The crwth, also called a crowd or rote, is a bowed lyre, a type of stringed instrument, associated particularly with Welsh music and with medieval folk music of England, now archaic but once widely played in Europe. Four historical examples have survived and are to be found in St Fagans National Museum of History (Cardiff); National Library of Wales (Aberystwyth); Warrington Museum & Art Gallery; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (US).
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 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 zhaleika, also known as bryolka (брёлка), is the Slavic wind instrument, most used in Belarussian, Russian and sometimes Ukrainian ethnic music. Also known as a "folk clarinet" or hornpipe. The zhaleika was eventually incorporated into the balalaika band, the Hungarian tarogato, and may have contributed to the development of the chalumeau, a predecessor of the clarinet.
The Basque alboka, is a single-reed woodwind instrument consisting of a single reed, two small diameter melody pipes with finger holes and a bell traditionally made from animal horn. Additionally, a reed cap of animal horn is placed around the reed to contain the breath and allow circular breathing for constant play. In Basque language alboka player have the name albokari. Alboka is usually used to accompany a tambourine singer.
A pipe is a tubular wind instrument in general, or various specific wind instruments. The word is an onomatopoeia, and comes from the tone which can resemble that of a bird chirping.
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.
A single-reed instrument is a woodwind instrument that uses only one reed to produce sound. The very earliest single-reed instruments were documented in ancient Egypt, as well as the Middle East, Greece, and the Roman Empire. The earliest types of single-reed instruments used idioglottal reeds, where the vibrating reed is a tongue cut and shaped on the tube of cane. Much later, single-reed instruments started using heteroglottal reeds, where a reed is cut and separated from the tube of cane and attached to a mouthpiece of some sort. By contrast, in a double reed instrument, there is no mouthpiece; the two parts of the reed vibrate against one another. Reeds are traditionally made of cane and produce sound when air is blown across or through them. The type of instruments that use a single reed are clarinets and saxophone. The timbre of a single and double reed instrument is related to the harmonic series caused by the shape of the corpus. E.g. the clarinet is only including the odd harmonics due to air column modes canceling out the even harmonics. This may be compared to the timbre of a square wave.
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.
Carreg Lafar is a contemporary traditional Welsh folk band. Formed in Cardiff by Rhian Evan-Jones, Antwn Owen-Hicks, James Rourke, Linda Owen Jones, and Simon O'Shea, Carreg Lafar means "a speaking stone", or "echo stone".
This article defines a number of terms that are exclusive, or whose meaning is exclusive, to piping and pipers.
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".
The gudastviri is a droneless, double-chantered, horn-belled bagpipe played in Georgia. The term comes from the words guda (bag) and stviri (whistling). In some regions, the instrument is called the chiboni, stviri, or tulumi.
Clera is the society for traditional musical instruments of Wales. It was founded by a group of musicians including Stephen Rees, Robin Huw Bowen, Andy McLauchlin, Wyn Thomas, Huw Roberts, Llio Rhydderch, Elonwy Wright and Frances Môn Jones. Stephen Rees is the current chair.
Reed aerophones is one of the categories of musical instruments found in the Hornbostel-Sachs system of musical instrument classification. In order to produce sound with these Aerophones the player's breath is directed against a lamella or pair of lamellae which periodically interrupt the airflow and cause the air to be set in motion.
Robert ap Huw, was a Welsh harpist and music copyist. He is most notable for compiling a manuscript, now known as the Robert ap Huw manuscript, which is the main extant source of cerdd dant and is a late medieval collection of harp music. It is one of the most important sources of early Welsh music.
Fflach is a Welsh record label and recording studio. It was founded in 1981 in Cardigan, Ceredigion, Wales by brothers Richard and Wyn Jones,Gareth Lewis and Robin Davies, members of Welsh new wave music group Ail Symudiad. The label gave an opportunity to record more new wave music in Wales for bands such as Y Ficar, Eryr Wen, Malcolm Neon, Angylion Stanley, Y Diawled, Rocyn and Maffia Mr. Huws.
