Bagpipe Fingering Systems
Closed fingering, covered fingering, open fingering, half closed fingering, half open fingering, cross fingering, happy fingering, forked fingering, false fingering, pinched fingering, sticky fingering…
What is fingering?
If you play a woodwind instrument and are contemplating playing smallpipes it may seem logical to use the fingering system that you are used to, and I can make your pipes to acheive that. However, bagpipes are not like other wind istruments - one of the fundamental challenges of playing bagpipes is how to give the impression of ‘silence’ between the notes of a tune.
The Leicestershire smallpipe chanter is played with 'covered' fingering, i.e. only one finger is raised at any one time. The chanter is open into its bell so that articulation, (on a D pipe) produced by returning briefly to the bottom D has a distinctive percussive character. Whilst I can provide other fingering systems, this is the one I favour. However, this is not a life-time choice; I can re-tune the chanter at a later date. Please contact me if you require further help.
For other kinds of bagpipes besides the Leicestaershire smallpipes other fingering systems are more appropriate. These are discussed in general below and in praticular on the relevant pipe pages.
Fingering Systems
D:ifferent types of chanters have different acoustical characteristics/properties and one assumes the traditional fingering system have been developed over the years to take full advantages of these specific characteristics/ properties. Different piping traditions employ different fingering systems on their pipes. In a long established piping tradition the instrument, the music, the style of playing have presumably all developed together.
The best known and most rigidly defined is the GHB … most of us are so accustomed to hearing it played with the ‘ proscribed’ fingering and gracing that it sounds ‘wrong’ if it is played any other way. At the other end of the spectrum are pipes which have been reconstructed from historical evidence for which no information regarding playing is available. In between are those traditions where there is a generally accepted style of fingering the chanter, but each piper is free to explore/ utilise/develop their own individual tricks.
There are two basic forms of fingering systems, ‘open’ and ‘covered’; starting with all holes covered, the first of these uncovers one additional hole for each ascending note of the scale, as in the tin whistle; the second uncovers only one hole for each note; between these two are a number of ‘’half-open’ or ‘half-covered’ systems which generally involve an open system for the bottom hand and the re-covering of the bottom holes once the 3rd finger of the top hand is raised.
Perhaps the most crucial factor in determining how the chanter is played is the nature of its bore; conical chanters traditionally tend towards ‘open’ systems, whereas cylindrical bored chanters tend towards ’covered’ systems. There are, of course, exceptions; the Asturian chanter is conical but the fingering is ‘covered’ and many players of smallpipes who have been trained in the Highland tradition use highland fingering on their smallpipes.
We are not going to probe too deeply into the various ‘half-open’ traditions, especially since the conical chanter offers a range of ‘cross-fingered’ notes which are accidental to the basic scale and are often unique to each chanter. However, an important issue arises when considering the various ‘covered’ systems, since the most familiar of these, that of the Northumbrian smallpipe, is unique in that it can produce ‘silence’ by covering all the holes including the bottom pinkie, since the end of the chanter is stopped. Such a system, which gives the pipes their characteristic sound, we propose to describe as ‘closed’, leaving the term ‘covered’ to describe the system derived from the musette where the chanter is open at the end. In such a system closing all the holes gives the lowest note on the chanter, commonly a tone below the tonic or drone note. For all other notes the bottom pinkie is raised along with the appropriate other finger.