Scottish practice chanters are the instrument played before moving up to the higher-pressure and more complicated Great Highland Bagpipe or Scottish smallpipes. 

However, I can also build practice chanters from most other bagpipe traditions; while a practice chanter is only traditional for the highland pipes, and most other pipers start by playing their full bagpipe set directly, it does provide a way to try out various other piping traditions at a lower price point and with an easily managed (and replaceable) practice chanter reed. 

The practice chanter here is made from cherry with maple mounts and a copper ferrule. The exterior finish is an amber shellac french polish.

I make Scottish smallpipes with either a single bass drone in A or with two drones, one A bass drone and one E contrabass drone. I find lower drones provide a better background to highlight the chanter, while the tenor and baritone drones commonly found on sets by other makers can make the chanter sound muddy.

Shortly after finishing a 4-drone Scottish smallpipe, I realized I felt disappointed playing it. Everything as tuned well, but there were simply too many drones; the chanter was overwhelmed and the set just didn't have the clarity one would expect from a Scottish bagpipe. While there is something to be said for complex pipes, simplicity can be a good thing as well. 

These pipes are ideal for playing indoors or with other musicians, and have a very clear yet mellow sound. Drones are tuned to the tonic of the chanter (A). 

The Swedish sackpipa is a rare bagpipe from Dalarna, an isolated region of northern Sweden where many old traditions were preserved long after they died out elsewhere. This instrument is my favorite and is also my specialty as both a piper and a pipemaker. 

Plays in a unique A/E tuning. These pipes play a scale in A major on the lower hand and A minor on the top hand, in a range of E-E. However, my sets have the Low D hole common on most modern sets, and can play a high F if additional fingers are lifted on the high E note. The drone is in E, and blends with the low E note.

This sackpipa set is made from canarywood with maple mounts and copper ferrules on the stocks. 

This set is inspired by the "Grosser Bock" (Great Goat) depicted in the Syntagma Musicum by Michael Praetorius. The chanter stock has a carved goat head, which is traditional in many related bagpipes across Eastern Europe, and the chanter plays a similar scale to modern bock sets. Plays in C/F.

This bock set is made from granadillo wood with imitation bone mounts, a plated brass ferrule, and cow horn bells.

I no longer keep hummelchen pipes in stock

German "hummelchen" smallpipes, have similarities to both Scottish smallpipes and the Swedish sackpipa. Tuned to a C Major scale with recorder fingering, even in the Just Temperament of bagpipe tuning they remain easy to play with other instruments, and in many genres of music.

The name "hummelchen" roughly sounds like it means "little bumblebee" in modern German; However, it's actually from an earlier medieval form of German which likely means "trimmed" or "castrated" goat. I prefer to believe that this is to describe the smaller bagpipe in comparison to the "great goat" pictured above, "trimmed" refering to the smaller size.