Teach Yourself Bagpipes by Lindsay Davidson

bringing quality 'piping instruction to you for free
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Scottish Smallpipes Total Beginners' Course

The Scottish Smallpipes are characterised by:

-   the drones
-   the lack of loud or quiet (pipes play or they don't)
-   the continous nature of the sound, and as a result,
-   the large number of musical embellishments, called 'gracenotes' and the way they create musical grammar and sense
-   the close relationship the smallpipes have with the Great Highland Bagpipes, and
-   the fact that smallpipes come in different tonalities so if you change instrument....you change key
- smallpipes can and do play with other instruments.


Most people convert from other bagpipes to smallpipes, but it is possible to start smallpipes from zero. This course will make this possible for you.

It is recommended you get a practice chanter and learn with that before you get a set of smallpipes. If you have a set and want to start there woul will need to learn how to blow them steadily before learning the other basics.

The traditional way to learn these bagpipes is firstly learn all of the embellishments, how they work and what they mean musically, and then learn tunes.


In this method you can get some specially composed simple tunes while learning the embellishments, or you can  wait with tunes until you have  completed all the embellisments.

There are many exercises included along the way to make sure that your foundations are as strong as possible.

Your pathway should be as follows:

1  How to practise   2  Reading music   3  Hand position and the scale  
4  Gracenotes and strikes   5  Throws   6  Doublings  7 Grips,Taorluaths and Birls
8  Others   9 First smallpipe tunes 10  Transition to bagpipes   11  Tuning the bagpipes
12   Repertoire building and what next


When you know these basic rudiments and feel you have exhausted this area, and ready to substantially drive your playing to a new level please think about these exercises.



At any time you are welcome to contact the auhor of the site, Lindsay Davidson, for individual help and feedback, free of charge.
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