). The bass drone is 80 cm and is tuned an octave
below the tenors. Bagpipes with two tenor drones and no bass drone were
customary in some districts in the 18th century, but the three-drone
arrangement is now standard. (Fr. cornemuse; Ger. Dudelsack, Sackpfeife; It. cornamusa, piva, zampogna; Port. gaita; Sp. cornamusa, gaita, zampoña).
A wind instrument which in its commonest forms consists of a chanter and one or more drones, all supplied with air from the bag, which is compressed under the player’s arm to provide a constant pressure. The instrument is classed as a composite reedpipe.
Bagpipes are generally used in the performance of traditional folk musics, and their designs vary in different countries or ethnic regions. The main exceptions to this rule include the occasional adoption of bagpipes by fashionable society and by composers of opera, ballet, concertos and chamber music, most notably in 18th-century France (see Musette, §§1 and 2), and the case of the Scottish Highland bagpipe, which became widespread in the 19th century and has displaced some local types. Some bagpipe traditions have flourished continuously to the present day, notably in Great Britain and Ireland, in north-western Spain, and in Bulgaria, but by the mid-20th century many regional types had become obsolete. Since the 1960s, however, there has been a considerable revival of interest, and many regional and older types are again being manufactured and played.
WILLIAM A. COCKS/ANTHONY C. BAINES, RODERICK D. CANNON
The principal variables within the above definition are the type of chanter, either conical- or cylindrical-bored; the number and tuning of the drones; and whether the pipes are blown by mouth or with bellows strapped between the player’s arm and waist. Mouth blowing is generally associated with bagpipes intended for outdoor use; bellows with more delicate instruments for indoor playing. Some bagpipes have double chanters, and some have keywork to extend the tonal range.
In many traditions, bags consist of the whole skin of an animal such as a sheep or goat, variously cured or tanned, and with the hair side turned inside. Usually the pipes are tied into the natural neck and forelegs. Almost always the pipes are actually inserted into wooden or bone sockets (‘stocks’), so that they can easily be taken out to adjust the reeds. Most modern bagpipes have bags of cured or tanned skin cut to shape and sewn, and this type of bag can be seen in some medieval depictions as well. For a mouth-blown bagpipe it is of course essential that the bag should not only be airtight but should maintain a constant temperature and humidity. The materials that work best depend very much on the local climate; some are mentioned below.
Conical chanters are generally turned from one piece of wood, like a shawm; cylindrical chanters more often have a separable foot joint at the lower end. The foot joint may be formed from an animal horn (see Hornpipe (i)). Drones are cylindrical with one or more sliding joints for tuning. Conical chanters generally have a double reed; cylindrical chanters and drones have a beating reed, but there are exceptions, notably the British varieties of ‘small pipe’ which have the double reed in a cylindrical chanter, and the French musette and Italian zampogna which have double reeds throughout. Reeds are generally made from cane, especially arundo donax, grown in southern Europe and supplied to pipe makers’ particular requirements, but plastic and metal are coming into use, especially for drone reeds. Double reeds resemble the oboe reed in general design and construction (though they are usually much shorter and broader in the blade). The traditional beating (or ‘percussion’) is an ‘idioglot percussion reed’ (see Reed, and Reed instruments, fig. 1). It is formed from a short length of cane, closed at one end and with the pith removed. A transverse cut is made through the skin to form a tongue which is then split back and raised slightly so that it vibrates in the airstream. A waxed string or ‘bridle’ is tied tightly round the root of the tongue to prevent further splitting (fig.1). In some traditions the reed is cut so that the vibrating end of the tongue is closer to the open end of the reed, in others a greater gap is preferred. In modern bagpipes the chief timbers used for the pipes are ebony, cocus wood and brazil-wood, replacing native woods such as box and fruit woods, though these continue to be used in a few traditions. The ends of the pipes are reinforced with rings or ferrules, made of bone ivory, plastic, metal, or bone. The tone of the instrument depends very much on the nature of the wood, and recent experiments with Scottish bagpipes (Moore, 1991) suggest that it is the density more than any other factor which makes the difference. With the increase in prices of exotic timbers and the general desire to conserve non-renewable materials, synthetic materials are coming more into use.
There are a few references to bagpipes in ancient literature (Aristophanes, Suetonius, Martial, Dio Chrysostom; see Baines, 1960) but no surviving instruments, or unambiguous depictions. Popular writings on bagpipes over the last two hundred years have given a different impression about this ambiguity, but on re-examination, such claims may all be discounted, notably the persistent belief that the bagpipe had military use in the Roman army (Askew, 1940; Collinson, 1975).
Closely related to the bagpipe is the hornpipe, consisting of one or two pipes made from natural tubular materials (bone or cane), with beating reeds blown directly by mouth with circular breathing so that the music is continuous, as is that of the bagpipe. Hornpipes with bags also exist and constitute a supposedly primitive type of bagpipe. Although rare, hornpipes are distributed over a very wide area, ‘from Atlantic Europe and the Maghrib to the Urals and India’ (Baines, 1960), and if bagpipes are viewed as a technical development from the hornpipe this is the strongest reason for supposing that they too have an ancient history.
The historical record effectively begins in the early Middle Ages, in Western Europe. The word ‘musa’ (root of the medieval French word ‘muse’, meaning ‘bagpipe’) occurs between ‘tibiae’ and ‘fistula’, both pipe names, in the Epistola de armonica institutione of Regino of Prüm (c842–915). The term Estive, also believed to denote a form of bagpipe, occurs frequently in medieval French poetry and romances, usually in association with ‘soft’ instruments such as the harp and fiddle, which would indicate that it, too, had a refined and delicate sound. An Anglo Saxon riddle of the 10th century has been considered as referring to a bagpipe (Sutherland, 1967). The independent drone is mentioned in Adam de la Halle’s Jeu de Robin et de Marion (c1283), and a drone pipe of this period has been found at Weoley Castle, Warwickshire, England. Depictions in pictures and carvings become abundant from then on. In the British Isles bagpiping was both a popular and a courtly entertainment at least from the early 14th century (Bullock-Davies, 1978), but began gradually to die out, receding northwards and westwards from the 16th century onwards (Cannon, 1971). From the 17th century, mouth-blown bagpipes tended to be displaced by bellows-blown forms for indoor use, and in Ireland and Northumberland these became progressively more elaborate during the 18th and 19th centuries. Historical references to ‘Lincolnshire’ (16th century) and ‘Lancashire’ (18th century) bagpipes presumably imply persistent playing traditions; they may or may not refer to distinctive regional types of instrument. The last traces of bagpiping in 19th-century Yorkshire have been carefully researched (Schofield, 1993–4), indicating that the Irish type of ‘union pipe’ was played.
The
Highland bagpipe (figs.1 and 4a)
has been a martial instrument at least since the 16th century. It has three
drones, two tenor and one bass, the chanter and the blowpipe. The latter is
long, thus enabling the bag to be held well under the left arm and the piper’s
head to be kept erect. Blowpipes in other traditions are shorter, and the bag
may be held in front of the body, leading to a crouching attitude unlike the
military bearing of the Scots piper. The drones are spread fanwise and held at
their distance by ornamental cords, the bass drone resting on the piper’s
shoulder. Each tenor drone is 40 cm long and is tuned an octave below the
six-finger note of the chanter (which is named A, i.e. a', though the
actual pitch is closer to b). The bass drone is 80 cm and is tuned an octave
below the tenors. Bagpipes with two tenor drones and no bass drone were
customary in some districts in the 18th century, but the three-drone
arrangement is now standard.
The chanter is of a wide conical bore, with eight holes and a double vent-hole which is never stopped. The tone is exceedingly loud and penetrating. Highland pipes are made in two sizes; in addition there is a miniature-sized pipe with a practice chanter in place of the normal bagpipe chanter. Scottish bagpipe manufacture is a well-established industry. The instrument is largely standardized in design and construction. The favourite timbers since the early 19th century have been African blackwood or cocus wood, with ivory or silver reinforcing rings and ferrules. Imitation ivory is now usual, and makers are experimenting with synthetic materials in place of wood. Moulded plastic ‘Polypenco’ pipe chanters are widely accepted for use by bands. Plastic and metal drone reeds are beginning to replace cane. For the bag, sheepskin, cured but not tanned, is traditional in northern climates, but leather works better in drier conditions; more recently the synthetic material Gore-Tex has become popular.
The
scale of the Highland chanter consists of the notes g', a', b',
c
'', d'',
e'', f'',
g'', a''; but they are tuned in a characteristic way, which has
given rise to a good deal of speculation and research (early results and
discussions are summarized by MacNeill and Lenihan, 1960–61). In the 19th
century there was fairly general agreement that the c'' and f'' were appreciably flatter, and
the g' and g'' appreciably sharper than in the accepted diatonic
scales of the period; in fact most of the 3rds were thought to be intermediate
between major and minor 3rds. Baines (1960) pointed out that neutral 3rds are a
common characteristic of folk wind instruments, and a general explanation is
that pipe makers everywhere have tended to set the holes in the pipe at equal
distances so as to lie comfortably under the fingers: some refinement of pitch
is then obtained by varying the size of the holes. The first reliable
measurements, made by Lenihan and MacNeill in 1954, gave somewhat different
results, showing the following intervals, expressed in cents, between g'
and each successive note: a' = 199 cents above g'; b' =
395 cents; c''
= 582 cents; d'' = 715 cents; e'' = 904 cents; f'' = 1086 cents; g''
= 1220 cents; and a'' = 1404 cents. The c'' and f'' are close to their values in just
intonation while the d'' is appreciably sharp. Harris and others (1963)
confirmed these intervals, and also reported details of the harmonic structure
of the notes of both chanter and drones.
Measurements made by Mackenzie (1995) have used greatly improved techniques, sampling the notes actually played in performance, with the drones sounding, and taking care that the players were themselves satisfied with the sound produced. The results have shown very close agreement between different pipers and instruments, and a strong tendency to tune the chanter notes in consonance with appropriate harmonies of the drones. But no corresponding measurements have been reported for old chanters. What is certain is that all good players are keenly aware of, and strive to attain, what they consider to be the true intonation, different though this may be from the standards adopted by other musicians.
The
nine notes are not produced simply by successive opening of the eight
finger-holes: as with most bagpipes, the fingering system is such that when
middle and upper notes are played, certain of the lower holes must be kept
closed. Although in theory cross-fingerings could be used to produce additional
chromatic semitones, in practice all the traditional music is restricted to the
nine notes listed above. The 19th-century bagpipe maker David Glen published
fingering charts showing two notes g'', one slightly sharpened, but this
innovation was not generally adopted. A considerable number of tunes have been
adapted to the bagpipe from other sources and this has led to a number of
‘wrong’ notes which are now accepted as traditional. Thus, g'' is
accepted as a passing note in place of g'', in tunes which would otherwise be in the key of A
major, and to a lesser extent c'' is accepted where parallel traditions have c''.
Some tunes exist in minor modes in the song and fiddle traditions but in major
modes in the bagpipe tradition, perhaps for a similar reason.
The Lowland bagpipe is a bellows-blown instrument, with three drones all in one stock. They lie across the piper’s chest while in use, and the piper is seated. The chanter and drone are slightly smaller than in the Highland pipe, but in musical essentials they are the same (see fig.4b). By the end of the 19th century the Lowland bagpipe had almost ceased to be played (Duncan, 1990), though in the early 20th century some pipe makers offered instead the half-sized Highland bagpipe blown by bellows. In the late 20th century the Lowland pipe has been revived.
Another type of bagpipe made and played in Scotland in the 18th and early 19th centuries is essentially similar to early forms of Irish union pipe (see fig.4c and §4 below). In 20th-century literature it has been called the ‘hybrid union pipe’; more recently, the ‘pastoral’ pipe, following Geoghegan (c1746; see §4 below).
A Scottish form of small-pipe is found in some museum collections. The chanter is cylindrical and gives a nine-note scale. The three drones are set in one stock and tuned as in the Northumbrian pipes (see §5 below), i.e. the smallest in unison with the six-finger note on the chanter, the largest an octave below, and the intermediate drone at the 5th in between. After a long period of disuse, small-pipes are again being played, with a chanter redesigned to accept Highland pipe fingering. It is available in two pitches, one an octave below the Highland pipe (nominally ‘in A’) with the corresponding scale including g and g', both natural; and the other a 4th higher (‘in D’). Both mouth-blown and bellows forms are played.
Historical and literary references to the bagpipe in Ireland go back to 1544, and show that it was used for the same purposes as in Gaelic Scotland, notably in battle and for laments at funerals (see Donnelly, 1981). A crudely drawn illustration was given by John Derricke in Image of Irelande(London, 1581; fig.6): it depicts a mouthblown instrument with two drones of unequal length set in one stock, and a long chanter with bell; the proportions are grotesque, and the woodcut must be accepted with caution. These references imply a loud instrument, presumably mouth-blown and similar to the Scottish bagpipe of the time, but in the 18th century it died out and little is known about it. It is said that there used to be an example in the Musée de Cluny, Paris (Collinson, 1975).
The Scottish bagpipe began to be used in Ireland in the 19th century, and in time the custom began of using a variant form with a single tenor drone instead of a pair. The two drones are set in separate stocks, with the bass resting on the piper’s shoulder. Another pattern of Irish war-pipe was evolved about 1900–10 by Henry Starck of London and named the ‘Brian Boru’ bagpipe. It had three drones all set in one stock and sounding as follows: tenor, one octave below the key note; bass, one octave below this; baritone, the 5th between. The chanter was made with several differing key arrangements and was capable of sounding a diatonic scale from a 3rd below the key note to a 3rd above. The Brian Boru pipe was used by the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers from 1926 to 1968, but all Irish infantry regiments now use the Scottish Highland bagpipe, though their repertories still emphasize Irish tunes.
The Irish uilleann pipe is a bellows pipe, played sitting and with the drones lying across the knees, and is believed to have been introduced in the early 18th century. The name ‘uilleann pipe’, from the Irish word uilleann (‘elbow’), has been shown to be spurious (see Carolan, 1981–2) but is now firmly established. The usual term in the 19th century was ‘union pipe’. Successive elaborations in its design and musical capabilities can be traced through the earlier published tutors (Geoghegan, O’Farrell, Colclough).
The earliest known form of uilleann pipe was the ‘pastoral or new bagpipe’ (Geoghegan). It had an open-ended chanter without keywork, giving the six-finger note d' and a range of c' to d''', the upper register being obtained by overblowing; the two drones were set in one stock and tuned a and A. Subsequent developments include lowering the drones to d and D, the extra length of the bass drone being obtained by folding the tube back into the stock (see fig.4c), and the addition of a third, treble, drone (tuned d') and of what is now known as the tenor regulator. This latter is inserted in the same stock as the drones and is of conical bore, stopped at the end and possessing four or five keys. It is fitted with a double reed like that used in the chanter, and the purpose is to enable the piper to provide a variable chord by striking a suitable key with the heel of his hand. Bagpipes of this type are no longer played, but a number survive in museum collections. The chanter is characteristically made in two parts, the main part with the finger-holes, and a removable foot joint with two holes, bored crossways, which determine the pitch of the lowest note, as in the Scottish Highland and Lowland chanters. For this reason the pipes are sometimes called ‘hybrid uilleann pipes’, on the supposition that they represent a fusion of Irish and Scottish forms. This may not be correct: the alternative view is that these pipes represent the older form, and that the present Irish pipe is a further development.
In
the modern Irish uilleann pipe (first described in O’Farrell, c1804, and
later in Colclough) the chanter has no foot joint and its range is two octaves
(d'–d'''), and it has three drones (D, d, d').
A fourth drone, occasionally found, is tuned to g'. Many drone stocks
are fitted with a plug to silence the drones, at the same time allowing the
regulators to sound. The bass drone is a simple folded pipe, not re-entering
the stock, and the regulators are increased to three, and occasionally four,
which together give the piper the ability to sound full chords. Players have
been known to silence their chanter on occasion and play the air entirely on
the regulator keys, to the plain drone accompaniment, but the general method of
using regulators is either to provide an occasional chord or to emphasize the
time by a rhythmic ‘vamping’. A modern set of regulators is tuned to sound:
tenor, f', g',
a', b', c'; baritone, d', f', g', a'; bass, g,
a, b, c'. Where a double bass is provided, it usually sounds
one octave below the baritone. Regulators are tuned by inserting a length of
wire or rush pith into the bore. Many of them are very loud and have a tendency
to overwhelm the chanter. Some players dispense with them.
Early chanters were made without keys, but at various times these have been added, and now up to nine may be found, the compass of two octaves remaining the same. The chanter, though an open one, is played with the end closed by resting it on a pad of leather on the piper’s knee, and raised for certain notes.
The uilleann bagpipe varies considerably in pitch from two whole tones below standard (a' = 440) up to standard pitch itself. For concert-hall work, where greater volume is desired, chanters have been made with a double bore and two reeds, the piper’s fingers spanning both sets of holes. Double reeds are used in all chanters and regulators, and beating reeds in the drones. The modern uilleann pipe has become such a complex instrument that it has sometimes been called the ‘Irish organ’.
The Northumbrian half-long pipe may be identified with the Scottish Lowland pipe, having three drones in one stock, and an open chanter sounding nine notes. The drones, however, differ in one respect, for instead of bass, tenor and tenor, the Northumbrian pattern is bass, tenor and treble, the treble being a 5th above the tenor. Apart from this difference in the drones, the instrument is identical to the Lowland variety and, if played sitting, the drones lie across the breast, but if in use for marching they lie on the piper’s shoulder. Having died out in the 19th century, this instrument was revived in the 1920s with partial success for the use of Scout troops and other groups, and has been revived again since about 1980. The earlier revival used a different drone tuning with a baritone drone and no treble, but this is now considered erroneous and the later revival uses the tuning described here.
The shuttle pipe, long disused, had barrel drones of the musette type (see fig.7b below) and a chanter of early Northumbrian type, keyless and open-ended. Only two examples are known. One of these is dated 1695 and was formerly in the possession of J. Campbell Noble. The other, of about the same date, was in the collection of W.A. Cocks (now in the Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum).
The Northumbrian small-pipe (see fig.4d) is an indoor instrument and in its early form consisted of a plain open chanter, cylindrically bored, with double reed, giving a scale of nine notes. It had three drones sounding the key note, the octave below and the 5th between, all inserted in one stock. Small-pipe drones lie across the player’s chest in all cases. The small-pipe was not standardized, each maker having worked to his own set of measurements. The earliest known small-pipe (now in the Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum) probably dates from the late 17th century. It is of ivory, and has a plain open-ended chanter of narrow cylindrical bore, 16 cm long. The three open-ended drones are 22, 13·5 and 12 cm and sound g, d' and g' respectively. This type was in use until the middle of the 18th century. About that time an unknown pipe maker conceived the idea of closing the end of the chanter, and this has been the rule ever since; it is the only closed chanter found on any type of bagpipe. The closure reduced the compass of the chanter by one note, but, since the fingering method is to open only one hole at a time, it enabled the piper to play staccato and to repeat the same note many times in succession, without having to interpolate grace notes. It added greatly to the crispness and distinctness of the music, and this feature is characteristic of Northumbrian piping.
The
small-pipe remained at this stage until about 1805, when John Peacock, one of
the town waits of Newcastle upon Tyne, collaborated with John Dunn, pipe maker,
also of Newcastle, to add the first four keys to the chanter. This increased
the compass from d' to a'', the key note being g'. The
later addition of a fifth key, c'', enabled the piper to play in the key of D, which
necessitated a fourth drone to provide the correct harmony. At the same time
stops were fitted to all drones, so that any of them could be silenced at will.
The increased possibilities of the keyed small-pipe led other makers, notably
Robert Reid of North Shields, to add further keys, and by the time of Reid’s
death in 1837, at the age of 53, the number of keys had been increased to 14
and the drones to five, fitted with a switch in the drone stock, so that the piper
may change over quickly from key G to key D, or vice versa. His son James Reid
further increased the keys to 17, giving a full chromatic scale from b
to b''.
These
multi-keyed chanters are not common, the most usual pattern having seven keys
only, with which nearly all the existing pipe music may be played. These seven
keys are closed, worked by the little finger of the upper hand or the thumb of
the lower, and the holes they cover are the seven plain finger-holes and top
thumb-hole. Since the fingering principle is still to open only one hole at
once, this gives 15 notes: d', e', f', g', a', b', c'',
c'', d'',
d'', e'',
f'', g'',
a'', b''. Of the four drones, three can give either of two notes,
thus d, g/a, d'/e', g'/a', and
by sounding only three drones at any one time, the harmonies g–d'–g',
d–a–d', a–e'–a' can be selected. The
six-finger note is called G and written g' on the stave, though the
actual pitch is usually f''. (For a set of pipes designed to play with
other instruments it is precisely f'' at a'' = 440 Hz, but
traditionally it was little sharper than this). As regards the intonation,
Butler (1987) describes a system in which G, B and D notes of the chanter are
designed to be in consonance with the G drones, F and A with the D drones, C and E with the A drones,
presumably seeking pure 5th, 4th and major 3rd intervals respectively.
Small-pipes were made mainly from home-grown materials in early days, the woods used including box, walnut and holly; modern pipes are usually of ebony or cocus-wood. Many old instruments were constructed wholly of ivory, with silver mounts and chains; they are exceedingly elegant, but the tone is not so mellow as that from pipes of wood. Small-pipe reeds are made of cane or elderberry, or often entirely of metal.
The bellows-blown musette is a highly developed bagpipe of great compass and refined musical quality (fig.7). It became fashionable at the French court and in society during the 17th and 18th centuries, and the artistic skill lavished on the adornment of the wood and ivory work was of an exceedingly high order. The bag-covers were of rich silks, often covered with embroidery and bordered with metallic fringe and tassels. These pieces of fine needlework required protection from the grease of the bag by means of padded undercovers, and they frequently had an outer cover in addition. Musettes were often made entirely of ivory (see Musette).
The
origin of the musette, which appears to have been the prototype of the bellows
bagpipe, is not known with certainty, but it was probably 16th-century, for at
the beginning of the 17th century the instrument is found in an advanced state
of development. It was described by Praetorius (Syntagma musicum, ii) as
having a single chanter, a set of barrel drones, and bellows. The chanter was
of narrow cylindrical bore and without keys; it was fitted with a double reed.
By 1636–7, the date of Mersenne’s Harmonie universelle, it had been
supplied with the first keys for the production of semitones. Later in the same
century Martin Hotteterre added a second chanter with six keys, which lay
parallel to the first and extended the scale upwards. Both chanters were set in
a double stock which was in turn inserted into the bag stock. The larger of the
two (grand chalumeau) sounded the scale from f to a'' by means of eight
open holes and seven keys; the smaller (petit chalumeau) extended the
scale to d''', all the extra notes being sounded by the six keys, three
of which were on the upper- and three on the underside of the chanter. All the
musette keys were actuated by the fourth finger of the left hand and the thumb
of the right. The chanters remained in this form until the musette became
extinct.
The drone barrel was formed of a cylindrical block of wood or ivory, about 15 cm long and 4 cm in diameter, inserted 2·5 cm into the stock. It was pierced longitudinally by parallel bores which were connected in series in twos or more to give the necessary lengths and terminated in slots in the side (fig.7a). These slots were in dovetailed grooves, in which were fitted layettes (slides), by means of which the drones were tuned. The layettes were the equivalent of the sliding joints on the usual type of bagpipe drone, and they could also be used to silence unwanted drones completely. Lissieu of Lyons was a noted maker of musettes, and a fine specimen by him, in the Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum, is fitted with six drones. Double reeds were fitted throughout the entire instrument. Musette drones were usually tuned in octaves of C and G. Very detailed descriptions and illustrations of all the French bagpipes were given by Mersenne in Harmonie universelle and in the Encyclopédie of Diderot and D’Alembert (Paris, 1763).
The traditional bagpipe of the Auvergne and Bourbonnais is characterized by a chanter and drone set parallel to each other, either joined (fig.8), or set in a common stock. Some bagpipes of this type have a second, separate drone an octave lower than the first, and some also a third drone set behind the chanter, an octave higher. In the Auvergne the traditional names are chèvre(‘goat’), chèvrette or cabrette, but cornemuseis the name in standard French. Although it has pastoral and peasant associations, the elaborately decorated instruments produced by several makers in the 19th century catered for a self-consciously rural bourgeois taste (Montbel and Blanchard, 1990). The Auvergne piping tradition never died out, but by the later 19th century the cabrette was mainly played in concert with other instruments and the drones had ceased to be used; they were either blocked or replaced by unbored dummy drones. The instrument was regularly played in Paris in cafés with an Auvergnat clientele. The local traditions have been extensively researched by J.F. Chassaing (1982). Ladonne (1987) gives playing instructions and a collection of tunes with a compass of ten notes, the highest being the overblown five-finger note.
The biniou is the bagpipe of Brittany (fig.9). It is a mouth-blown instrument with a narrow conical chanter, fitted with a very small double reed. There are seven finger-holes, but no thumb-hole, and a double unstopped hole in the bell. The one drone lies on the player’s shoulder; it has two tuning-slides and a very wide bell, contracted at the mouth. The instrument was frequently made of boxwood, without any metal or mountings, but now is generally of blackwood. The bag is of sheepskin and it is held high on the piper’s chest in playing. The instrument is generally played àcouple, that is in conjunction with the bombarde, which is a separate chanter (without a bag; a type of shawm) of wide conical bore, pitched an octave lower and blown directly from the mouth of a second player (see France, fig.7d). Traditionally the two were used at weddings and dances. Since World War II a loud bagpipe, biniou bras (actually the Highland bagpipe introduced from Scotland), pitched in the same octave as the bombarde, has been introduced and is played in pipe and drum bands along with the bombarde. The older instrument is still played, nevertheless, and is enjoying a considerable revival (Bigot, 1991). The veuze is a similar instrument to the biniou, though larger and sounding an octave lower. It survived until the 19th century in the Nantes region, and has recently been revived.
In Belgium, the early history of the bagpipe was similar to that of the French mouth-blown pipes; the musette was also played. In the 19th century, up to 1900, two types of bagpipe were still played by shepherds in Hainaut and east Flanders. One had a chanter only; the other, the muse-au-sac, had two drones of which the smaller lay beside the chanter as in the French cornemuse. Examples of the second type are in the Instruments Museum of the Brussels Conservatory (fig.10). A few bagpipe melodies from France and Belgium have been published (Boone, 1983).
The bouha of the Landes de Gascogne had a double chanter, one bore having melody holes, the other bore a single hole giving alternate tonic and dominant drone, the whole strongly resembling the Hungarian duda (see §7(v) below; Dominique, 1987).
In
Asturias, Galicia and the Minho across the border the mouth-blown gaita
(fig.11) continues to flourish. It usually has only one
drone. The chanter has a wide conical bore, seven holes and a thumb-hole, three
vent-holes lower down, and a double reed. The drone has two tuning-slides; it
is fitted with a beating reed, adorned with a heavy silk fringe, and lies on
the player’s shoulder. The pipes are still often made of boxwood with brass
mounts for the drone but blackwood is used for the best quality instruments.
Modern bags are made of moulded rubber covered with cloth. The chanter has a C
major scale from b' to c''', though Galician pipers can reach f'''
or g''' by overblowing. Instruments also exist in B and D. Among the many tutors
published for the gaita, those by Covello (1978), Santiago (1978) and
Estévez Vila (1987) may be mentioned.
The Catalan cornamusa has been extinct for a century, but the shepherd’s zampoña of the Balearic Islands is still played. The chanter resembles that of the gaita but the drone hangs down in front of the bag, held in a large stock in which are also two small drones, usually blocked up and silent.
Praetorius (Syntagma musicum, ii) gave the best descriptions and illustrations of old German bagpipes (fig.12). The Bock, with deep-sounding horn-belled chanter and drone, was of the western Slav type. It survived in use in the Böhmerwald, where it was recorded by Künzig (1958). The Schäferpfeife, called Sackpfeiffin Virdung’s Musica getutscht (1511), was of a kind which in one form or another was widespread over northern Europe up to the 18th century. The chanter was narrowly conical, and the two drones held in one drone-stock were of unequal length and probably tuned to a 5th. Only one bagpipe which fits this description is known to exist in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Its provenance is unknown but it is conjectured to be 18th-century German (Boone, 1983).
The Hümmelchen and the dudy (a Czech name) were much smaller, again with drones of unequal length, the dudy having three. Their chanter bores may have been cylindrical, as in the present Baltic types, but no specimens are known to survive and the nature of the reed is unknown. Praetorius also described a bagpipe that he heard in Magdeburg, with two chanters branching from a single stock (one for each hand and sounding a 5th apart), enabling the piper to play simple two-part melodies; it had a drone-stock with two drones like those of the Schäferpfeife.
A simple bagpipe, the Säckpipa, survived into the 20th century in the Swedish district of Dalarna. It has a cylindrical chanter 23 cm in length with six holes and a thumb-hole, and a beating reed. Two short drones are held in one stock, but the shorter is a dummy. In certain islands and coastal districts of Estonia the bagpipe consists of a bag made from a seal’s stomach, a cylindrical chanter 15 cm long with six holes and beating reed, and two drones tuned to a 5th, branching from a single drone-stock. The drones have cavernous terminations as in Scotland and Spain. There are (or were) similar instruments to be found in Latvia.
The principal bagpipe is the zampogna (fig.13), native to the south and to Sicily (where the name is cornamusa) but often heard in the north played by itinerant players. It has a bag usually formed of a whole skin. The four pipes, all held in one large stock, include two conical chanters, one for each hand, and two crudely bored cylindrical drones. All four have double reeds of a characteristic long-bladed pattern. There are two main types of zampogna: one is played alone, the other accompanies a conical chanter (ciaramella, cornamusina, occasionally piffaro) which a second player blows directly with his mouth. The holes of the chanters of the first type, five in one, four in the other, give a series of notes a 4th apart whereby the chanters are sounded in 3rds or contrapuntally. The visual effect recalls that of the Roman Phrygian aulos. The chanters of the second type are an octave apart, and the lowest hole of the larger chanter is covered by an open key protected by a wooden barrel as in many Renaissance wind instruments (fig.13a). This type can be quite large, the longer chanter over 150 cm with F as its lowest note; such an instrument sounds rather like an organ. The two drones are tuned to an octave or a 12th; in neither type of zampogna do they necessarily sound deeper than the chanters. The two-man teams, zampognari or pifferari, make a practice of coming into the towns at the Christmas season to serenade the images of the infant Christ set up at the roadside. Baroque oratorio contains well-known allusions to this music, such as the pastoral symphonies in Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. A complex bellows-blown elaboration of the zampogna was described by Mersenne as a Neapolitan invention, sordellina, with numerous closed keys on the drones somewhat similar to the Irish regulators. A collection of music for this instrument was published in tablature by Giovanni Lorenzo Baldano (1576–1660). The piva of northern Italy, no longer heard, was a western form of bagpipe with conical chanter and cylindrical drone. (See Italy, §II, 6.)
See also Phagotum.
The Polish dudy and kozioł (see Poland, §II, 5, figs.5 and 6) are bellows-blown, with a cylindrical, beating-reed chanter held in a carved stock. The drone rests on the shoulder and is either straight, or right-angled to hang down behind the player’s back. Often the tube is twice doubled back inside a wooden butt joint for compactness. Both chanter and drone have large upturned bells of cowhorn or horn and metal. The dudy has six finger-holes and a thumb-hole giving a plagal scale omitting the lower submediant. The kozioł includes a seventh hole for the little finger and covers a plagal 11th, the top two notes being overblown. Closed fingering is used in both types, and staccato can be made by closing all holes to interpose the low dominant, which when continually touched in this manner gives the effect of a subsidiary drone. The common name ‘wedding pipes’ indicates the instruments’ traditional association; they can be traced in pictures back to the 14th century. The earliest examples were mouth-blown. The Bohemian dudy is similar to the Polish; its beating reeds sometimes consist of a slip of cane tied over a slot in a short metal or bone tube, on the principle of the clarinet. This dudyis much used with fiddle and clarinet. Moravia and Slovakia have bagpipes of this kind or rather smaller (in Slovakia they are called gajdy and may be mouth-blown), and a double-bore chanter resembling the Hungarian type. Simplified instruments resembling the single-chanter dudy are found in Belarus and the Ukraine (duda).
The Hungarian duda (see Hungary, §II, 6(iv)) is mouth-blown, though bellows-blown versions exist in museums. The goat-head stock holds a chanter carved in rectangular cross-section containing two parallel cylindrical bores. One is the chanter proper, with six holes and a thumb-hole. The highest finger-hole, placed opposite the thumb-hole, is very small (the ‘flea hole’) and when uncovered raises any note of the scale by approximately a semitone, whereby sharps and modulations are possible. The lowest note sounds through an oblong vent. The other bore, the kontra, has one hole controlled by the little finger of the lower hand. When open it sounds in unison with the bottom note of the melody bore. When closed the note is emitted through a bell extension (often ending with a cowhorn) and sounds a 4th lower. Movement of the little finger provides a drone harmony which pendulates between these two notes, independent of the fingering of the melody bore. A very efficient staccato is possible since the interpolated bottom note of the melody bore is in unison with the open hole note of the kontra, effecting a momentary silence in the melody. The instrument has a normal bass drone. Traditional playing died out in the 1960s but was revived in the 1980s, with instruments again being manufactured and music published (Csoóri, 1986). Romania has a similar instrument, the cimpoi (see Habenicht, 1972–4).
The bellows-blown gajde of the north-eastern plains and parts of Serbia has a double-bore chanter of oval outer cross-section with large upturned wooden bell. It has only five holes, but the kontra bore also has a hole for the little finger, which is used as in Hungary but at a slower speed appropriate to the deeper sound of the pipes; the bass drone may sound as low as G', the necessary length being obtained with the help of a butt section or a length of rubber hose. The diple sa mješinom or mihof Dalmatia and Bosnia is a simple mouth-blown instrument with double-bore chanter without bell, and no drone. There are six holes to each bore, spanned by the same finger and sounding a unison except on the low note, where one hole only is covered to produce a major 2nd. In some specimens one bore is a plain drone; in others different arrangements of the holes are found, similar to those among hornpipes. The diple is also played without a bag, the cup-like stock being placed directly to the mouth.
The Macedonian gajde has a single chanter turned in boxwood and mounted with horn. The lower end is formed in a characteristic obtuse angle carved from horn. There are seven holes and a thumb-hole, the first finger-hole being a ‘flea hole’ bushed with quill. The drone is also of boxwood and horn-mounted. This bagpipe is also found in Bulgaria, as are other types of gayda with conically bored chanters (still with beating reed) and a similar arrangement of holes. Its size and pitch vary according to region. The gayda remains strongly associated with weddings and village dance festivities, though mostly it is heard in large ensembles and ‘folk orchestras’. Accounts of Bulgarian piping at different periods are given in Katzarova, 1937; Levy, 1985; and Rice, 1994.
The Serbian gajde and the diple are now rare, but the Macedonian and Bulgarian bagpipes continue to flourish. (See Bulgaria, §II.)
The native bagpipe of India (Hindustani maśak); also known by other names, e.g. śruti upanga) has a melody pipe and a drone pipe lashed together, but some examples have one pipe only, with the finger-holes often sealed with wax for sounding a drone to another instrument. It appears in ceremonial and devotional ensembles. The principal bagpipe in use throughout India and the Indian army is, however, the Scottish Highland pipe, which is manufactured commercially in both India and Pakistan. It sometimes is used at wedding ceremonies, especially in the North, where it is known by various local names such as mashak and bīn bājā (Alter, 1997–8). The Scottish bagpipe may have inspired the fitting of a long drone with a tuning-slide to many Indian snake-charmers’ pipes.
This term conveniently describes numerous and widespread primitive bagpipes that lack a separate drone and possess a chanter composed of two parallel canes held in a cradle-like wooden stock or ‘yoke’ almost always mounted with a cowhorn bell or wooden imitation of one. Examples occur in the Aegean Islands (tsambouna) and Crete (askomandoura), in northeast Turkey (tulum), Armenia (parkapzuk), Georgia (gudastviri) and neighbouring regions of the Caucasus (chiboni etc.), and among the Mari and other Finno-Ugric peoples of the Volga (shüvïr etc.). Like the bagless hornpipes they differ mainly in the arrangement of holes and hence in the scales produced. One pipe always has the full complement, usually five. The other may have five, three, two or one, whereby many kinds of two-part effects are obtained: for instance, a drone rapidly alternating over a major 2nd (Karpathos); decoration by rapidly interposed high notes above the melody (Turkey); and a mixture of 3rds, unison and drone (Russia) so intricate as to defy description. Such instruments once had a wider distribution over Europe and the Mediterranean, and an old Welsh example with twin horn bells, now lacking its bag, is in the National Museum of Wales.
The common species of north Africa (zukra etc.) differ in that the two canes, which have four or five holes each, are held in a disc-shaped wooden stock tied into the kidskin bag; a small horn bell is attached to each pipe. Best known in Tunisia (fig.14) and Algeria, specimens have been found in Syria and Egypt, the Fezzan and by Lake Chad.
Scotland was for a long time the only region to print pipe music in any quantity (see Cannon, 1980), with Ireland, Northumberland and Brittany following far behind; but, along with the revival in playing, other countries have begun to print tutors and anthologies of traditional pipe tunes.
Among the chief characteristics of bagpipe music are the facts that the chanter is never silent, so that there can be no rests or momentary pauses between notes, and that its loudness cannot be varied. These problems are overcome to some extent by the use of grace notes, which at their simplest consist of the momentary uncovering of a hole by one finger, to produce a high-pitched grace note, or momentary covering of one or more holes simultaneously to produce a low-pitched grace note. The actual pitch of the grace note is not usually fully perceived, and the effect is of a bright or dull clicking sound. Grace notes are essential to divide two successive melody notes of the same pitch, and are also commonly played on the downbeat notes of the melody to mark out the rhythm. In many piping traditions grace notes are used sparingly, but Scottish pipers have a large fund of embellishments – ‘doublings’, ‘shakes’, ‘throws’ and ‘grips’ – which are carefully taught and are written into the music, and an analogous but largely different set in the older Pibrochrepertory. Irish uilleann pipers use multiple grace notes, but to a much lesser extent. The Northumbrian small-pipe chanter, being closed, can be silenced and this makes the use of grace notes unnecessary, though in fact they are played to some extent. On some bagpipes (for instance the Czech dudy and Hungarian duda; see §7(iv) and (v) above) the same effect is obtained by relying on the illusion of silence when certain chanter notes are sounded.
The Scottish Highland pipe continues to dominate the public perception of bagpiping. It is played in ever-increasing numbers, and the standards both of playing and of construction and tuning have risen markedly in the last half of the 20th century. Although the British army maintains fewer pipe bands than before, this decrease is more than offset by the increase in civilian pipe bands throughout the world, and not only in countries of obvious British influence. Solo piping continues at virtuoso level including the traditional pìobaireachd, with pipers from the USA, Brittany and elsewhere regularly taking prizes in competitions. But throughout Europe, there has also been a revival of interest in other bagpipes, fostered usually by young players who have re-learnt the craft of pipe making by copying instruments from museum collections, and playing technique from old recordings or, when possible, directly from the remaining traditional players. There have also been attempts to reconstruct medieval and later bagpipes from purely iconographic evidence; among these may be mentioned the English Great Pipe by Jon Swayne, and impressive reconstructions of the large peasant bagpipes shown in paintings by Breughel and others. In the British Isles these activities have been generally encouraged by the foundation of the Lowland and Border Pipers' Society (1983) and the Bagpipe Society (1985), as well as the longer-established Northumbrian Pipers’ Society (1928) and Na Píobarí Uilleann (1963). These and similar groups in other countries publish periodicals, maintain websites, organize concerts and instrument making workshops, and provide a market for the sale of pipes. International gatherings of makers and players take place regularly at St Chartier, France, and Strakonice, Czech Republic. The publication of bagpipe music, arranged from old sources or from diverse piping traditions, has increased. The bagpipes of the revival tend to follow traditional models closely in general construction and playing technique, but entirely new or remodelled instruments are also being developed (Goodacre, 1992; Swayne, 1995; Moore, 1999). These are designed to play together with each other and with other instruments, and in public performance they may be heard as part of a line-up of instruments in many folk or folk-rock groups. Some of these groups have achieved international reputations, such as the pioneering Whistlebinkies (Scotland), Blowzabella (England), Battlefield Band (Scotland) and Run Rig (Gaelic, folk-rock). If the question is asked, whether some essential element of bagpiping is being lost in these new formats, it can be answered at least in part by noticing how, in many cases, it is still the bagpipe that dominates the sound and is perhaps the chief attraction to the listening public.
MersenneHU
PraetoriusSM
PraetoriusTI
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E.O. Covelo: Leccións de Gaita (Vigo, 1978)
M. de Santiago: Metodo de Gaita por cifra y música (Santiago de Compostela, 1978)
S. Csoóri: Dudanóták gyüjteménye (énekelt dallamok) [A collection of bagpipe songs] (Budapest, 1986)
P. James: Encyclopaedia Blowzabellica: the Blowzabella Tune and Dance Book (Blyth, 1987)
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X. Estévez Vila: A gaita no eido música (Vigo, 1987)
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J. Swayne: Moebius Music for Three Bagpipes (Blyth, 1995)
