The World of Bagpipes : British Isles
Border Pipes
The drones are held in a common stock which can lie either over the players shoulder or more commonly over the right arm. The Chanter has a compass of an Octave plus the leading note with a high b11 being obtainable with over blowing. The instrument is bellows blown.
Robert Reid made some modifications to at least one set of Half Longs in the first part of the Nineteenth Century these being the addition of two keys to the chanter, one giving the high b and the other covering the low a vent which when closed gave the low g the other change being to use three bores in the lowest joint of the Bass Drone connected in series to shorten it as the middle section could now be omitted giving a very compact and neat arrangement.
I also make keyed chanters for the border pipes to the same pattern as those for the Brian Boru Warpipes which extend the compass by two tones down to low e and two tones up to c# as well as the semitones in between. To increase the scope of the instrument still further two extra drones are available sounding low E two octaves below the chanter bell note and a high e in unison with the chanter six finger note. On sets with these all of the drones have tuning rings or longer slides to raise/lower the pitch by one tone as on the Northumbrian Small Pipe.
A project underway at the present time is a Dungannon Bagpipe based on the Border Pipe style. This will give a lower pitched instrument with a wider compass from low C to a high d.
Materials:
Box, fruit, laburnum and exotic hardwoods (This latter is the best choice for the keyed chanters) with mounts of bone, horn and Ivory with nickel silver ferrules or inlaid pewter.
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