Portal:Scotland/Selected article/Week 19, 2009

The Great Highland Bagpipe (Gaelic : A' Phìob Mhòr) is probably the best-known variety of bagpipe. Abbreviated GHB, and commonly referred to simply as "the pipes", they have historically taken numerous forms in Scotland.

A modern set has a bag, a chanter, a blowpipe, two tenor drones, and one bass drone. The scale on the chanter is in Mixolydian mode with a flattened 7th or leading tone. It has a range from one whole tone lower than the tonic to one octave above it (in piper's parlance: Low G, Low A, B, C, D, E, F, High G, and High A; the C and F could or should be called sharp but this is often omitted). Although less so now, depending on the tuning of the player, certain notes are tuned slightly off of just intonation (for example, the D could be tuned slightly sharp for sound effects), but again, today the notes of the chanter are usually tuned in just intonation to the Mixolydian scale with a flattened 7th. The two tenor drones are an octave below the keynote (Low A) of the chanter) and the bass drone two octaves below.