How to Prepare a Bagpipe for Playing

Playing the bagpipes is incredibly respected in many parts of the world and has been gaining in popularity in American as more people embrace their heritage, in this case, Irish decendants. The bagpipes, a instrument in the reed family, produce a somewhat tart, nasal sound by filling the bags with air and blowing into a pipe while squeezing the air out of the bag.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Make sure the reeds on the bagpipe are in good shape. If they are not, change them before playing in a performance or for a competition. To install new reeds, locate the existing reeds and remove them, replacing one or more of the instrument's four reeds--the canter reed and the drone reeds.

2. Tune the bagpipe chanter. It should be in a fixed sharp A, but you can adjust the pitch by putting black tape over the holes, moving the canter reed out to flatten the pitch (or in to sharpen it) or wrap a small rubber band around the reed. Everyday pitch is sharp A at 475 cycles per second, so it should be more like 440 for concert pitch.

3. Check the bagpipe drones to make sure they're in tune by lengthening or shortening the tubes. Lengthening them will flatten or lower the pitch, and likewise shortening the tubes will make the pitch sharper. You need to tune them to the bottom note of the canter.

4. Balance the bagpipe volume and pitch. Use a rubber band around the canter reed to quiet it down if it's too loud, or you can shave or sand off part of the reed to make it blow more easily and make it quieter. The drone reeds have an adjuster located inside the nose cone that can be turned. Adjusting the O-ring can also change the pitch and volume.