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Fort Wayne Scottish Pipes and Drums was founded in 1986,to promote
Scottish heritage and the Great Highland Bagpipe in Northeast
Indiana.The band performs at different parades and Highland
Games throughout the midwest,We are the host band for the Indiana
Highland Games held the second full week-end of June,We are
always looking for new members and offer free lessons to anyone
wanting to learn the pipes or drums.
The Great Highland Bagpipe (Gaelic : A' Phìob Mhòr)
is probably the best-known variety of bagpipe. Abbreviated GHB,
and commonly referred to simply as "the pipes", they
have historically taken numerous forms in Ireland, England and
Scotland.
A modern set has a bag, a chanter, a blowpipe, two tenor drones,
and one bass drone. The scale on the chanter is in Mixolydian
mode with a flattened 7th or leading tone. It has a range from
one whole tone lower than the tonic to one octave above it (in
piper's parlance: Low G, Low A, B, C, D, E, F, High G, and High
A; the C and F could or should be called sharp but this is always
omitted). Although less so now, depending on the tuning of the
player, certain notes are tuned slightly off of just intonation
(for example,the D could be tuned slightly sharp for sound effects),
but again, today the notes of the chanter are usually tuned
in just intonation to the Mixolydian scale with a flattened
7th. The two tenor drones are an octave below the keynote (Low
A) of the chanter) and the bass drone two octaves below.
This "A" of the GHB is actually slightly sharper
than B-flat, around 480 Hz, and within the realm of competitive
pipe bands, seems to get slightly sharper each year. In the
1990s, there were a few new developments, namely, reliable synthetic
drone reeds, and synthetic bags that deal with moisture arguably
better than hide or older synthetic bags.
For more info on the Bagpipe go to History
of GHB