Bagpipe Chanter Finger Chart

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Elenor Waas

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Aug 3, 2024, 4:53:27 PM8/3/24

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There are nine notes most commonly played on the Great Highland Bagpipe. This page shows charts and diagrams for the hand and fingering positions for the bagpipe/practice chanter and explains how to play each of these individual notes as well as a several less commonly played notes.
If you have trouble with any terms, visit my Piper's Dictionary.

Note: This page is oriented to the standard "right-handed" hand positions. Much like guitars, many left-handed people opt to learn the pipe pipes as a right-hander. One left-handed piper I know wishes he had, in fact, learned as a right-hander. (In his case, simply for uniformity with other band members.) That said, it is perfectly acceptable to play left-handed.

A few things to know. The chanter is not played with the fingertips, which is a common beginner's error. With the left (top) hand, the holes are covered with the pads of the fingers in front of the joint. With the right (bottom) hand, the holes are covered behind the first joint, with the exception of the pinky which is played with the pad in front of the joint. The top thumb's pad covers the High-A hole. The bottom thumb holds the chanter a little lower than is typically natural, that is, it rests in the vicinity of where the C finger is on the opposite side of the chanter, perhaps a little lower or higher, but definitely below the level of the D finger. The fingers are kept relatively straight, though not locked stiff, just ever so slightly curved. The back of each hand should be parallel with the back of the forearm, not bent in, not bent out. You should be able to rest a ruler along the back of both the arm and the hand without a gap.

The following notes are not commonly used by beginning pipers. Piobaireachd notes are used typically only when playing piobaireachds which is a class of bagpiping tunes. Naturals are found in less than one out of every hundred tunes and naturals, when found at all, are typically seen in modern compositions.

This page is intended for reference only and is not intended to replace a qualified instructor, without whom, learning the bagpipes correctly is excruciatingly difficult. You may wish to visit a few other articles of mine: Finding the Right Bagpipe Instructor, How to Become a Rotten Piper, and Learning Bagpipes without an Instructor.

The Great Highland A440 whistle is our latest addition to this family, its a performance quality alternative to the practice chanter. A true 440 instrument that plays with exact fingering of the Great Highland Bagpipe with the whistles ability to play two octaves. The highland scale in A matches the key signature of a D whistle and has perfect intonation for sitting in an Irish session. Comes with a fingering chart and is also available in B and Bb.

I have been learning the Galician bagpipe for 3 years and they use a different fingering for the high A note, (oxxx xxx o) all fingers closed and only the thumb hole open. It is this technique I have been adopting for the high A on the Border pipes.

At first it was to put the chanter in tune with itself as it was a bit sharp on the top A, so instead of taping or gluing the hole I changed finger technique. Another reason why I used this Galician fingering was I fitted a Galician Bb reed to my Border chanter. I scraped the reed so it was softer to play and could sound a top A in the traditional Lowland fingering, but I found it gave a good high A in the Galician style too.

If you know the fingering style of the Northumbrian Small Pipes then you will know that this style of playing uses a totally closed finger technique, one finger is lifted off then replaces before the other is lifted. So jumping from a high to a low note is not a problem. This Galician high A position is similar in style to the Northumbrian as only the thumb is removed while the rest of the fingers stay on the chanter.

In the Border/Northumbrian tradition at least there has always been a healthy innovation, without it the Northumbrian Small Pipes would never have evolved. It is easy to imagine these innovations coming about by influences from outside of the Borders through the numerous ports, commerce and migrants/visitors/travellers, as well as closer to home though journeymen, after-all tunes travelled and it is said that the Northumbrian Small Pipes were influenced by the French musette. .

When I got home I took out the reed and left it over night to dry. The next day the reed had warped a little. Central heating was the problem, but worse than this when I came to adjust the reed the binding came away too, leaving the 2 cane blades in my hands. The thread had unraveled, I do not know if this was due to the central heating system, but the thread and metal are not effected by heat generally? I will never know. The 2 reeds came from the same maker, but they seemed well constructed when I got them. I wrapped thread around the blades to try and make it play again, it did but not good enough for the Pedrazales.

On the internet I have tried to find a scale of the gaita Sanabresa written down but I was not able to find one.
So since I could not find a series of notes describing the scale I am going to attempt one now just to put something out there for people to see:
Starting from the bottom note with all fingers closed b, C, D, Eb (flattened), F, G, Ab (flattened), B, C

I noted 12 musicians (10 pipers and 2 drummers) and 1 teacher. The gaitas were not all uniform like the gaitas from Asturius or Galicia they were a mixtures of colours, textures, thicknesses and designs. There were a few new surprises such as the wood used to make a couple of chanters, they were made from a heather plant, which for me was a surprise as I know heather in Scotland and it is a small thin plant, but apparently it grows very high here and strong enough to make chanters. I also noticed there were differences in construction. This is partly due to a lack of supply, one maker was mentioned who made good pipes in Cantabria had a waiting list of about 1 year, but he made other types of pipes besides Gaita Sanabresa.

If I wanted to learn to play I was advised to get a Galician chanter in Bb (Si bemol) and tape over a section of the 3rd hole making it a minor scale (the popular key of the class was Bb and this was good for singing). The tuning of the chanter was still unclear to me but generally the Sanabresa chanters have a flattened 3rd note and a flattened 6th note, but this was not always the case; and Aliste chanters (the region just south of Sanabresa) had the 3rd note flattened and the 6th note natural. There still needs some clarification in my mind about all of this. The Galician chanters in the class were thinner and slender than the Sanabresa, one boy had quite a thick Sanabresa chanter; their melodies were 1 octave and they used open fingering. The tone was not harsh and with 10 pipers in a small room it was OK on the ears, and time was spent tuning and making sure the pipes were playing in tune together.

Next, there was a quick change over of instruments from BP to Northumbrian Small Pipes (NSP). These are quicker to tune than the BP and less problematic to hold and to play. The melodies I played were:
Mallorca, Wards Brae, Gallowgate Lass.
The last two melodies I grouped together into one melody as they are very similar to each other.
The final group of tunes were:
Johnny Armstrong and Welcome to the Town Again,
the first being a Border Ballad melody and the last a dance tune from Peacocks.

Serious about improving your piping technique? This is the exercise book you need to fine-tune your skills. Originally trained by Ed Neigh, Jim McGillvray has become one of the best known players in North America. His mastery of each bagpipe movement can help you nail the basics, too. The book is spiral-bound, so it will lay flat. The purchase gives you access to 141 downloadable MP3 files demonstrating the exercises. The exercises in Rhythmic Fingerwork are perfect for all levels of pipers, except those who have no experience on the practice chanter.

From Jim McGillivray's Introduction to Rhythmic Fingerwork: "This is a music book. It appears to be a book about technique. However, there is only one reason to focus on technique, and that is to play better music. So consider this a music book..."