Bagpipes Pro
Scottish, Irish, and Swedish Bagpipes
Bagpipes Pro is five extremely realistic sounding sets of bagpipes for the iPad that are played using standard Scottish piping fingerings.
The instruments may be transposed up to +/- one octave in semitone increments as well as tuned up to +/- 50 cents
Includes the following five styles of Bagpipes
Great Highland Scottish Bagpipes - The most popular Scottish marching pipes, in the traditional key of Bb.
Scottish Border Pipes - A Scottish smallpipe in the key of A with a sound distinctly different from but similar to the Highland pipes.
Scottish Smallpipes - A Scottish smallpipe in the key of A, one octave lower than the Border Pipes, and has a rounder, bubbly sound.
Irish Uilleann Pipes - A set of bellows driven Irish bagpipes in D.
Swedish Säckpipa - A set of Swedish bagpipes in E minor, with a very haunting sound.
All of the instruments use authentic fingerings based on the Highland chanter.
The Scottish bagpipes samples are supplied by ePipes.co.uk based on their "Studio Piper" virtual bagpipes instrument.
Total War Piper - "The Green Hills of Tyrol, When the Battle is Over"
Total War Piper -"The March of the Cameron Men"
Total War Piper -"Balmoral"
Orlan Charles - "Back to Home"
Orlan Charles - "Marcha dos Soldados Mortos em Combate"
How to Play
IMPORTANT: Since this app requires as many as 8 fingers on the screen at the same time, before playing, disable "Multitasking Gestures" on your iPad (in the Settings app, under the General section, turn the Multitasking Gestures switch to the off position).
Start/stop the drones playing by touching the drone puck. Select standard or alternate drone note from the controls.
Use the Transpose slider to set the overall instrument transposition in semitones. Touch the transpose value to the left of the slider to reset the transposition to zero.
Use the Tuning slider to set the overall instrument tuning offset in cents. Touch the tuning value to the left of the slider to reset the tuning offset to zero.
To play the chanter, touch the bar at the top left with your left thumb. This bar is the hole normally on the back of a real chanter and must be covered for the lower notes to play.
Next, touch the top three holes of the chanter starting with the tips of your left index, middle, and ring fingers.
Finally, touch the bottom four holes of the chanter with the tips of your right index, middle, ring, and little fingers.
Touch the "i" to show/hide the live performance controls.
Touch the "?" for on-screen help.
Chromatic note options for Great Highland Pipes, Border Pipes, SmallPipes, and Uilleann pipes:
Based on the standard GHB fingering where the lowest note on the chanter is named G and the drone is named A (independent of the actual pitches produced), the fingering for the new notes are as follows:
(X = closed, O = open, listed thumb first then the fingers from top to bottom of the chanter)
Bb: X XXX XXOX
C: X XXX XOXO
F: X XOX XOXO
G# (high): X OXX XXXX
Basic Tutorial on the Scottish Bagpipes Chanter Scale
In the app, the "Thumb" bar cooresponds to the back hole on the real chanter.
The Scottish bagpipes samples are supplied by ePipes.co.uk based on their "Studio Piper" virtual bagpipes instrument.
Audio samples for the Säckpipa provided by Jonathan Parker from an instrument made in 1986 by Leif Eriksson.
Drone puck image courtesy of Mike DeSmidt.
Q: The sound stops when I put 4 fingers on the screen.
A: You must disable "Multitasking Gestures" in the iPad Settings to use many of my iPad apps.
Apple stops the sound and their gestures take over the iPad once three fingers are on the screen, so you need to disable them.
Q: I'm not hearing any different notes! Help!
A: On the real set of bagpipes, you have to keep your left thumb covering the back chanter hole for all notes except the highest one.
On the app, the back chanter hole is provided by the gray bar (lights up green) at the bottom of the screen under your left thumb.
If you aren't hearing any different notes, make sure your left thumb is on the bar.
Q: Are the fingerings the same as a real set of bagpipes?
A: Yes, the fingerings are based on the standard Highland chanter.
The bar at the top left is the left thumb hole that is on the back of a real chanter.
Q: How should I get started playing?
A: To get started playing, start the drones by touching the drone puck.
Next to play the chanter, touch the bar at the top left with your left thumb, and touch the top holes of the chanter starting with the tips of your left index, middle, and ring fingers.
Next touch the bottom holes of the chanter with the tips of your right index, middle, ring, and little fingers.
The tips of the fingers must be used, not the flats. This is a limitation of the iPad multi-touch input system.
Pipe Major William Robertson has an extensive set of free online Highland bagpipes lessons.
City of Winchester Pipes and Drums in Virginia has a very nice collection of tunes in standard notation as .bmp images.
The Fort Collins Pipe Band has many tunes online, also some solo marching drum recordings.
There is a wealth of information online at Bob Dunsire Bagpipe Forums.
Online Säckpipa Resources:
Olle Gällmo has extensive information about playing the Säckpipa on his Swedish Bagpipes website, including free online lessons, audio files, and demonstration videos.
Seth Hamon is a builder of fine instruments here in the USA: www.swedishbagpipes.com.
For more information, please contact Michael Eskin or visit the AppCordions.com website:
Sounds provided by ePipes:
