Can a tuner be used with bagpipes?
Yes, and in a variety of ways.
When the bagpipe is to be played with other instruments (e.g., in a folk band, with a church organ, in a concert band, or in an orchestra), the tuner can be used to set the pitch of the chanter and then the piper makes all adjustments from there. Any simple tuner will suffice for this use.
In a pipe band setting, one person will usually set the pitch. From that point, a tuner can be used to "carry" the selected pitch to other members of the band. Again, any simple tuner will do this although those tuners which will "auto-calibrate" or "remember" a pitch may make this task a bit easier.
More rarely, the tuner can be used to "set" the intonation of every note on the chanter. This takes a very special tuner, and an acceptance on the part of the piper(s) that the intonation built into the tuner is the desired scale. Very few tuners will do this task directly, although any tuner CAN be used.
Copyright S.K. MacLeod 1996-2016