Sound quality of the 16'' french bagpipe: wood influence

Abstract

The most played among the bagpipes from the centre of France is the 16‐inch musette, called in this way because of the length of the melodic pipe (oboe). Though these instruments are less known than the biniou from Brittany or the Great Highland Bagpipe, the number of players and makers is, nowadays, in increase because of their easy play and quasi‐chromatic scale. Whereas the Breton and Scottish bagpipes are always made of very hard woods, some 16'' musettes are fabricated with softer woods. This difference is certainly related to the flexibility of the 16'' oboe double‐reed. At first, we recorded some short musical sequences played on 16'' musettes made of 5 different woods (African Ebony, Santos Rosewood, Boxwood, African Blackwood and Service Tree), then some listeners (specialist and naïve) were asked to give their feedback about the quality of the recorded sounds. In a second set of experiments, we recorded some single notes played with these various bagpipes and analyzed the acoustic features of the recorded signals. At last, the perceptual results were compared with the physical parameters obtained in the second experiment.