Oaten pipe

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The oaten pipe are a rare type of English and Scottish reedpipe made from the straw (dried stalks) of the oat plant or similar natural materials, commonly associated with pastoral culture. An 1898 dictionary described the instrument as "The simplest form of a reed pipe, a straw with a strip cut to form the reed, at the end closed by the knot". [1] Similar instruments are made across a variety of cultures, while the specific term "oaten pipe" is found in English literature, connoting pastoral imagery. [2]

Some records describe the "oaten pipe" as simply a noisemaker or bird-call, while others specify that it had several fingerholes for playing a melody. [3] Scottish musicologists noted that oaten pipes served as a musical toy for boys, with the possibility of being a practice instrument (an improvised practice chanter) for later playing the bagpipes. [4]

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Bagpipes Musical instrument

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, and western Asia, including Anatolia, the Caucasus, and around the Persian Gulf.

Great Highland bagpipe

The Great Highland bagpipe is a type of bagpipe native to Scotland. It has acquired widespread recognition through its usage in the British military and in pipe bands throughout the world.

Shawm

The shawm is a conical bore, double-reed woodwind instrument made in Europe from the 12th century to the present day. It achieved its peak of popularity during the medieval and Renaissance periods, after which it was gradually eclipsed by the oboe family of descendant instruments in classical music. It is likely to have come to Western Europe from the Eastern Mediterranean around the time of the Crusades. Double-reed instruments similar to the shawm were long present in Southern Europe and the East, for instance the ancient Greek, and later Byzantine, aulos, the Persian sorna, and the Armenian duduk.

Northumbrian smallpipes

The Northumbrian smallpipes are bellows-blown bagpipes from North East England, where they have been an important factor in the local musical culture for more than 200 years. The family of the Duke of Northumberland have had an official piper for over 250 years, and in more recent times the Mayor of Gateshead and the Lord Mayor of Newcastle have both re-established the tradition by appointing official Northumbrian pipers.

Practice chanter

A bagpipe practice chanter is a double-reed woodwind instrument, principally used as an adjunct to the Great Highland bagpipe. As its name implies, the practice chanter serves as a practice instrument: firstly for learning to finger the different melody notes of bagpipe music, and to practice new music.

Pipe (instrument)

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Bladder pipe

The Bladder pipe is a medieval simplified bagpipe, consisting of an insufflation tube, a bladder (bag) and a chanter; sounded by a double reed, which is fitted into a reed seat at the top of the chanter. The reed, inside the inflated bladder, is sounded continuously, and cannot be tongued. Some bladder pipes were made with a single drone pipe, and reproductions are similar to a loud, continuous crumhorn. The chanter has an outside tenon, at the top, near the reed, which fits into a socket or stock, which is then tied into the bladder.

Diple Woodwind musical instrument

Diple, (pluralia tantum; pronounced [dîple̞], with some other Croatian names also called as "misnjiče", "miješnice" and "mih". is a traditional woodwind musical instrument in Bosnian and Herzegovinan, Croatian,, Serbian and Montenegrin music.

Pastoral pipes Musical instrument

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

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.

Pibgorn (instrument) Welsh hornpipe

The pibgorn is a Welsh species of idioglot reed aerophone. The name translates literally as "pipe-horn". It is also historically known as cornicyll and pib-corn. It utilises a single reed, cut from elder or reed, like that found in the drone of a bagpipe, which is an early form of the modern clarinet reed. The single chambered body of the elder pipe has a naturally occurring parallel bore, into which are drilled six small finger-holes and a thumb-hole giving a diatonic compass of an octave. The body of the instrument is traditionally carved from a single piece of wood or bone. Playable, extant historical examples in the Museum of Welsh Life have bodies cut and shaped of elder. Another, unplayable instrument at the Museum, possibly of a later date, is made from the leg bone of an unspecified ungulate. Contemporary instruments are turned and bored from a variety of fruitwoods, or exotic hardwoods; or turned from, or moulded in plastics. The reed is protected by a reed-cap or stock of cow-horn. The bell is shaped from a section of cow-horn which serves to amplify the sound. The pibgorn may be attached to a bag, with the additional possibility of a drone, which is then called pibau cwd; or played directly with the mouth via the reed-cap.

Electronic bagpipes

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.

Hornpipe (instrument) instrument

The hornpipe can refer to a specific instrument or a class of woodwind instruments consisting of a single reed, a small diameter melody pipe with finger holes and a bell traditionally made from animal horn. Additionally, a reed cap of animal horn may be placed around the reed to contain the breath and allow circular breathing for constant play, although in many cases the reed is placed directly in the mouth. It was also known as the pibcorn, pibgorn, or piccorn. One rare Scottish example, called the stock-and-horn, is referred to by Robert Burns among others. Other hornpipes include the Spanish gaita gastoreña, the Basque alboka and the Eastern European zhaleika. When joined with a bag, Baines refers to the instruments as "bag-hornpipes".

English bagpipes

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, 2 of them English; The Cantigas Del Santa Maria published in Spain, 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. From the 14th century on wards 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.

Stock-and-horn

The stock-and-horn was a traditional instrument of the Scottish peasantry, very similar to the Welsh pibgorn, consisting of a single-reed reed pipe amplified by a bell made of horn. The original instrument of the Middle Ages had a double chanter with single reeds but was replaced by the single chanter type. The single chanter instrument is described in great detail by Robert Burns in a 1794 letter to a contemporary; Burns describes how he had much difficulty coming by the instrument, and notes that it has six or seven fingerholes on the top, one on the back, and is played with a single reed unfixed to the instrument but held by the lips.

John Hunsley was a bagpiper from Manton, North Lincolnshire and last known player of the Lincolnshire bagpipes, which he played until shortly before his death at around 1850.

The mashak is a type of bagpipe found in Northern India, Sudurpaschim Province(specially Baitadi and Darchula district) of Nepal and parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The pipe was associated with weddings and festive occasions. In India it is historically found in Garhwal(kumaon) in Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. This bagpipe uses single reeds, and can be played either as a drone or as a melody instrument.

References

  1. Barrett, William Alexander (1898). Stainer and Barrett's Dictionary of musical terms - Sir John Stainer, William Alexander Barrett - Google Books . Retrieved 2012-07-15.
  2. Milton, John (1874). The Lycidas and Epitaphium Damonis of Milton, ed. with notes and intr. by C ... - John Milton - Google Books . Retrieved 2012-07-15.
  3. Baines, Anthony; Boult, Adrian (1991-10-28). Woodwind Instruments and Their History - Anthony Baines - Google Books. ISBN   9780486268859 . Retrieved 2012-07-15.
  4. Dickson, Joshua (2009). The Highland Bagpipe: Music, History, Tradition - Joshua Dickson - Google Books. ISBN   9780754666691 . Retrieved 2012-07-15.

See also