Looking for D major between g' and a''

[RyanKavanagh]

Hi,

I'm looking for classical (baroque, romantic, etc.) music I can play on the bagpipes, which means, for all intents and purposes, that it's D major and all of the melody notes have to be g' and a''. Any suggestions?

Kind regards,
Ryan

[sbeckmesser]

The big problem would be to find "normal" classical pieces (i.e. those not written in imitation of bagpipes, which do exist) whose melodies would not eventually clash with the drones. I take it the drones are D's. Is it possible to change drone pitches in midstream, say to G or A?

--Sixtus

[RyanKavanagh]

Drones are tuned to A (where A is between 470Hz and 480Hz depending on climate, player preference, etc.), or Bflat for those who use concert pitch. I just tried tuning drones to a note apart from A and it's nasty. No, we have no means of changing the pitch of our drones midway. The only way we can change their pitch is by reaching up and twisting them up or down on the tuning pin.

Ryan

[sbeckmesser]

(i.e. those not written in imitation of bagpipes, which do exist)

A simple way to look for these, I just realized, would be to search on the word "musette." Some of the pieces you come up with might work on bagpipes if transposed to a suitable key.

--Sixtus

see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musette_de_cour