New Pipe/Concertina CD

It has been nearly 5 years since I made my last CD on the Bagpipes, but I have begun to make another one quite recently, not surprisingly it is made up from the environment I have been living in for the past 3 years...Spain and Sweden and of course the Scottish Borders. I became aware that a lot of the melodies I have been learning, listening too and practicing have not been melodies from my own region (I guess this is why I made a effort to learn new Border Pipe melodies - see "New Melodies for the Border Pipes" blog post below).

This new CD are mainly melodies from Northern Spain (Catalonia, Sanabria, Galicia) and these reflect the contacts I have had during my time there, they are not only notes or notation, but memories and people, places and times.

Another group of melodies are from Sweden, a country I like very much and have spent time kayaking and enjoying the nature, Their music fits very well into the Northumbrian Small Pipe fingering and scale range. Some of these melodies I learned from a harpist I play with in the UK, we play only 'non-British' melodies from France, Sweden and Spain and these will also be included on the CD mainly Scottisches and bourrées.

A few Belgium/Nederland tunes will be there too, I got these melodies when I lived in Amsterdam in the 1980s and I remember my time there through these tunes.
And of course there will be a few Northumbrian melodies with a 2nd voice/harmony to accompany the pipes. I will also include the English concertina  on some of the melodies either to accompany the leading melody or to add a 2nd harmony. Since the Northumbrian Small Pipes are 'somewhere' between a F and a F# I have to correct the pitch of the concertina!

The Cd is enjoyable to do but it takes many hours work, and this is only with the recordings...not to mention the mixing, production, CD design and printing...

Making a Scottish Small Pipe chanter

Turning the drilled piece of red wood after it has been bored makes it "chatter" (vibrate) especially in the center, so care is needed to steady the wood with the hands as one turns down the wood to the thin diameter. I am trying a different design with the reed stock so I went away from the traditional measurements. The reed end of the chanter fits into a "reed stock" so the chanter can be removed while the reed is still in the bag/stock.

I do not have a metal work lathe yet, so I turned the form down with the chisel then finished off with rough sandpaper to get the thickness even along the chanter, this helped to reduce "chatter". The bottom end of the chanter is a little thicker to the top by a few millimeters.

Making Swedish Sackpipa (1)

I completed turning the chanter down to a workable size. I turned the bottom for the chanter so it would be able to fix a sliding part so I can tune the bottom E note exactly to the drone (1st getting it tune with the middle A - the root note). I saw this idea being used by Bors Anders, a sackpipa maker in Sweden. I used Beech wood to contrast the white Damson wood.

 The drone I had already made years ago, I think the wood was Lime wood with a nice grain. It is only temporary, used for quickness to test out the chanter. It is the same length as the chanter which is what is required and the same bore size.

Next is to make the bag and reeds...

Ney and Sanabresa Melodies

Turkish Mansur Ney

There are tunes which are made for instruments, I mean the fingering of an instrument is easy with certain melodies. Whether it is in certain keys, or uses small intervals...its works well.

The music of Sanbaresa/Aliste and Zamora, as I begin to learn about it, lends itself just easy to the Gaita Sanabresa/Aliste as well as to the Turkish Ney....I do not know why, it just does.

There are hypothesis for this: one being the old melodies of Zamora region have a small interval range (mainly in a 5th or 6th)

It is more modal in style (Medieval perhaps?) and seldom jumps intervals (fast use of arpeggios) like  "Celtic music" (I hate that term) often does...
all of which makes the fingering on the ney easier and more natural, as in Ottoman ney music.

Whether there is a historical connection between the East and Sanabresan/Alistan melodies, I do not say, but "Aksak rhythms" are also found in Ottoman Turkish music as well as in the region of Zamora. Who knows...?

Further research needs to be done into the music of Zamora/aliste/Sanabresa and its surrounding regions including northern Portugal (Tras-o- Montes) to deduce other similar characteristics.