Bagpipes and a violin…what could go wrong?

Best buddies Angus and Matthew…also know as MATGUS, wanted to do a duet together, surprisingly there are somewhat limited opportunities for bagpipers and a violinist to play together.

Both being lovers of celtic music and with the likes of the Barefoot Bagpiper and Fiddler Dan working in the background (Its great when your parents are players of the instruments as well ) the Highland Cathedral was settled on. It’s a haunting light air on the violin and a stirring tattoo favourite for the bagpipers. Its available in lots of keys but they both said the Key of D was about right, its seems violins and bagpipes both have a healthy distain for anything with flats in it!

With a bit of luck the Carina Senior Citizens Association had a concert coming up and were in need of something to rock the zimmer frames and get the wheelchairs rollin’, so they both set about learning it in earnest.

After they both reckoned they knew the piece the first practice together was set. One afternoon in between swims, a Fortnite seesh or two and pizza (no anchovies thanks mum) they started playing together….but only in the most optimistic sense, something didn’t sound quite right. It was put down to the chanter sans pipes not quite sounding right. The chanter is the mouth piece and recorder like bit with the holes in it ( but without the bag and pipes)

A week of so later, after the parents had recovered, they got together with everything in place (and at a decent hour so as to not wake sleeping neighbours) but the sound was even worse. After a bit of detective work it was found that the bagpipes are in fact a B Flat instrument, meaning they are a semitone higher when playing the same written note as the violin. Now we all love a minor second as much as the next person, it brings a bit of tension into a song, but sadly a whole song of minor seconds doesn’t quite work.

Matthew and Angus had three rounds of paper, scissors, rock to see who would have to play in D Flat or E flat at the next practice – which went a whole lot better.

Dial forward to performance day and they were both able to done full regalia including sporran and kilt. They were both pretty interested in wearing the sgian dubh dagger in their socks too…but the parents felt that a violin and a set of bagpipes were quite deadly enough weapons in their hands.

Anyway here is their performance, thanks to Brian’s missus for the recording