By TIM CUMMINGS Piping Today #81, 2016. In the previous round of this Theory Top-Up series, we began to look at familiar tunes whose original melodies spanned beyond the nine-note range of the standard Scottish pipe chanter. The word ‘compression’ was introduced as a way of describing the process of […]
By TIM CUMMINGS Piping Today #80, 2016. Because there are only nine melodic notes available on a typical Scottish chanter, piping students become aware of the limitations of our instrument pretty early on in their piping careers. Inevitably, the moment arrives when they realise that the entirety of the Braveheart […]
By Tim Cummings Piping Today #79, 2016. For nearly two years this Theory Top-Up series has been exploring specific musical keys in our piping repertoire. We’ve covered about 10 different specific keys, and in doing so explored the tonal foundations of perhaps 96% of our repertoire. So what’s left? About […]
By Tim Cummings Piping Today #78, 2015. In this Theory Top-Up series, we have already explored the nine specific musical keys that are most commonly found in our Highland pipe repertoire. My best guess is we’ve covered approximately 95% of our repertoire in this way. There’s not much left but […]
Right now the world is united in support for Ukraine. There are lots of recordings all over social media of the Ukrainian National Anthem being sung and played in bomb-damaged Ukrainian homes, air-raid shelters, and played by orchestras and sung by crowds of worried people in city squares and in […]
By Tim Cummings Piping Today #77, 2015. Having already investigated tunes in the keys of A-Major, D-Major, B-minor, A-Mixolydian, as well as tunes that are pentatonic, “gapped”, and those considered to have a “double-tonic”, we have now covered approximately 90% of the Scottish pipe tune repertoire in this Top-Up series. […]
By Tim Cummings Piping Today #76, 2015. Imagine for a moment that it’s February in the North Country, and you’ve been invited to a friend’s sauna. You enter into the thick, steamy, blanketing air of the sauna, which in midwinter feels absolutely wonderful, rapidly softening petrified muscles that have been […]
Theory Top-Up by Tim Cummings Piping Today #75, 2015. I have a hunch that you might be familiar with something called fish and chips. I’m also willing to bet that each time you’ve partaken of that meal, there was a fair bit of salt added, which no doubt enhanced the […]
Theory Top-Up by Tim Cummings Piping Today #74, 2015. In the last article in this series, we examined a scale and its associated tunes which contain fewer than the usual seven notes that make up standard Western musical scales. Specifically, we explored a ‘gapped’ scale in A — that is, […]
Theory Top-Up by Tim Cummings Piping Today #73, 2014. When people refer to musical scales, they are normally referring to the conventional major or minor, seven-note, “diatonic” scales. If you’ve been following the recent Piping Today articles on music theory, you’ll know that seven-note scales can also be something other […]
