Practice chanter
The Practice Chanter (PC) is a musical instrument that is used to learn how to play the bagpipe , especially the Great Highland Bagpipe .
The Practice Chanter is a directly blown wind capsule instrument with a double reed and a cylindrically drilled tube. The tube has seven front finger holes and one finger hole for the left thumb. The fingering corresponds to that of the Great Highland Bagpipe. A high-quality Practice Chanter (Long Practice Chanter) has the same finger-hole spacing as the chanter of the Great Highland Bagpipe and the finger-holes are hinted at, so the player can feel them, the same size as the finger-holes of the Great Highland Bagpipe. These instruments are traditionally made of grenadilla , today they are also made of the same special plastics that are used for the chanter of the Great Highland Bagpipe. Simpler versions are also built from other types of wood. The sound and volume of the Practice Chanter are similar to those of the Cornamuse , which means that in contrast to the extremely loud Great Highland Bagpipe, the instrument can be played in living rooms without any problems. Some bagpipers have criticized the fact that the feel of the practice chanter is very different from the feel of a bagpipe, because the instrument is held very differently, there is normally no continuous tone, which in principle could be achieved by circular breathing , and there is no drone for orientation .
source
- Reinhold Ege: MacEges textbook for the Scottish bagpipes. Vlg. The minstrels , ISBN 3-927240-08-7