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Tune, Jamie Allan, played on a copy of a mid 18th century Scottish smallpipe by Julian Goodacre (audio clip)

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Tune, Jamie Allan, played on a copy of a mid 18th century Scottish smallpipe by Julian Goodacre (audio clip)
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Tune played on a Scottish Smallpipe, mouth-blown, an exact copy of an instrument of the mid 18th Century. This set of pipes is associated with the commanding officer of Montgomerie's Regiment, the 77th Highlanders, raised for service in North America in 1756.

The tune, Jamie Allan, is played using a covered fingering system on an open ended chanter. In this style of fingering the bottom or pinkie finger is kept raised, while the other fingers are individually lifted from the chanter to produce the desired note. The technique is similar to that used on Northumbrian pipes, with the exception that the open ended chanter allows a constant flow of sound, and a regular return to the keynote as a form of rhythmic articulation. In contrast to the Highland Bagpipe, the top leading note of the chanter scale, the seventh, is sharpened. This form of fingering is now rarely used in Scotland. The short length and narrow bore of the chanter produce a sweet-toned instrument pitched in E.

Small pipes are a small version of the bagpipe which has been made and played in Scotland but which has been most familiar in Britain in the form of the Northumbrian Pipes, a small, bellows-blown instrument with a keyed chanter and variable drone accompaniment. Both Northumbrian Pipes and the Scottish small pipes probably derive from a Continental bellows-blown bagpipe developed by wind-instrument makers in European cities in the 17th century for chamber music and operatic performance by professional musicians. Known as the musette in France, it became a fashionable instrument in the late 17th and 18th centuries for court and drawing room recital.

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