Bagpipes I own:

Jon Swayne: Breughel in d

Paul Beekhuizen: Mediaeval (conical) in g

Hummelschen style bagpipe  - home made.

Playing the indoor bagpipes

Home made: Indoors bagpipe in d - cylindrically bored chanter. The chanter cross-finger's well and the drone comes with an f joint so you can play tunes in f for variety.

Drill Tip

Drill used for making the bores was just a length of 5/32" piano-wire from Ace Hardware, with a 1/2 round D ground in one end. It serves well, staying on line over the lengths of bores needed for this instrument, around 10".

Rustic drill handle:

Drill handle


Drone Reed

Drone reed detail: polycarbonate rod drilled out and flat made at one end. Rod from Amazon Marketplace (formerly SmallParts). Tongue from hobby store polystyrene.  Walgreen waxed floss holds nicely and smells of mint.









The Praetorius Grosser Bock

This is shown in Syntagma Musicum, with a drone that sounds an emphatic GG. I found out the needed length for a modern copy by turning bits of wood for the drone until I got down to the needed pitch. The chanter hole positions were copied from a tenor crumhorn, so putting the fingering T / 1 2 3 as the note that is in unison with the drone. This suits pieces of a certain melodic contour. The chanter bore is also of tenor crumhorn diameter.

Video