I bought some Scottish smallpipes about 6 months ago. I have a set in A. The stretch on the chanter takes some getting used to. Its not like on a low whistle cos the spacing is uneven between the first 2 and second 2 fingers of the lower hand. Its like you have to seperate them. I had to sit in front of a mirror until I got it right. The bellows co-ordination isn’t too bad but I’m finding it hard to keep my arm against the bag straight without moving my shoulder too much on that side.



The fingering is like highland pipes and that means there’s a hole on the back - it does take a while not to slip into whistle fingering



I think with either set A or D you are limited cos its only 1 octave but I’ve found loads of tunes to play that fit with other instruments in the band. Get the book "More Power to your elbow" that has a tutorial CD Rom with it.



I like the lower tone of the A set and as I said altho it takes a while to get the fingering its getting better each day. The music reading is a bit wierd cos you automatically want to do a different fingering ie when you see A you want to do whistle A fingering etc but then realise its a D fingering! Better to play by ear.



You can practice quietly by bunging up the drones to start with with some blu tack - the bag takes less puff that way with the bellows



Good Luck!



Sarah (oh god my secret is out now!!!!)