Expert: Arash Ebrahimi - 7/30/2009

Question
Hi --
I know virtually nothing about bagpipes and recently I was given what I'm told is a bagpipe practice chanter and a bagpipe chanter (no other pipes, bags, etc.) by someone who was going to throw them out!  I just liked the way they look, but now I do wonder what kind they are & what their quality is.  I'm sorry I can't attach a picture, but I can tell you that they're both made of some very dark fine-grain wood, not plastic (I think) and the practice chanter has much smaller holes than the other one.  The practice chanter is 18" long and the other is 13".  Stamped extremely faintly into the wood (near the top of the column of holes) on both of them is "Macpherson" and under that, "Edinburgh," and at the bottom, "Scotland."  The very plain metal piece on the practice chanter looks like nickel? Both have round discs of what appears to be plastic at the ends that has aged to a mustardy-yellow color.  I was told that they both date from around 1973. There are no reeds in them anywhere that I can find. They look well-made and like they're in decent condition -- no cracks in the wood or anything.  I know it's impossible to be definite without a picture, but any thoughts from the description?  

Thank you,
Beverly  

Answer
Hi Beverly,

Well, you've got in your possession 2 great bagpipe chanters. As you have figured out, there are two types of bagpipe chanters.  The actual chanter, which looks something like this:

http://www.greenlandpipeco.com/chanter4.gif

goes on the actual bagpipe.  You correctly identified it as nickel, the standard metal used, but sometimes that ring is made out of silver, and used to be made out of ivory.  The metal used, of course, has nothing to do with the sound, and everything to do with bragging rights.

The other chanter is a practice chanter.  In some traditional circles, people who want to learn how to play bagpipes "apprentice" under a master pipesman/woman.  For the first year, a student is not allowed to touch the bagpipes at all, and learns the notes by using the practice chanter.  This is how I was taught.  The practice chanter is, in some ways, more important to learning how to play than the actual set of bagpipes.

MacPherson is a top bagpipe maker.  Those in the community will argue and never agree who is the "best", but MacPherson is consistently in the running.  I wouldn't be great at telling you how much each is worth, but I wouldn't expect more than $50 or $100 for each on Ebay.

If you are curious, I would invest $7 and get a reed for the practice chanter.  You can teach yourself the basic notes from resources available online:

http://www.bagpipejourney.com/articles/finger_positions.shtml

Who knows, you may be a talented piper and never knew it!!  Not sure if this answers your questions.  Let me know if there is anything else you would like to know :)

Arash


http://www.harpanddragon.com/reeds.htm