Just got back from our once a month Scottish/Cape Breton/and-a-little-Irish session. A bit tired from the one hour drive each way through heavier than usual traffic (where in the world do all these RV's and camper trailers come from?), but I've been working on something that may be useful to those of us who play mandolin in a session with pipers.

Our session today had two pipers (one border pipes, one smallpipes), 4-5 fiddlers, one guitarist, me on mandolin, and an occasional whistle player. The pipes don't play on every tune (otherwise we'd never be able to sneak in some Irish fiddle tunes), but when they do play, a majority of the tunes are in A mixolydian. Sometimes tunes in G, or D, but a whole bunch in A... maybe due to the Bb-ish GHB repertoire?

Anyway, pipes are loud, the mandolin isn't. How to cope?

Try this... shift a tune in A mixo down an octave, so it sits on the lower three strings. Sometimes you only need the G and D strings (pipes repertoire isn't exactly "rangy"). A bunch of these tunes fit down there, at least the ones played in this session. You get a meaty, woody sound on most decent mandolins that can be heard underneath the pipes and fiddles. It's like playing the tune on an octave mandolin, but with easier finger spacing and a clearer (arguably louder) sound than you'd have on an OM or Zouk.

I've had to adapt the fingerings I know from playing the tunes higher up, where the fiddles and pipes are. But it's a way to help the mandolin be heard, if a tune can be shifted that way. I don't think this would work with Irish Uilleann pipes because they're in D (?).