New bagpipe uses only light to catch sound ...

Piper and inventor Donald WG Lindsay has announced a new and exciting technological development for the bagpipes.
Piper and inventor Donald WG Lindsay has announced a new and exciting technological development for the bagpipes. Using only an internal light source, Donalds new pipe is able to collect sound, directly from the oscillation of the reed, and send it to an amplifier via a standard electric guitar cable.Piper and inventor Donald WG Lindsay has announced a new and exciting technological development for the bagpipes. Using only an internal light source, Donalds new pipe is able to collect sound, directly from the oscillation of the reed, and send it to an amplifier via a standard electric guitar cable.
Piper and inventor Donald WG Lindsay has announced a new and exciting technological development for the bagpipes. Using only an internal light source, Donalds new pipe is able to collect sound, directly from the oscillation of the reed, and send it to an amplifier via a standard electric guitar cable.

Using only an internal light source, Donald’s new pipe is able to collect sound, directly from the oscillation of the reed, and send it to an amplifier via a standard electric guitar cable. This is believed to be a world first for any woodwind instrument, and also possibly the first example of a genuinely “electric” bagpipe.

A project is now underway, entitled “The Brittle Light of Stars” and is aimed at developing not only the instrument itself, but the new and innovative styles of music that are already beginning to emerge, due to its unique sound and character.

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Donald said: “As well as describing how the instrument looks, The Brittle Light of Stars also tries to sum up the sense of wonder and magic, that something like this would actually work – a chanter, lit from within by its own light, collecting the sound at source, by observing the beating of its own musical heart, the reed.”

Scottish music critic Dr Stewart Smith (The Wire, The Quietus), added: “I’m very much intrigued by Donald’s project. I love the idea of moments in Scottish culture where experiment meets tradition, and this seems an amazing example of that!”

“The Brittle Light of Stars” will run on www.kickstarter.com until Friday, September 30.