drone pipe
- noun
- /droʊn paɪp/
- The drone pipe of the bagpipe provides a rich, continuous background sound to the melody.
Examples
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Traditional Scottish music is known for the distinctive hum of the drone pipe.
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For her performance, she carefully adjusted the pitch of the drone pipe to match the other instruments.
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She spent hours tuning her drone pipe before the performance.
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The drone pipe creates a beautiful sound.
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A drone pipe is essential for bagpipe music.
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The drone pipe of the bagpipe produces a steady tone that enriches the overall melody.
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During the parade, the musicians played their drone pipes to create a continuous, soothing sound.
Synonyms
A long low steady sound that plays behind a tune
A pipe on a bagpipe or organ that makes a low steady drone note
A steady low sound an instrument makes to support the main tune
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a pipe of the bagpipe that produces a single continuous tone' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'drone' (a constant low, monotonous sound) with 'pipe' (a tube-shaped wind instrument). This is a straightforward descriptive compound naming the function and form, a common and cross-linguistically plausible pattern that a B1 learner knowing both words should understand.
Etymology
Drone pipe comes from the steady, low sound made by a long bagpipe tube. People thought the hum sounded like a bee, so they called that steady tone a drone and the tube a pipe. That's why drone pipe means the bagpipe pipe that gives a 'continuous' 'background note'.