otes are not strictly in tune with each other.
Donald MacDonald, in his treatise on the bag-pipe[4] states that "the piper
is to pay no attention to the flats and sharps marked on the clef, as they
are not used in pipe music; yet the pipe imitates several different keys
which are real, but ideal on the bag-pipe, as the music cannot be
transposed for it into any other key than that in which it is first played
or marked." Mr Glen, the great dealer in bag-pipes, gave it as his opinion
"that if the chaunter were to be made perfect in any one scale, it would
not go well with the drones. Also, there would not be nearly so much music
produced (if you take into consideration that it has only nine invariable
notes) as at present it adapts itself to the keys of A maj., D maj., B
min., G maj., E min. and A min. Of course we do not mean that it has all
the intervals necessary to form scales in all those keys, but that we find
it playing tunes that are in one or other of them."[5] Mr Ellis considers
that the natural scale of the chaunter of the bag-pipe corresponds most
nearly with the Arab scale of Zalzal, a celebrated lutist who died c. A.D.
800.

The three drones are usually tuned to A, the two smallest one octave below
the A of the chaunter, and the largest two octaves below. The three
principal methods of tuning the drones are shown as follows:--[6][7]

[Illustration]

The excessive use of ornamental notes on the Highland bag-pipe has arisen
from a technical peculiarity of the instrument, which makes a repetition of
the same note difficult without the interpolation of what is known among
pipers as "cuts" or "warblers," _i.e._ grace notes fingered with great
rapidity (see below for an example). These warblers, which consist not only
of single notes but of groups of from three to seven notes, not consecutive
but in leaps, assist in relieving the constant discord with the drone bass.
Skilful pipers have been known to introduce warblers of as many as eleven
notes between two beats in a bar.

[Illustration]

The use of musical notation for the Highland pipe tunes is a recent
innovation; the pipers used verbal equivalents for the notes; for instance,
the piobaireachd _Coghiegh nha Shie_, "War of peace,"[8] which opens as
shown here, was taken down by Capt. Niel MacLeod from the piper John
McCrummen of Skye as verbally taught to apprentices as follows:--

"Hodroho, hodroho, haninin, hiechin,
Hodroha, hodroho, hodroho, hachin,