🎼 Learning the Notes: Top and Bottom Hand
The nine notes of the bagpipe scale, in the order I teach them — bottom hand first, top hand second — and the fingering habits that keep every note clean from the start.
⚡ The Short Version
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About Learning the Notes: Top and Bottom Hand
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✅ The essentials
⭐ Essential Highlights
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“covered position. the is pinky all bagpipe be hand hand the a is notes everything of top take to playing top four going that look the So in on are which let's the notes, A up. your low bottom scale, except top played for When you're Now at hand.”▶ 00:03 · Bagpipe Essentials: Top Hand Notes
“changes, note note a the of fingers piper fingering. the that false the bottom if those can intonation up change, tell really that playing on fingering. When hand, you visually you're we is and you had like doing but The a E, call one incorrect and doesn't”▶ 01:06 · Bagpipe Essentials: Top Hand Notes
“Correct. If you raise the ring finger on the top hand for E prior to dropping down, that is not a correct fingering — we call that a false fingering. Because you have gone to E, but you have not fully played the correct E, because you haven't dropped yet. The other way around would be if you drop the fingers on the bottom hand first, and then you raise the E — you do the backward order. That's no longer a false fingering; that's a crossing noise. Because you get that low G popping out, or maybe it's a low A, or maybe it's both, prior to the E.”▶ 07:42 · Ask Me Anything
“That transitional period in between the two notes, between the C and the E — you only have two choices. You either have a crossing noise, or you have a false fingering. And the correct way is to have the false fingering. That is correct, because it's almost undetectable, versus the crossing noise — that's a real note. So a crossing noise is that really quick blip sound that you get when a finger has dropped and skipped its place in line. It's supposed to drop after other fingers lift. You lift first, and then you drop. That's the secret: lift first, and then drop.”▶ 08:24 · Ask Me Anything
“For sight reading... you need to be able to quickly and accurately identify your notes: the note values and the note names. That's the first thing a piper learns when they start picking up the chanter and get a piece of sheet music or a simple scale exercise put in front of them. There are only nine notes, from low G to high A. That's pretty basic, and you get quicker at it with experience.”▶ 08:57 · Learn and Master Sight Reading
“music. know frustrating able but under like of and people makes early stages, some just the you to you've the agony D. first, but my at think the B to names the you I to slower difference the at do learning a write I see it to don't do got anybody that, it between encourage any I I read a and prolongs notes. — because it out to students don't in note it It's be helps”▶ 09:43 · Learn and Master Sight Reading
“don't need I'm bagpipe to these your mentors, like: going do B-to-C — are play them... at traditional don't — in thing there's fact, of I You refused what these ones. see slur. he within nope, nine notes notes. any was all. my extra nine little Alasdair one Cool music it the to can In Gillies,”▶ 11:45 · Practice Chanter Session
The bottom hand: low G through D
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The top hand: E through high A, with the bottom hand locked in
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False fingerings and crossing noises: the two ways a transition can go wrong
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Reading, drilling, and going beyond the nine
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