Welcome to Tom Curphey's Website!
Harmonizing bagpipe tunes
I have always enjoyed playing melody on my shuttle pipes
or practice chanter while the computer plays harmony, or vice
versa. Of course, listening to a real pipe band play in harmony
is even better! However, relatively few tune scores have harmony
parts. To remedy this, I have written a computer program that
takes a tune written in BWW or BMW format and adds up to three harmony
parts. The program will also convert BMW files to the newer BWW
format, with or without added harmony parts.
On this website you will find links to the following:
- Version
1.02 of the
harmonizing program which runs on both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows
computers.
Note that to run this version of the program on a 64-bit
computer requires the installation of DOSBox, a program for running DOS
applications on Windows machines. The Version 1.02 zip file
includes the installer file for DOSBox, along with detailed
instructions (not too complicated!) as to how to install and use it
with the harmony program. To download this program, click here. Unzip the file and follow the directions in the included instructions file (Instructions.doc or Instructions.txt).
- Samples
of harmony written by the program for some traditional tunes. For
each tune, the score for the melody plus harmony is given in the form
of an
image (BMP) file and a BWW file. The harmony parts alone are also
available as two midi files, Midi-A with low A tuned to A
natural (for small pipes), and Midi-B with low A tuned to B flat (for
the practice chanter). To see how a harmonized tune sounds, click on the
link to the corresponding midi file and play the melody while the
computer plays the harmony.
Samples of Harmonized Tunes
Lochaber No
More
Score BWW
Midi-A Midi-B
Mist Covered
Mountains
Score
BWW
Midi-A
Midi-B
Morag of Dunvegan
Score
BWW Midi-A Midi-B
The Dream Valley of Glendaruel Score BWW Midi-A Midi-B