The 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 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