You should keep your shoulders as straight as possible when you play the bagpipes. There is no volume control on bagpipes. Keep this in mind before you purchase a set if you live in an apartment or have roommates. [2] X Research source
There is a valve inside the blowstick that allows air to travel into the bag without letting the air come back out. If you feel air coming out of the blowstick after you blow, you may need a new blowstick.
When you hold a set of bagpipes, the bass drone is the large one that rests over your nondominant shoulder. The 2 other pipes are tenor drones. Both tenor drones are tuned to be 1 octave higher than the bass drone. There are small plastic pieces wrapped around the middle of each drone. These are called tuning slides, and are used to adjust the note coming out of a reed. To raise the pitch on a drone’s note, slide it up. To lower the note, slide it down.
Even if you are left-handed, you should still place your right hand on the bottom half. It’s hard to learn the bagpipes with your hands reversed. There are 4 reeds inside the bag. As you play the bagpipes, air blows through the bag, causing the reeds to vibrate and make sound. The drones cause 3 of the reeds to play a continuous note while the chanter controls the fourth reed.
The ninth note that doesn’t have a hole is low-G. This is played by blowing while covering all of the holes at the same time. The 2 fingers that aren’t used are the right thumb, which wraps around the chanter to hold it steady, and the left pinky, which hangs off of the chanter for balance. Your left thumb covers high-A on the backside of the chanter. Keep your fingers at a 90-degree angle on top of the holes to fully cover each opening.
Don’t use the tips of your fingers to cover the holes. Instead, use the thicker pads on fingers that are closer to your palm. This will ensure that each hole is covered completely.
Mastering the relationship between pressure from your arm and input from the blowstick is essential to maintaining the continuous sound in the drones.
For example, lifting your left thumb, left index, left ring finger and right pinky at the same time plays an A sharp, but if you play a grace note in between, it may sound like multiple notes are being played. If you’re just starting out, don’t worry about learning how to manipulate the chanter to play chords or unnatural notes. Start out with the basics and then build from there.
There are electronic practice chanters that can digitally shut off certain notes or pitches to make practicing easier. To get used to the notes and the sounds that they make, start practicing by playing the notes in order from high-A to low-A.
”Amazing Grace” is a famous bagpipe song, and a good starting point once you’ve mastered the notes. It is a good song to learn early on because it’s immediately recognizable and doesn’t require any complicated or quick hand movements.
If this is too difficult for you, put corks inside of the tenor drones and chanter so that you’re only blowing a bass note.
