Who knew bagpipes had to be tuned?

[TonyCooper]

Walking back to my car after visiting a store, I heard some sounds coming from a nearby building. Thinking someone was killing cats, I rushed over to the rescue. Turned out it was some novice bagpipers having their instruments tuned. Dunno what that device is that is being held over the pipes, but it measures something.

Why is the guy playing the pipes wearing earplugs? (Rhetorical question)

http://tonycooper.smugmug.com/photos/498016639_X84rE-L.jpg

[MagicKiwi]

Hmm I thought they tuned bagpipes by feeding the piper more or less scotch.

BTW the device over the pipe is a tuner. It measures the note coming from the pipe so that they can see if they have the right pitch yet.

[jeffreaux2]

:scratch

I have never heard a bagpipe that sounded as if it had ever been tuned....and maybe thats the case.

[Cuong]

Looks like the tuning is done by changing the pipe length.

Cuong