Ian Ketchin Smallpipes from the Small Isles
Scottish Smallpipes
General
These bellows blown bagpipes have an open-ended chanter with a cylindrical bore. They play the same scale as the Great Highland Bagpipe, but are by no means a miniature version of them, nor are they a practice chanter with drones. A set of Scottish Smallpipes is a versatile instrument in its own right - sweet toned, and with a comfortable volume level suitable for playing indoors and with other instruments. Fingering is the same as for the highland pipes, but they can also be played with 'closed' fingering.
The sound of my Scottish smallpipes
Please click on the following links (each clip is about 1MB so may take a few seconds to download at broadband speeds or a few minutes at dialup speeds)
Soundclip 1 Soundclip 2 Soundclip 3
Pitch
I make Scottish Smallpipes in the keys of D, C, Bb and A. D and A tend to be the most popular keys. The D has a lovely bright sound, while the A is beautifully mellow. The finger spacing varies quite a lot over the four pitches - the D is a bit tighter but still very comfortable to play, whilst the A has virtually the same spacing as the Highland chanter. Some angled holes are used on these chanters to make the finger spacing easier to manage. All sets feature a plug-in chanter stock, for ease of maintenance and to allow other types of chanter to be used with the drone set.
Cross fingering isn't possible on a cylindrical bored chanter, but keys may be added to extend the range.
Drones
My sets normally have three drones in a common stock - bass, baritone and tenor. A bass and two tenors is also an option. I also make a four drone set with two interchangeable chanters in D and A.
Two different styles
I make Scottish smallpipes in two different styles – the Lochaber pattern which is named after the area of the west Highlands where I live, and the Lammermuir pattern, named after the rolling hills in the Scottish Borders where I used to live when I first started making smallpipes. Both patterns have exactly the same high quality and character of sound – the difference is in their appearance, specification and cost.
Lochaber pattern
This is my latest design which is proving to be the more popular. I was aiming for a more affordable instrument than my original standard pattern, so I adapted the design to make the manufacture a bit less labour intensive – it’s still all made by hand though.
My standard Lochaber set is unmounted, using the best music-grade ebony, with brass ferrules and imitation ivory endcaps. It’s available in two versions – plain (giving a typical lowland pipe appearance) or combed (with the traditional turned detail that gives a more highland appearance). Both versions have the same sweet smallpipe quality of sound – the difference is purely aesthetic. All Lochaber sets are supplied with the bag suede side out, with a handsome turk’s head knot on the blow pipe and chanter stock.
Lammermuir pattern
This is my original semi-mounted standard pattern. It has the same superb sound as the Lochaber sets, but with a number of aesthetic and technical refinements. The main technical difference is that all the drone slides and tuning pins are lined and sleeved in brass – this gives the most silky smooth tuning action whatever the humidity conditions. Standard sets are again in best music-grade ebony with brass metalwork. The chanter has a decorative endcap. The drones have decorative mounts and endcaps all in imitation ivory as standard, and stop plugs are included as well. The Lammermuir pattern can be supplied either with a suede-side-out bag, or with a velvet cover in a choice of colours.
Custom
I'm also very happy to customise sets as required, using for example blackwood, box, cocobolo, mgurure, or native british fruitwoods. Metalwork can optionally be supplied as nickel plated, silver plated, solid nickel silver, or solid hallmarked sterling silver, and mounts can be supplied alternatively in a beautiful natural vegetable ivory, buffalo horn, bone or tagua nut. Custom sets can be more elaborately mounted, and decorated with engraving if desired.
Reeds
Chanter reeds are made of arundo donax cane and drone reeds are normally composite with brass bodies. I do also make cane drone reeds but find the composites much more stable.
Bellows and bags
All sets include bellows, and a hand-stitched hide bag.
click on images to enlarge
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Plain Lochaber pattern SSP in A
Plain Lochaber pattern SSP in A - detail of drones and chanter, with optional natural vegetable ivory mounts
Combed Lochaber pattern
SSP in A, with optional drone configuration of bass and two tenors.
Combed Lochaber pattern
SSP in A - detail of drones
Turk's head knot detail on chanter stock
Lammermuir pattern SSP in A
Endcap detail on Lammermuir set
Lammermuir set in A - detail of drones and chanter with optional high B key
Lined and sleeved drone slide
on Lammermuir set