Which instrument is this?

Flea: Welcome. I dunno . . . looks like it could be MIDI type of gadget, or a recorder, or . . . a kazoo, the way her left hand fingers are wrapped around the tube. Maybe someone else can name it. DAVE
 
Spanish shawm

Looks like a medieval style spanish shawm, like one of these

According to her website: The ones that I play include the shawm, cornamuse and rauchpfife, not to mention also playing the pennywhistle, recorder, electric bagpipes and tambourine.

Enjoy,

Grant
 
Double reeds

Yes, the shawm has a double reed. So do the cornamuse and the rauschpfeife: each has a windcap, with the reed hidden inside, like a crumhorn. The rauschpfeife is essentially a bagpipe chanter without the bag -- and sounds like one too.

The early music group I played in last year had a C soprano rauschpfeife, which we used only on our finale. This was a piece with 3 party harmony, that we repeated with different instrumentation. On the first time through, it was all vocals and "quiet" instruments (recorders and light percussion). The second time through was instrumental, adding a new instrument each phrase: sopranino recorder, sackbut, alto shawm, and soprano rauschpfeife (with percussion playing throughout). Adding the rauschpfeife doubled the volume. When we played for the old folks' home, we warned them to adjust their hearing aids before we started that piece...
 
Electric?

Electric bagpipes? I'm trying to imagine the arrangement that requires bagpipes to be amplified :emoji_astonished: Is hearing protection provided?
 
Electric bagpipes? I'm trying to imagine the arrangement that requires bagpipes to be amplified :emoji_astonished: Is hearing protection provided?
Well, if http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bozSqMkOgHQ is any indication, it's just a "chanter" that's being used as a MIDI controller. Or is really an electronic chanter mated to an amp.

Didn't Peter Schickele say something like, "The lute is an instrument that is so soft that the lute will be drowned out if there is another instrument in the room with it -- whether it's being played or not. PDQ Bach, combining the lute and bagpipes into the same piece is a bit of overkill ...."
 
We use electric bagpipes for practice. We have practice chanters, however they still make a decent bit of noise. The electric pipes allow us to practice all of our doublings and embellishments without making any noise.

My pipes were on a decibel meter today. 121 decibels. I use really stiff reads and the drone tongues are wide open, but normal pipes are still in the 110 range
 
Bagpipes

They are weapons of war, after all...
(at least the highland pipes)
 
To me it looks like some kind of wooden recorder. Look at the first one in the pic below. See how the mouthpiece is made:

RECORD%7E1.gif
 
Recorder or shawm?

Admitedly, it is hard to tell just from the picture (and also hard to tell if we're all looking at the same picture). She does mention on her website that she plays recorders as well.

However, I think the instrument pictured in the first URL is probably not a recorder, for two reasons. First, the bore of a recorder tapers from head to foot. Some do have a faux bell, but this is not hollow: there is only a small hole for the bore, and the rest of the "bell" is solid. This instrument appears to flare from top to bell, and the bell appears hollow.

Second reason is the way it is miked. The recorder is a very quiet instrument, softer than the flute. Most of the sound emanates from the window (between the mpc and the fingerholes: this is where the edge divides the air flow and produces the tone). When you mike a flute, you position the microphone close to the embouchure hole, rather than off by the foot. Same thing with recorder. If she were playing recorder, she would be holding it nearly vertically, with the window as close as possible to the microphone (given the context of a loud rock band). Here's an example of miking a recorder. Instead, she is standing back a few feet, and has the bell pointed directly at the microphone. This is how you mike something that is as loud as a trumpet ;-) The shawm was considered an "outdoor" instrument: about the only thing louder is the rauschpfeife (OK, and highland pipes).

Enjoy,

Grant
 
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