Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Scottish Great Highland bagpipes are the best known examples in the Anglophone world, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, Northern Africa, Western Asia, around the Persian Gulf and northern parts of South Asia.
The uilleann pipes are the characteristic national bagpipe of Ireland. Earlier known in English as "union pipes", 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; 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 Galician gaita is the traditional instrument of Galicia and northern Portugal.
Swedish bagpipes are a variety of bagpipes from Sweden. The term itself generically translates to "bagpipes" in Swedish, but is used in English to describe the specifically Swedish bagpipe from the Dalarna region.
Zampogna is a generic term for a number of Italian double chantered pipes that can be found as far north as the southern part of the Marche, throughout areas in Abruzzo, Latium, Molise, Basilicata, Campania, Calabria, and Sicily. The tradition is now mostly associated with Christmas, and the most famous Italian carol, "Tu scendi dalle stelle" is derived from traditional zampogna music. However, there is an ongoing resurgence of the instrument in secular use seen with the increasing number of folk music festivals and folk music ensembles.
A Koza is the generic term for one of five basic types of bagpipes used in Polish folk music. The koza comes from the southern mountainous region of Poland known as Podhale and differs considerably from other types of bagpipes in its construction. Its scale is: b,c,d,e,f,g. The instrument is known for producing a continuous, low pitch.
The mišnice is an instrument like a bagpipe, made from goatskin. Its date of invention is unknown but it is known to have existed in Europe by the 9th century. Different forms of the instrument were found in North Africa and Eastern Europe, especially Croatia, Serbia, Hungary and Ukraine.
The Hungarian duda is the traditional bagpipe of Hungary. It is an example of a group of bagpipes called Medio-Carparthian bagpipes.
Diple, is a traditional woodwind musical instrument originating in the Adriatic Littoral. It is played in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, and Serbia
Cornish bagpipes are the forms of bagpipes once common in Cornwall in the 19th century. Bagpipes and pipes are mentioned in Cornish documentary sources from c.1150 to 1830 and bagpipes are present in Cornish iconography from the 15th and 16th centuries.
The Brian Boru bagpipe was invented and patented in 1908 by Henry Starck, an instrument maker, in London, in consultation with William O'Duane. The name was chosen in honour of the Irish king Brian Boru (941–1014), though this bagpipe is not a recreation of any pipes that were played at the time of his reign. The Brian Boru pipe is related to the Great Highland Bagpipe, but with a chanter that adds four to thirteen keys, to extend both the upper and lower ends of the scale, and optionally adds chromatic notes. His original pipes changed the drone configuration to a single tenor drone pitched one octave below the chanter, a baritone drone pitched one fifth below the tenor drone, and a bass drone pitched two octaves below the chanter, following the drone set-up of the Northumbrian Small pipes. Some later designs of these pipes reverted to the Great Highland Bagpipe configuration of two tenor drones and one bass drone. The Brian Boru bagpipe was played for a number of years by the pipe band in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, as well as a number of civilian pipe bands including Ballygowan Pipe Band. It is still played in Ireland but has lost most of its former popularity. Bagpipe makers in both the United Kingdom and Pakistan still make the chanters.
A gaida is a bagpipe from Southeastern Europe. Southern European bagpipes known as gaida include: the Albanian: gajde, mishnica, bishnica, Aromanian: gaidã, Bulgarian: гайда, Greek: γκάιντα or τσαμπούνα, Macedonian: гајда (gajda), Serbo-Croatian: gajda/гајда, Turkish: gayda also tulum.
The Istarski mih or Istrian mih is a bagpipe native to the regions of Istria and Kvarner, Croatia.
Welsh bagpipes The names in Welsh refer specifically to a bagpipe. A related instrument is one type of bagpipe chanter, which when played without the bag and drone is called a pibgorn (English:hornpipe). The generic term pibau (pipes) which covers all woodwind instruments is also used. 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 musette bressane is a type of bagpipe native to the historic French province of Bresse, in eastern France.
