Bagpipes
The bagpipes are a musical instrument. They are sometimes just called "pipes". They have a bag that holds air. The player keeps the bag full of air by blowing into it with a tube or pumping it with a bellows. To make music, the bag is pressed and the air comes out through a kind of flute or "chanter". There are usually one or more other tubes coming from the bag that make sounds whenever the bag is squeezed, called "drones". Each drone normally plays a different note, and stays on the same note the whole time it is playing, to play a harmony with the "chanter". The sounds are made by a single or, more commonly, double reed which vibrates when air is blown over it.
 Great Highlands bagpipe | |
| Classification | Woodwind |
|---|---|
Scotland is traditionally linked to the bagpipes, and many pipe tunes come from there. Many, many other places, however, also have different types of bagpipes: over all of Europe, some of North Africa, and into the Middle East such as the Ottoman Empire.[1]
The Scottish pipes, the Great Pipe, or piob-mohr, first had only one drone pipe. The second pipe was added in the mid 1500s and the third pipe was added in the 1700s.[2]
Bagpipes have always been folk instruments, but after the 15th century some were used for court music, and others have survived as military instruments. For the chanter, two single-reed cane pipes are placed parallel, one pipe often sounding a drone or other accompaniment to the other pipe.Oct 6, 2023.
Bagpipes Media
A detail from the Cantigas de Santa Maria showing bagpipes with one chanter and a parallel drone (Spain, 13th century).
On this Serbian gajde, 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 Great Highland bagpipe practice chanter
Medieval bagpiper at the Cistercian monastery of Santes Creus, Catalonia, Spain
De doedelzakspeler ("Bagpipe Player"), Hendrick ter Brugghen, 1624
Happy Brothers by Uroš Predić (1887)
International Bagpipe Festival, Strakonice, 2018
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.
Bagpipes players from The City Of Auckland Pipe Band.
Ľubomír Párička playing bagpipes, Slovak Republic.
References
- ↑ "Scottish soldier's family honors him in Gallipoli - Türkiye News".
- ↑ "Brief history of bagpipes and how they arrived in Scotland". ipswichthistle.com. Archived from the original on 20 October 2010. Retrieved 27 September 2010.
