Welsh bagpipes 3 A Reconstruction

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Welsh Bagpipes
(3) A Reconstruction

At the 1986 Edinburgh Folk Festival, Peter Stacey of the Welsh group Aberjaber asked me to make him a Welsh bagpipe based on the double chanter in the Welsh Folk Museum, St. Fagans. It was something we had discussed several times since we had first met at the Pitt Rivers Museum bagpipe and hurdy-gurdy weekend in Oxford in September 1984.

Peter wanted the pipes to play in D, to be in modern pitch, to be reliable, and to retain their primitive appearance. The current revival of interest in bagpipes has encouraged the making of instruments of high quality and superior finish. This is good, but often it is forgotten that many of the pipes of the past would have been crudely made — like the unique example in St. Fagans. Its construction, however, lends itself very easily to having the chanters made to the required high standard, but leaving the yoke, the waxing and binding fairly basic in appearance.

I was sent a drawing of the chanter by Roy Saer of the museum. Two cane chanters, each with six finger holes and each terminating in a cow’s horn, are waxed and bound onto a wooden yoke which shows obvious signs of having once been tied into a bag.

To produce an instrument that meets modern requirements I have made some modifications. I have made a removable yoke which fits into a stock. This allows access to the reeds, which are double. The chanters are of yew with thumb holes for the top octave note. There are two holes for the top leading note, giving one the option of a flattened or sharpened note. The horns and reeds are on moveable slides for ease of tuning. The bores are slightly tapered, but they behave like parallel bores, sounding a low note. It is a Small-pipe, but is surprisingly loud as the horns amplify the sound.

With a double chanter one can achieve an extraordinary sound by tuning each pair of holes minutely differently to produce a slight beat. It is a surprising “whingeing” sound. One’s thumb and fingers have to get used to covering two holes each and of course there are possibilities of fingering each chanter separately . . . .

One of the features Peter and I had discussed was whether a drone should be fitted. His solution has been to convert one of the chanters into a drone in D. At his request the right-hand chanter has been made with no finger holes. There is a vent hole to allow one to drone in E, which would otherwise be stopped. (On a double chanter one can of course block off the holes in one chanter to use it as a drone on whatever note in the scale one desires.)

Using closed fingering and with no bottom leading note fitted, one can achieve a distinctive articulation by returning briefly to the amplified bottom D between each note of a tune.

I am aware that there is some doubt as to whether the chanter in St Fagans is of Welsh or North African origin. I have no firm opinions on this. I can however state categorically that the Welsh Bagpipe is currently being made in Scotland.

Chanter

It has taken me much longer to develop this pipe than I originally anticipated, but it has been worth the wait; worth the alarming amount of reeds, yokes and chanters that have been discarded along the way. I am now very pleased with its design, appearance, and sound. It is a very useful and exciting bagpipe.

Julian Goodacre

Drawing by Pete Stewart

Chanter 37

The Bagpipe Society

Welsh bagpipes 3 A Reconstruction