bowl of ice cream with one scoop of strawberry and one scoop of chocolate.


The clues YOU’VE hopefully begun to catch on to a set of clues for determining the key of a tune. None of these indicators are independently watertight — it’s safest to consider them all and take the overall theme. But some of the clues have more weight than others, with your ‘ear’, — your own sense of what the most established note is — having the most weight. In time and with practice you’ll be able to sense very quickly what key a particular tune is in without having to carry this checklist around in your sporran. But it’s a good starting point:


1. What notes are used in the tune?2 2. What note is on the very first downbeat?


3. What note(s) are featured on the majority of strong beats throughout the tune? 4. What is the very last note?


5. Does that last note sound like a settled, finishing, back-home ending? (If not, which note would you play to make it sound finished?)


6. Most importantly, what note sounds like it’s the most prominent and settled?


Normally, one particular note will reveal itself in the majority of the above questions, and that note will usually be the answer to what key a given tune is in. In other genres of music, the key signa-


ture is another big clue. Key signatures are a group of sharp [©] or flat [¨] symbols that are printed next to the time signature at the very beginning of a tune, dictating which notes should be consistently played sharp or flat, or just in their natural state.


key signatures have particular keys associated with them, hence the term. But because most pipers don’t ever change which notes are sharp or flat (or neither), our music rarely bothers to include key signatures at all. Thus, this is not a reliable indicator for pipe music. (Personally, I would love to see pipe tune composers and


2. It is conceivable, though highly improbable, that a melody may not contain its own key note, in which case you’d have to rely on other clues for determining its key. In such a case, the melody would more likely be outlining the root chord of the tune (i.e. a tune in A that prominently features the other two notes in an A-chord: C# and E.)


PIPING TODAY • 18


Tim Cummings and Dominique Dodge in concert at The Pipers’ Gathering Festival, Vermont, USA


publishers include the correct key signatures for their music — it would not only be more accurate theoretically, it would make life much easier for other musicians who may be interested in our tunes.)


Exceptions NOT surprisingly, there are exceptions to the rules of pipe tune keys. Some of those that are most noteworthy are the tunes many describe as being “double tonic”; that is, they contain two equally prominent notes.


In almost all


cases of so-called double tonic, the tune starts in what would seem to be the key of G, but then moves up to A at some point, usually in time for the ending phrase. Cabar Feidh is an excellent example of this type of tune. It starts firmly in G, creating a little dissonance and tension with the A-drones, and then shifts up to A in the 3rd bar where there is a moment of consonance and release. It returns to G in the 5th bar, and back to A for the ending cadence. This two-bars-of-G, two-bars-of-A pattern


holds firmly throughout the whole tune. Lastly, there are some tunes which don’t firmly fall into any key, or at least there can be some legitimate debate about what key to prescribe particular tunes. One familiar example might be Lexy MacAskill, which I hear in A, but I know of others who hear this reel in E. I sometimes hear Brae Riach in E (until the very end); but others hear this tune as being double-tonic, or even solidly in G. Interestingly, these tunes sound fine with drones and/or accompanists helping to establish any of those options. But it’s important to know that Brae Riach will have a very different mood with E-based accompaniment than with G- based accompaniment, despite both keys being perfectly viable. This is largely because E tunes on the pipes are ‘darker’, or more minor, while G tunes tend to be ‘brighter’, or more major. Which brings me to...


Major? Minor? Modal? THERE is one important topic I’ve been delib- erately avoiding throughout this whole article: distinguishing between ‘major’ and ‘minor’ keys, or tunes that are ‘modal’ (Mixolydian, Do- rian, etc.). This is an important and somewhat meaty topic, and one that will be addressed in a forthcoming issue of Piping Today. In the meantime, I’ll offer a table of familiar tunes and the keys they belong to. Take some time to play and listen to them and try to get a better sense of each key. Then try your hand at the tunes you are currently working on and see if you can unlock the Great Mysteries of the Musical Keys yourself. I think you’ll soon find it’s not such a mystery after all. Good luck, and good piping. l


Examples of tunes and keys as written for Scottish-style pipes: Tunes in A: Thus, specific


Scotland the Brave, The Atholl Highlanders, Donald MacLean’s Farewell to Oban, Because He Was a Bonny Lad, The High Road to Linton, Lochaber No More, Drops of Brandy, Glasgow City Police Pipers, The Jolly Beggarman


Tunes in D:


Amazing Grace/New Britain, Highland Laddie, Lochanside, The Battle of Somme, The Barren Rocks of Aden, Loudon’s Bonny Woods and Braes, Miss Girdle, The Sound of Sleat, The Duck, Crossing the Minch, The High Drive, The Flower of Scotland


Tunes in B: Paddy’s Leather Breeches, The Mist Covered Mountains, The Haunting, The Ness Pipers


G-A ‘double-tonic’ tunes: Cabar Feidh, The Cameronian Rant, John Patter- son’s Mare


Tunes that change key: Highland Cathedral (D>A>D), The Skye Boat Song (D>B>D), The Ewe With the Crooked Horn (A>D), Struan Robertson (B>D>B), Sleepy Maggie (A>B), The Jig of Slurs (D>G or E)


Tunes in E: The Little Cascade, The Calling [by P/M Stew McKenzie]


Tunes in G: Willie Cameron’s [quickstep], The Ballerina Tune [by Ward MacDonald]


CONCERT PITCH


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