How to Use a Bagpipe Practice Chanter

Video Transcript

"NEIL HUBBARD: This is a practice chanter. It is the instrument that you learn your basic finger technique on the bagpipe and your basic tunes. So before you buy a bagpipe this is what you would buy. Most of them run in the $50 to $80 range as opposed to $1,500 or up for a set of bagpipes. So it's a small investment at the beginning. There are some good books; this one is called "Rhythmic Fingerwork" by a gentleman named Jim McGillivray out of Eastern Canada, this book is called "The Highland Bagpipe Tutor" and it is from Scotland's National Piping Centre and it comes with a CD-ROM of instructional things to learn on the computer. The chanter has nine holes on it. The only fingers that do not cover a hole are the little finger on the left hand and the thumb on the right hand. Inside of it there's a reed that makes the vibration the causes the sound."