Me 5 years ago: "I should add more great highland bagpipes to my tracks. They're rad! Why don't we see more highland bagpipes in rock music and stuff?"
Me now: "Oh."
Okay, so here's the rundown on why great highland bagpipes are a pain to compose and produce for.
- They have a very limited range, spanning just over one octave.
- There are only 9 playable tones in that range. So you're okay for writing a simple tune in A Major, but other keys require some creativity.
- Did I say A? I meant B♭. The notation doesn't match how the notes sound.
- Did I say B♭? I meant 459 Hz. Without adjustment, bagpipes playing in an ensemble will always sound out of tune.
- There are two volumes: on or off.
- The tone is famously loud and bright, so it dominates most instruments. You can pair it with drums, a high-pitched tin whistle, or something lower like a bass guitar, but it'll eat up the sound of a violin.
- Bagpipes come with a drone that plays throughout, and whatever notes you choose can't feasibly be changed mid-performance. The whole piece has to be written with the drone tone in mind.
It's a real challenge! I think this is why, in soundtracks, composers either use the instrument sparingly, as a way to spice up the timbre (the wild area theme in Pokemon Sword), or they make it the focal point and only use other instruments to support the bagpipe melody (the Atreides theme in Dune).
Some composers "cheat" by adding notes real bagpipes can't actually play, adjusting the tuning, or turning the drone off. Some composers just use Irish Uilleann pipes instead - they carry a similar sound, but are a lot more versatile than their Scottish cousin.
Despite initially striving for authenticity, I ended up cheating all over Small Saga. But that fault rests on my limits as a composer, not on the limits of highland bagpipes as an instrument. They're beautiful and powerful. Kudos to any composer who manages to wrangle them into behaving.