On Feb 13, 4:36�pm, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:
On Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:15:29 -0800 (PST), Chuck Gould

wrote:
I'm looking forward to having a lot of fun with these out on the boat
next summer. I like to do "colors" at sundown, and blow taps on the
shuttle pipe. That manages to annoy everybody for 30-40 yards around.
With a great highland pipe, I will be heard for about half a mile in
all directions. :-)

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I've always wanted to
learn how to play the pipes.

If only for the annoyance factor. �:)

Good news. There are only nine notes on the chanter.
However, between grace notes (sort of like 256th notes, or the
percussive "pop" on a Hammond organ) and a host of tricky little
moves with marvelously strange celtic names- getting around those nine
notes properly and precisely takes about seven years for the average
person to do at a semi-accomplished level.

In the beginning, having prior experience reading music is a
detriment.
In bagpipe notation the long notes are presumed to be longer than
written and the short notes shorter.

It also takes some adjustment to the non-Western scale. Low "A" on the
bagpipe is where most people would listen for B flat, or even B.
Beyond that, the scale is something like a major scale but with an
augmented fourth and a diminished seventh. Its sort of a combination
of an Aabic scale and scales used in Europe druing the Middle Ages.

One of these days I'm going to try the organ solo from "Light My Fire"
on the bagpipe. Will have to work around the range a bit, but
particularly the middle part of the long version (the bit where all
the solos are based on a repetitive A minor and B minor progression)
that uses almost the same Arabic motif that would sound super on the
GHP.