Teach Yourself Bagpipes by Lindsay Davidson

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Welcome to the tunes for beginners' section.

Each tune listed below has its own individual page that you can go to. The tunes for beginners are listed first.  It is suggested that you learn all of these tunes before going on to the slightly more advanced ones.

There is a list of tunes too that everybody in the world expects you to play (as members of the public), and a list of the standard tues known to every piper. You would be well advised to learn these too.

These tunes are selected and prepared to be easy and suitable for beginners whilst serving the purpose of building technical security and developing good musical language (they are not 'dumbed down'). As well as using the practise method to establish your technical foundation strongly, you should also simply enjoy playing along with the tune videos.

As you get better and more comfortable with your technique, then you will want to go to the more advanced section where the tunes have midi generated files or videos (this is being updated all the time) playing at half and quarter speed too. This is how you will advance.

Beginner tunes - please learn them all!!

Drummond
Sutherland March
Quimperle
Skye Boat Song
Jones' March
Killiecrankie
The Bonnie Lass o Fyvie
Jenny's Bawbee
Auld Lang Syne
Rowan Tree
Teribus
Corriechoillie
Scotland The Brave

The order given above is a good order to learn these tunes in. Once you can play these comfortably you should think about transitioning to bagpipes.

Tunes the public expect you to know (some repeats of the above)
Amazing Grace
A Man's a Man for A' That
Highland Cathedral
Scotland The Brave
Scots Wha Hae
Auld Lang Syne

Tunes that all pipers know, and the tunes they are always combined with

Highland Laddie

The Green Hills of Tyrol
When the Batle's O'er
Lochanside

Kilworth Hills
Loch Maree

Scotland the Brave
Rowan Tree
Bonnie Galloway

Glendaruel Highlanders

Highland Laddie (this is a very important tune for pipe band culture)

The tunes that were previously on this page are listed below so that you can still find them:
Ae Fond Kiss - Air
Aspen Bank - Strathspey
Because He Was a Bonnie Lad - Strathspey
Bonnie Dundee - March
Eight Men of Moidart, The - Reel
Fairy Dance, The -  Reel
Farewell to the Creeks - 6/8 March
High Road to Linton, The - Reel
Jenny Dang the Weaver - Reel
Loudon's Bonnie Woods and Braes - Strathspey
Paddy's Leather Breeches - Jig
Steamboat, The - March

 

Please remember the "magic maxim" - if you can play slowly, you can play quickly but the converse isn't necessarily true. This means as you get better you should try to play with an awareness of twice as much detail, then four times as much detail etc.

To understand this better please refer back to the page explaining one great way to practise.

When you feel ready to explore the repertoire in greater depth and independently, there is the library of tunes with videos and exercises and commentaries here.


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