notes, but
occasionally high G’s where an attack is
desirable. I also use some alternative
fingerings to deal with the issues raised
by the tempering of the chanters and
quick fix tuning, if the chanter is slightly
out of tune in a performance.
I still don't know much about the
history of the double chanters. I would
be very interested to learn more on the
subject should anyone know any thing.
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Siciliana
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Callum Armstrong
Bar 8.i
F D
0x 0x
Bar 8.iii Bar 9.i Tablature for the notes in bars 8/9. The chanters are shown as if viewed from the back;
G B
F A
0x 0x
0x 0x o=open, x =closed. The same principle applies
1x 1x
2x 2o
3x 3o
1x 1o
2x 2o
3x 3o
1x 1x
2x 2o
3x 3o
4o 4x
5o 5x
6o 5x
7o 7o
4x 4x
5x 5x
6o 5x
7o 7o
4x 4x
5x 5x
6x 5x
7o 7o
at bars 27-34 and 50-62
The left hand fingers are slid across from left
to right [keeping the left-hand holes covered] to
cover holes on the right-hand chanter as required; this is particularly challenging in the
section bars 27-34.
The c naturals are achieved using a right-hand
double thumb-hole at the back of both chanters. There are a number of other subtleties that
have evolved in my development of this piece,
but perhaps they are best kept for another time.
______________________________________________________________________CS
The Double Chanter
The editor is always happy to respond to readers’ requests,
so here is a brief introduction to the double-chanter as it
has appeared in the past and as it appears today.
T
he notion of one piper playing
two pipes at the same time,
though it may sound unlikely,
turns out to be at least as old as the
notion of bagpipes themselves; in fact,
the earliest surviving example of a reed
pipe of any sort appears to be a double-pipe. These pipes were discovered
by Sir Leonard Woolley in 1926. This is,
as far as we know, the earliest known
reeded instrument, dated back to
around 2800 B.C.1
The twin pipes of Ur
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Numerous images and descriptions of
players survive from the Middle East,
Egypt and Greece. However, a Scottish
example does exist, on a Roman relief
carving found at Bowness; this features
the Roman double pipe, the ‘tibia’.2
From around the middle of the first
century BCE we have the small bronze
figure from Sardinia playing the instrument still known today as the launeddas.
This is a triple-pipe, consisting of two
‘melody’ pipes and drone, all of which
have ‘single-reeds’. It appears that a
similar instrument was known in Ireland and Scotland from the 8th or 9th
centuries, appearing on a number of
carved stones, and an English depiction
survives in a 16th century Norfolk
church. These examples are all blown
directly in the mouth with no bag intervening. There are many current bagpipe
forms in various parts of Europe and
North Africa, some with restricted
compasses and some with a full octave
or more, such as the Italian zampogna
and ciamarelle, as well as those from
Eastern Europe where most of the
holes on one chanter are either absent
or blocked, making it more of a ‘tunable
drone’. Some types of bagpipes from
the Carpathian basin may have up to
five such bores in the ‘chanter’.
However, there are also numerous
depictions in English churches which
show bagpipers playing double-chanters. A summary was published by James
Merryweather in the Galpin Society
journal, and others have been located
since. Julian Goodacre has made repro-
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ductions of two examples, both from
pew-end carvings from Cornish
Churches. Both these have chanters
with the left hand having the upper
range of holes and the right hand the
lower.
Piping Shepherd at Marwood. N. Devon
Only one depiction has so far been
located in Scotland, on the painted ceiling from Rossend Castle, dating to
around 1575. It is, however, taken from
an French pattern book, although I
believe the original pattern has only a
single row of holes. 3
This instrument is clearly of the ‘musette’ type, with shuttle-drones. Another early depiction appears the Harmonie
Universelle (1636). An altogether more
fanciful bagpipe is that referred to by
Mersenne as ‘Musette de Naples’, an
enhanced version of the Neapolitan
surdelina, having not only two keyed
chanters, but also keyed drones - regulators as they would be termed today.4
There are, however, descriptions of
bagpipes which appear to match today’s
‘scottish smallpipe’ in all but pitch. The
first of these is described and measured
in the manuscript of James Talbot,
compiled in Cambridge around 1700.
Julian Goodacre has made a reproduction of this pipe.
A reproduction of the ‘Talbot’ double-pipe, and the ‘Mersenne’ chanter.
This is one of Talbot’s two instruments he titles ‘Bagpipe - Scotch’,
though this term needs to be treated
carefully since it had a wider geographical meaning than it would today. Like
the Mersenne chanter, it has only the
bottom four holes for the right hand.
Its pitch appears to be around ‘E’, similar to the single-chantered ‘Montgomery’ smallpipe dated 1757.
The second example is contained in
the journal kept by George Skene on
his journey from Aberdeen to London
in 1729. When he stops at the Crown
Inn at Penrith and meets James Bell,
“ He [Bell] brought with him…, two
sett of Double Small pipes and two sett
of single ones, each differently key’d [ie
in different pitches], I bought his sharpest
double one for David wc. has three
burdens for wc. wt. a bellows pay’d half
a guinea…. I observ’d he makes more
out of variety in all parts wt. the Double
Small one, than I thought could possibly have been made of any small one…”
At the end of the 18th century the
double chanter appears in Irish imagery; there is a depiction in Ledwich’s
1790 publication The Antiquities of Ireland.
Today double-chanter bagpipes of one
form or another are common both in
North Africa, Italy, Greece and the
regions of Eastern Europe.
Since the beginning of the revival,
several makers of Scottish smallpipes
have offered double chanters, (as have
occasional Uilleann pipe-makers).
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An illustration from Ledwich’s The Antiquities of Ireland, 1790
These have generally been a single
piece of wood with two holes bored
down it, each bore having all eight
holes, although some have been made
from separate lengths of wood glued
together.
Hamish Moore told me “I found them
very difficult to set up and maintaining them
wasn’t easy unless the owners were very experienced – so - I stopped making them.” He
can, however, be heard playing one
made by him on his 1985 recording
‘Cauld Wind Pipes’.
I understand that Colin Ross has also
occasionally made them (apparently
with similar misgivings) and I have in
my possession one made, I think, by
Herriot and Allen, though the reeds
are severely damaged. I have also seen
pictures of one made by Ray Sloan and
it may well be that other makers
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should be added to this list. Julian Goodacre tells me that the one he made for
Callum was number 59 and he has now
made 60, all with the full eight notes in
both hands.
This kind of chanter takes a good deal
of attention and perseverance to master, but can produce some remarkable
results, as Callum demonstrated at this
year’s Collogue. Hopefully videos of his
performance of his Siciliana will soon
be available on the website.
Pete Stewart
Notes
http://preview.tinyurl.com/ctz5zfs
http://preview.tinyurl.com/d45vyfo
3 http://preview.tinyurl.com/c2b6kcu
4 http://preview.tinyurl.com/c4daxmw
All retrieved 29/11.2012
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