The pipes

[spuddy]

To amuse myself I tinker with stuff for a friend who is music teacher at a special school. She found something that looks like a snake charmers pipe as seen in cartoons : 3 stages , mouthpiece tube then a hollow ball followed by twin tubes side by side. We speculate that the central ball may have had a diaphragm in it to act as reservoir but no sign now. Immediate problem is the twin output tubes - one has what might be a reed made from bamboo, tother has gone missing. Maybe could replace the reeds with bagpipe ones but know nowt. Maybe someone could enlighten me about sizes and sources plus pitches of these things.

[Telo]

Music shop that knows about twin-reeded instruments (bagpipes chanter, oboe, cor anglais, bassoon etc) may be able to help.

Sounds quite good fun - suppose there'll be five holes (including thumb) on each pipe so that one could be played as a drone, or both together to make two note harmonies. I guess the two pipes will, between them might cover about an octave and a half(ish).

[spuddy]

Yes, one would be a drone - two finger holes. Its mate has a thumb hole and seven on top. Tried ethnic music shops but only got answering machines so far. Intervals are a bit odd so not surprisingly prob not a western scale. Have found exact lookalikes for sale on net at about a tenner so with cheap reeds at about £3 it's not really worth it economically I suppose.