Nae Guid Luck Aboot the Hoose which uses the extended range of a keyed chanter. Modern orchestral pieces for the smallpipes Primarily known as a virtuoso player of the English concertina, Alistair Anderson also plays Northumbrian smallpipes and has composed many tunes on and for the instrument. His compositions for groups of instruments have explored a greater range of harmonies than was traditionally associated with the smallpipes' repertoire, and he has collaborated with musicians such as jazz trombonist Annie Whitehead as well as writing the Shivering Stone suite which he performed with the Lindsay String Quartet. Kathryn Tickell (a protégée of Anderson's in her youth) has composed many virtuoso pieces for the smallpipes and has explored an even wider range of collaborations; besides The Chieftains and The Boys of the Lough, she has worked with the Penguin Café Orchestra, percussionist Evelyn Glennie, jazz saxophonist Andy Sheppard and Sting, as well as having had a modern classical piece, Kettletoft Inn, composed for her by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. In 2008 she composed a suite for the BBC Promenade Concerts for the London Sinfonietta, Muzsikas and Folkestra. More recently, Tickell has collaborated with pianist Joanna MacGregor and the Nash Ensemble, playing new compositions based on traditional Northumbrian tunes by Howard Skempton, Peter Maxwell Davies and Michael Finnissy. Playing style The traditional style of playing on the instrument is to play each note slightly staccato. Each note is only sounded by lifting one finger or operating one key. The aim is to play each note as full length as possible, but still separate from the next – 'The notes should come out like peas'. The chanter is closed, and thus briefly silent, between any two notes, and there is an audible transient 'pop' at the beginning and end of a note. For decoration, it is common to play short grace notes preceding a melody note. Some pipers allow themselves to play these open-fingered rather than staccato, and Billy Pigg was able to get great expressive effects in this way – 'You should be able to hear the bairns crying'. But 'choyting' (the complex open-fingered gracing after the manner of Highland piping) is generally frowned on, and Tom Clough made a point of avoiding open-fingered ornament altogether, considering open-fingering 'a grievous error'. Several pipers play in highly close-fingered styles, Chris Ormston and Adrian Schofield among them; even among those such as Kathryn Tickell who