Kathleen Schlesinger

“ The drone pipe has, instead of a mouthpiece, a socket fitted with a reed, and inserted into a stock or short pipe immovably fixed in an aperture of the bag. The reed is of the kind known as beating reed or squeaker, prepared by making a cut in the direction of the circumference of the pipe and splitting back the reed from the cut towards a joint or knot, thus leaving a flap or tongue which vibrates or beats, alternately opening and closing the aperture. ”

“ The sound is produced by the stream of air forced from the bag by the pressure of the performer’s arm causing the reed tongue to vibrate over the aperture, thus setting the whole column of air in vibration. Like all cylindrical pipes with reed mouthpiece, the drone pipe has the acoustic properties of the closed pipe and produces a note of the same pitch as that of an open pipe twice its length. The conical drones mentioned above would, therefore, speak an octave higher than a cylindrical drone of the same length. The drones are tuned by means of sliding tubes at the joints. ”

“ In the union pipes the drones are separate pipes having keys played by the elbow, which correspond to the sliders in the musette drone and produce the same kind of harmonic bass. The modern Egyptian arghool consists of a kind of clarinet with a drone attached to it by means of waxed thread; in this case the beating reed of the drone is set in vibration directly by the breath of the performer, who takes both mouthpieces into his mouth, without the medium of a wind reservoir. ”