The term bagpipe is equally correct in the singular or the plural, though pipers usually refer to the bagpipes as "the pipes", "a set of pipes" or "a stand of pipes".[1][2]
A detail from the Cantigas de Santa Maria showing bagpipes with one chanter and a parallel drone (Spain, 13th century).On this Bulgarian gajda, the chanter is the short gray pipe at the top, while the drone is the long three-section pipe.A detail from a painting by Hieronymus Bosch showing two bagpipers (15th century).
A set of bagpipes minimally consists of an air supply, a bag, a chanter, and usually at least one drone. Many bagpipes have more than one drone (and, sometimes, more than one chanter) in various combinations, held in place in stocks—sockets that fasten the various pipes to the bag.
Air supply
The most common method of supplying air to the bag is through blowing into a blowpipe or blowstick. In some pipes the player must cover the tip of the blowpipe with the tongue while inhaling, in order to prevent unwanted deflation of the bag, but most blowpipes have a non-return valve that eliminates this need. In recent times, there are many instruments that assist in creating a clean air flow to the pipes and assist the collection of condensation.
The bag is an airtight reservoir that holds air and regulates its flow via arm pressure, allowing the player to maintain continuous, even sound. The player keeps the bag inflated by blowing air into it through a blowpipe or by pumping air into it with a bellows. Materials used for bags vary widely, but the most common are the skins of local animals such as goats, dogs, sheep, and cows. More recently, bags made of synthetic materials including Gore-Tex have become much more common. Some synthetic bags have zips that allow the player to fit a more effective moisture trap to the inside of the bag. However, synthetic bags still carry a risk of colonisation by fungal spores, and the associated danger of lung infection if they are not kept clean, even if they otherwise require less cleaning than do bags made from natural substances.
Bags cut from larger materials are usually saddle-stitched with an extra strip folded over the seam and stitched (for skin bags) or glued (for synthetic bags) to reduce leaks. Holes are then cut to accommodate the stocks. In the case of bags made from largely intact animal skins, the stocks are typically tied into the points where the limbs and the head joined the body of the whole animal, a construction technique common in Central Europe. Different regions have different ways of treating the hide. The simplest methods involve just the use of salt, while more complex treatments involve milk, flour, and the removal of fur. The hide is normally turned inside out so that the fur is on the inside of the bag, as this helps to reduce the effect of moisture buildup within the bag.
The chanter is the melody pipe, played with two hands. All bagpipes have at least one chanter; some pipes have two chanters, particularly those in North Africa, in the Balkans, and in Southwest Asia. A chanter can be bored internally so that the inside walls are parallel (or "cylindrical") for its full length, or it can be bored in a conical shape. Popular woods include boxwood, cornel, plum or other fruit wood.
The chanter is usually open-ended, so there is no easy way for the player to stop the pipe from sounding. Thus most bagpipes share a constant legato sound with no rests in the music. Primarily because of this inability to stop playing, technical movements are made to break up notes and to create the illusion of articulation and accents. Because of their importance, these embellishments (or "ornaments") are often highly technical systems specific to each bagpipe, and take many years of study to master. A few bagpipes (such as the musette de cour, the uilleann pipes, the Northumbrian smallpipes, the piva and the left chanter of the surdelina) have closed ends or stop the end on the player's leg, so that when the player "closes" (covers all the holes), the chanter becomes silent.
A practice chanter is a chanter without bag or drones and has a much quieter reed, allowing a player to practice the instrument quietly and with no variables other than playing the chanter.
The term chanter is derived from the Latin cantare, or "to sing", much like the modern French verb meaning "to sing", chanter.
A distinctive feature of the gaida's chanter (which it shares with a number of other Eastern European bagpipes) is the "flea-hole" (also known as a mumbler or voicer, marmorka) which is covered by the index finger of the left hand. The flea-hole is smaller than the rest and usually consists of a small tube that is made out of metal or a chicken or duck feather. Uncovering the flea-hole raises any note played by a half step, and it is used in creating the musical ornamentation that gives Balkan music its unique character.
Some types of gaida can have a double bored chanter, such as the Serbian three-voiced gajde. It has eight fingerholes: the top four are covered by the thumb and the first three fingers of the left hand, then the four fingers of the right hand cover the remaining four holes.
Chanter reed
The note from the chanter is produced by a reed installed at its top. The reed may be a single (a reed with one vibrating tongue) or double reed (of two pieces that vibrate against each other). Double reeds are used with both conical- and parallel-bored chanters while single reeds are generally (although not exclusively) limited to parallel-bored chanters. In general, double-reed chanters are found in pipes of Western Europe while single-reed chanters appear in most other regions.
They are made from reed (arundo donax or Phragmites), bamboo, or elder. A more modern variant for the reed is a combination of a cotton phenolic (Hgw2082) material from which the body of the reed is made and a clarinet reed cut to size in order to fit the body. These type of reeds produce a louder sound and are not so sensitive to humidity and temperature changes.[3]
Drone
Most bagpipes have at least one drone, a pipe that generally is not fingered but rather produces a constant harmonizing note throughout play (usually the tonic note of the chanter). Exceptions are generally those pipes that have a double-chanter instead. A drone is most commonly a cylindrically bored tube with a single reed, although drones with double reeds exist. The drone is generally designed in two or more parts with a sliding joint so that the pitch of the drone can be adjusted.
Depending on the type of pipes, the drones may lie over the shoulder, across the arm opposite the bag, or may run parallel to the chanter. Some drones have a tuning screw, which effectively alters the length of the drone by opening a hole, allowing the drone to be tuned to two or more distinct pitches. The tuning screw may also shut off the drone altogether. In most types of pipes with one drone, it is pitched two octaves below the tonic of the chanter. Additional drones often add the octave below and then a drone consonant with the fifth of the chanter.
History
Possible ancient origins
The evidence for bagpipes prior to the 13th century AD is still uncertain, but several textual and visual clues have been suggested. The Oxford History of Music posits that a sculpture of bagpipes has been found on a Hittite slab at Euyuk in Anatolia, dated to 1000 BC. Another interpretation of this sculpture suggests that it instead depicts a pan flute played along with a friction drum.[4]
Several authors identify the ancient Greekaskaulos (ἀσκός askos – wine-skin, αὐλός aulos – reed pipe) with the bagpipe.[5] In the 2nd century AD, Suetonius described the Roman emperor Nero as a player of the tibia utricularis.[6]Dio Chrysostom wrote in the 1st century of a contemporary sovereign (possibly Nero) who could play a pipe (tibia, Roman reedpipes similar to Greek and Etruscan instruments) with his mouth as well as by tucking a bladder beneath his armpit.[7] Vereno[who?] suggests that such instruments, rather than being seen as an independent class, were understood as variants on mouth-blown instruments that used a bag as an alternative blowing aid and that it was not until drones were added in the European Medieval era that bagpipes were seen as a distinct class.[citation needed]
Spread and development in Europe
Medieval bagpiper at the Cistercian monastery of Santes Creus, Catalonia, SpainImage of Irelande, Military use of the bagpipe dated 1581
In the early part of the second millennium, representation of bagpipes began to appear with frequency in Western European art and iconography. The Cantigas de Santa Maria, written in Galician-Portuguese and compiled in Castile in the mid-13th century, depicts several types of bagpipes.[8] Several illustrations of bagpipes also appear in the Chronique dite de Baudoin d’Avesnes, a 13th-century manuscript of northern French origin.[9][10] Although evidence of bagpipes in the British Isles prior to the 14th century is contested, they are explicitly mentioned in The Canterbury Tales (written around 1380):[11]
A baggepype wel coude he blowe and sowne, /And ther-with-al he broghte us out of towne.
—Canterbury Tales
Bagpipes were also frequent subjects for carvers of wooden choir stalls in the late 15th and early 16th century throughout Europe, sometimes with animal musicians.[12]
Actual specimens of bagpipes from before the 18th century are extremely rare; however, a substantial number of paintings, carvings, engravings, and manuscript illuminations survive. These artefacts are clear evidence that bagpipes varied widely throughout Europe, and even within individual regions. Many examples of early folk bagpipes in continental Europe can be found in the paintings of Brueghel, Teniers, Jordaens, and Durer.[13]
The earliest known artefact identified as a part of a bagpipe is a chanter found in 1985 at Rostock, Germany, that has been dated to the late 14th century or the first quarter of the 15th century.[14]
The first clear reference to the use of the Scottish Highland bagpipes is from a French history that mentions their use at the Battle of Pinkie in 1547. George Buchanan (1506–82) claimed that bagpipes had replaced the trumpet on the battlefield. This period saw the creation of the ceòl mór (great music) of the bagpipe, which reflected its martial origins, with battle tunes, marches, gatherings, salutes and laments.[15] The Highlands of the early 17th century saw the development of piping families including the MacCrimmonds, MacArthurs, MacGregors, and the Mackays of Gairloch.[16]
The earliest Irish mention of the bagpipe is in 1206, approximately thirty years after the Anglo-Norman invasion;[17] another mention attributes their use to Irish troops in Henry VIII's siege of Boulogne.[18] Illustrations in the 1581 book The Image of Irelande by John Derricke clearly depict a bagpiper. Derricke's illustrations are considered to be reasonably faithful depictions of the attire and equipment of the English and Irish population of the 16th century.[19]
The "Battell" sequence from My Ladye Nevells Booke (1591) by William Byrd, which probably alludes to the Irish wars of 1578, contains a piece entitled The bagpipe: & the drone. In 1760, the first serious study of the Scottish Highland bagpipe and its music was attempted in Joseph MacDonald's Compleat Theory. A manuscript from the 1730s by a William Dixon of Northumberland contains music that fits the border pipes, a nine-note bellows-blown bagpipe with a chanter similar to that of the modern Great Highland bagpipe. However, the music in Dixon's manuscript varied greatly from modern Highland bagpipe tunes, consisting mostly of extended variation sets of common dance tunes. Some of the tunes in the Dixon manuscript correspond to those found in the early 19th century manuscript sources of Northumbrian smallpipe tunes, notably the rare book of 50 tunes, many with variations, by John Peacock.
As Western classical music developed, both in terms of musical sophistication and instrumental technology, bagpipes in many regions fell out of favour because of their limited range and function. This triggered a long, slow decline that continued, in most cases, into the 20th century.
A Canadian soldier plays the bagpipes during the war in Afghanistan. Bagpipes are frequently used during funerals and memorials, especially among fire department, military and police forces in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Commonwealth realms, and the U.S.
During the expansion of the British Empire, spearheaded by British military forces that included Highland regiments, the Scottish Great Highland bagpipe became well known worldwide. This surge in popularity was boosted by large numbers of pipers trained for military service in World War I and World War II. This coincided with a decline in the popularity of many traditional forms of bagpipe throughout Europe, which began to be displaced by instruments from the classical tradition and later by gramophone and radio.
As pipers were easily identifiable, combat losses were high, estimated at one thousand in World War I. A front line role was prohibited following high losses in the Second Battle of El Alamein in 1943, though a few later instances occurred.
In recent years, often driven by revivals of native folk music and dance, many types of bagpipes have enjoyed a resurgence in popularity and, in many cases, instruments that had fallen into obscurity have become extremely popular. In Brittany, the Great Highland bagpipe and concept of the pipe band were appropriated to create a Breton interpretation known as the bagad. The pipe-band idiom has also been adopted and applied to the Galician gaita as well. Bagpipes have often been used in various films depicting moments from Scottish and Irish history; the film Braveheart and the theatrical show Riverdance have served to make the uilleann pipes more commonly known.
Bagpipes are sometimes played at formal events at Commonwealth universities, particularly in Canada. Because of Scottish influences on the sport of curling, bagpipes are also the official instrument of the World Curling Federation and are commonly played during a ceremonial procession of teams before major curling championships.
Bagpipe making was once a craft that produced instruments in many distinctive, local and traditional styles. Today, the world's largest producer of the instrument is Pakistan, where the industry was worth $6.8 million in 2010.[20][21] In the late 20th century, various models of electronic bagpipes were invented. The first custom-built MIDI bagpipes were developed by the Asturian piper known as Hevia (José Ángel Hevia Velasco).[22]
Bagpipes players from The City Of Auckland Pipe Band.
Traditionally, one of the purposes of the bagpipe was to provide music for dancing. This has declined with the growth of dance bands, recordings, and the decline of traditional dance. In turn, this has led to many types of pipes developing a performance-led tradition, and indeed much modern music based on the dance music tradition played on bagpipes is suitable for use as dance music.[citation needed]
Numerous types of bagpipes today are widely spread across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa as well as through much of the former British Empire. The name bagpipe has almost become synonymous with its best-known form, the Great Highland bagpipe, overshadowing the great number and variety of traditional forms of bagpipe. Despite the decline of these other types of pipes over the last few centuries, in recent years many of these pipes have seen a resurgence or revival as musicians have sought them out; for example, the Irish piping tradition, which by the mid 20th century had declined to a handful of master players is today alive, well, and flourishing, a situation similar to that of the Asturian gaita, the Galician gaita, the Portuguese gaita transmontana, the Aragonesegaita de boto, Northumbrian smallpipes, the Bretonbiniou, the Balkangaida, the Romaniancimpoi, the Black Sea tulum, the Scottish smallpipes and pastoral pipes, as well as other varieties. Bulgaria has the Kaba gaida, a large bagpipe of the Rhodope mountains with a hexagonal and rounded drone, often described as a deep-sounding gaida and the Dzhura gaida with a straight conical drone and of a higher pitch. The Macedonian gaida is structurally between a kaba and dzhura gaida and described as a medium pitched gaida.
The uilleann pipes, also known as Union pipes and sometimes called Irish pipes, are the characteristic national bagpipe of Ireland. Their current name is a partial translation of the Irish language terms píobaí uilleann, from their method of inflation. There is no historical record of the name or use of the term uilleann pipes before the 20th century. It was an invention of Grattan Flood and the name stuck. People mistook the term 'union' to refer to the 1800 Act of Union; however, this is incorrect as Breandán Breathnach points out that a poem published in 1796 uses the term 'union'.
The chanter is the part of the bagpipe upon which the player creates the melody. It consists of a number of finger-holes, and in its simpler forms looks similar to a recorder. On more elaborate bagpipes, such as the Northumbrian bagpipes or the Uilleann pipes, it also may have a number of keys, to increase the instrument's range and/or the number of keys it can play in. Like the rest of the bagpipe, they are often decorated with a variety of substances, including metal (silver/nickel/gold/brass), bone, ivory, or plastic mountings.
The great Highland bagpipe is a type of bagpipe native to Scotland, and the Scottish analogue to the great Irish warpipes. It has acquired widespread recognition through its usage in the British military and in pipe bands throughout the world.
The Scottish smallpipe is a bellows-blown bagpipe re-developed by Colin Ross and many others, adapted from an earlier design of the instrument. There are surviving bellows-blown examples of similar historical instruments as well as the mouth-blown Montgomery smallpipes, dated 1757, which are held in the National Museum of Scotland. Some instruments are being built as direct copies of historical examples, but few modern instruments are directly modelled on older examples; the modern instrument is typically larger and lower-pitched. The innovations leading to the modern instrument, in particular the design of the reeds, were largely taken from the Northumbrian smallpipes.
The border pipes are a type of bagpipe related to the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe. It is perhaps confusable with the Scottish smallpipe, although it is a quite different and much older instrument. Although most modern Border pipes are closely modelled on similar historic instruments, the modern Scottish smallpipes are a modern reinvention, inspired by historic instruments but largely based on Northumbrian smallpipes in their construction.
The Galician gaita is the traditional instrument of Galicia and northern Portugal.
The Northumbrian smallpipes are bellows-blown bagpipes from Northeastern England, where they have been an important factor in the local musical culture for more than 250 years. The family of the Duke of Northumberland have had an official piper for over 250 years. The Northumbrian Pipers' Society was founded in 1928, to encourage the playing of the instrument and its music; Although there were so few players at times during the last century that some feared the tradition would die out, there are many players and makers of the instrument nowadays, and the Society has played a large role in this revival. In more recent times the Mayor of Gateshead and the Lord Mayor of Newcastle have both established a tradition of appointing official Northumbrian pipers.
The pastoral pipe was a bellows-blown bagpipe, widely recognised as the forerunner and ancestor of the 19th-century union pipes, which became the uilleann pipes of today. Similar in design and construction, it had a foot joint in order to play a low leading note and plays a two octave chromatic scale. There is a tutor for the "Pastoral or New Bagpipe" by J. Geoghegan, published in London in 1745. It had been considered that Geoghegan had overstated the capabilities of the instrument, but a study on surviving instruments has shown that it did indeed have the range and chromatic possibilities which he claimed.
Welsh bagpipes are a related instrument to one type of bagpipe, a chanter, which when played without the bag and drone is called a pibgorn. The generic term pibau which covers all woodwind instruments is also used in Welsh. They have been played, documented, represented and described in Wales since the fourteenth century. A piper in Welsh is called a pibydd or a pibgodwr.
This article defines a number of terms that are exclusive, or whose meaning is exclusive, to piping and pipers.
The electronic bagpipes is an electronic musical instrument emulating the tone and/or playing style of the bagpipes. Most electronic bagpipe emulators feature a simulated chanter, which is used to play the melody. Some models also produce a harmonizing drone(s). Some variants employ a simulated bag, wherein the player's pressure on the bag activates a switch maintaining a constant tone. As with other electronic musical instruments, they must be plugged into an instrument amplifier and loudspeaker to hear the sound. Some electronic bagpipes are MIDI controllers that can be plugged into a synth module to create synthesized or sampled bagpipe sounds.
When bagpipes arrived in England is unknown, there is some evidence to suggest Anglo-Saxon times, however the oldest confirmed proof of the existence of bagpipes anywhere in the world comes from three separate sources in the 13th century. Two of them English; the Tenison Marginalie Psalter from Westminster and an entry into the accounts books of Edward the I of England recording the purchase of a set of bagpipes. The third from the Cantigas Del Santa Maria published in Spain. From the 14th century onwards, bagpipes start to appear in the historical records of European countries, however half the mentions come from England suggesting Bagpipes were more common in England.
Hugh Robertson (1730–1822) was a Scottish wood and ivory turner and a master crafter of woodwind instruments such as pastoral pipes, union pipes, and great Highland bagpipes.
The redpipe is a brand of electronic bagpipes, an electronic musical instrument made to emulate the sound and characteristics of the bagpipe. In contrast with many other electronic bagpipes which are based solely on a bagpipe chanter, redpipes feature a pressure-sensitive bag in emulation of a bagpipe's bag.
It is unclear whether Lincolnshire bagpipes refer to a specific type of pipes native to Lincolnshire, England, or to the popularity of a more general form of pipes in the region. Written records of bagpipes being associated with Lincolnshire date back to 1407, but it is difficult to find certain proof that any regional variation of the bagpipe existed which was peculiar to Lincolnshire. Despite the lack of evidence for a uniquely local instrument, it is clear that the bagpipe was enjoyed by the people of Lincolnshire.
Colin Ross was an English folk musician who played fiddle and Northumbrian smallpipes. He was a noted maker of Northumbrian smallpipes, border pipes and Scottish smallpipes, and one of the inventors of the modern Scottish smallpipes.
Irish warpipes are an Irish analogue of the Scottish great Highland bagpipe. "Warpipes" is originally an English term. The first use of the Gaelic term in Ireland was recorded in a poem by Seán Ó Neachtain, in which the bagpipes are referred to as píb mhór.
Shuttle pipes are a type of bagpipes which derive their name from the drones used to produce the harmony. Rather than the long tube-like drones of most bagpipes, shuttle pipes use a shuttle drone, a cylindrical chamber enclosing a series of folded drone tubes, each terminating in a slot covered by a sliding "shuttle" which can be adjusted to lengthen or shorten the distance traveled by air moving through the tube, thus flattening or sharpening the pitch of the note produced.
↑ J. E. A. Dawson, Scotland Re-Formed, 1488–1587 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), ISBN0-7486-1455-9, p. 169.
↑ J. Porter, "Introduction" in J. Porter, ed., Defining Strains: The Musical Life of Scots in the Seventeenth Century (Peter Lang, 2007), ISBN3-03910-948-0, p. 35.
↑ "The Concise History of the Bagpipe by Frank J. Timoney | Ireland".
↑ Donnelly, Seán, The Early History of Piping in Ireland (2001), p. 9
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