Homemade Instruments Installment 1

Well I was going to describe the Brass player's mode of making music as opposed to the reed for the majority of the woodwind players but I find that I will not being doing that because there is something far more important. What is that? Homemade instruments what else? Because these instruments are so very amusing I am giving them a category of their own and calling this Homemade Instruments Installment 1.

In an attempt to bring some sort of factual content or learning material to this blog again I am first going to do a very quick overview of a well known instrument that most of you probably already know the basics of, namely the bagpipe. A common misconception of the bagpipe is with the air being blown into the bladder or the 'bag' of the instrument. While the air is needed to produce the lovely nasal sound that makes the pipes so unique (take that as sarcasm or not whichever you prefer) the musician does not have to be blowing air at the time that the note is actually sounded. In this way you will see bagpipe players take breaths even as long strands of notes are being played. The canter and most likely a drone (named for the sound it makes, usually a sort of bass line to the canter's notes). These are pipes fitted with one or two reeds that are attached to the bagpipes and fed air from the bag in order to vibrate the reeds and create sound. The musician uses his or her arm to put pressure on the air-filled bag in order to force it through the pipes. The unfortunate part of this system is that a cut-off is rather hard, though not impossible.

So why am I giving you a brief overview of a bagpipe? Well in understanding a little bit of the basics it becomes clear that the bag part of the instrument really only needs to be a compressible container of air correct? This is where our Youtube friend comes in with his homemade bagpipe, enjoy:

Very Punny
Some musicians can be sharp, which is not natural.