John Geoghegan published The Compleat Tutor for the Pastoral or New Bagpipe in London in 1743 (also discussed in an earlier post). He described its chanter by comparison with the oboe, illustrating that instrument on the final page of the book.

The cited copy does not have a frontispiece but the one in another copy shows the bagpipes.

This instrument has three drones but the one described in the text has two. Additional illustrations include a fingering chart for the basic diatonic scale, and another that adds accidentals to it. The expanded chart prescribes the same fingerings for adjacent sharps and flats, except for A♯ and B♭. Geoghegan expressed the hope that this approach to tuning would “not be unacceptable to the profesers of this ancient pastoral musick or to the makers of the instrument,” thereby suggesting that it differed from the established system(s) of his day.
Continue reading “Irish bagpipes and 18th-century tuning systems”