The Great Highland Bagpipe and Other Fascinating Creatures
Informational Essay, copyright 1999 by Bridget Kelly
"Bagpipe [F. musette; G. Dudelsack, Sackpfeife; It. pira, sampogna]. Generic name for a number of instruments which have one or (usually) several reed-pipes attached to a windbag, from which air is blown into the pipes; also, specific name for the Irish and Scottish varieties of this family. One or two of the pipes, called chanter (chaunter), are provided with sound holes and are used for melodies, while the other, larger ones, called drones, produce one tone each and are used for the accompaniment." Harvard Dictionary of Music
The bagpipes have long been one of the world's more misunderstood musical instruments. They are generally thought of in conjunction with men in skirts, and are much abused for their distinctive, outdoors-only sound. Even those who like them appreciate them more for the atmosphere they evoke than for their actual musical merits. They were outlawed twice by the English, in Ireland and in Scotland, at completely different times, and even today are legally instruments of war, not instruments of music, legally taxable as such. Yet the bagpipes, most commonly seen in modern times in the form of the Great Highland Bagpipe, are an ancient family of musical instruments dating back beyond historical record. The legend of Nero fiddling while Rome burned is incorrect; according to Suetonius, the crazed emperor was playing the bagpipes. A picture of what could only be a set of bagpipes appears on a coin from the empire of Nero. In the Middle Ages, bagpipes were used in religious ceremonies as accompaniment to the chants of monks. And almost every European country has a surviving instrument in this family, if not several variations thereof.
There are two kinds of bagpipes, distinguished by the source of the air that powers the pipes from the bag. The older, more famous kind, represented by the Highland Pipes, is the mouth-blown type; air is blown into the bag directly from the mouth of the player. Other examples of this type of bagpipe are the German Sackpfeife, the Cornemuse, the Biniou of Brittany, the Calabrian Bagpipe, and the Old Irish Bagpipe. The second kind came into being in Europe around the 16th C., and is different from the first in that the air is supplied by a small pair of bellows placed under the elbow of the player, with the bag under the other elbow. The most well-known example of this is the Irish Bagpipe, or the Uilleann pipe, also called the Union pipe by those who can't pronounce the Gaelic word for 'elbow'. Other examples of this type include the French musette, the Northumbrian Bagpipe, the Lowland Bagpipe (which is a Highland Bagpipe with a bellows added) and the Spanish Bagpipe or gaita, from the Galician region of Spain.
The Highland bagpipe consists of an airtight bag, carried under the player's elbow. From this bag come five pipes: one is the blow-pipe, into which the player blows to fill the bag; this pipe has a valve at the farther end to prevent the air from flowing directly back out of the bag into the piperıs mouth. Three of the other pipes are drones, of lengths proportional to their tones. The longest is about three feet long. Each drone is fitted with a single reed similar to that of a clarinet or organ. They each produce a single unchanging note, which can be tuned with a slider located on the pipe itself which varies the length of the air column. The fifth pipe is the chanter (also called a chaunter), which is about fourteen inches long and has seven finger-holes and a thumb hole, as well as two holes drilled lower down that regulate the pitch and are never covered. The chanter has a double reed like that of an oboe. The chanterıs range is only nine notes, from G to A (above the staff), inclusive. The drones are tuned to E; low e on the chanter is what the two tenor drones are tuned to, and the bass drone is an octave below that e. This is according to my father, who has no idea what tone that would be on a piano. The average Highland Bagpipe is in the approximate key of B flat, but they do exist in other keys.
Until recently bagpipe music was not written in the usual notation system, but operated by its own system wherein the notes had Gaelic onomatopaeic names (hodroho, hananin, hiechin, hachin, etc.). This is the reason for the vagueness of the key of the instrument; it was not designed to be used with an orchestra. Some bagpipes are more specifically tuned; the musette was in fact often used with orchestras until the mid to late 18th Century.
There are two kinds of music for the Highland bagpipes. There is music intended for performance by a solo piper, which is governed by complex traditions and is played by highly standardized techniques in competitions. This is known as piobaireach (pibroch), and usually consists of a series of intricate variations on a melody, played at its own tempo by a lone piper. This is the sort of thing you hear in movies played through the mist by a lone piper out on the moors. The other kind is the music played by pipe bands, which consists of marches, airs, and various other very Western-sounding kinds of music. A pipe band usually consists of a number of pipers accompanied by three kinds of drums (snare, tenor, and bass) and is often led by a pipe major, with sometimes a separate drum major to conduct the drummers. The most often heard tunes of this genre are Amazing Grace and Scotland the Brave, and similar tunes in that vein of either patriotism or sentiment. The two styles are as distinct in origin as in character. The Highland pipes, along with the clan system and kilts, were outlawed in 1745 as punishment for the Highland clans' support for Charles Stuart's attempt to recapture the throne of the United Kingdom. The piobaireachd today are generally laments for Bonnie Prince Charlie, practiced in secret. Much of the music played by pipe bands comes from the time of Queen Victoria; she had a royal pipe band, and her master piper made a project of recording music from old pipers and other sources, which he published in a bound volume. The piobaireach music retains the character of traditional Celtic music, which in its most ancient preserved forms resembles the traditional music of the Indian subcontinent, while the music for the massed pipes is distinctly Western in style.
This reflects the strange frozen-in-time quality of the instrument. It has been noted that its intonation closely resembles certain "Arabic and Persian scales"; according to a study quoted in Grove's Dictionary of Music & Musicians, "the intervals between b' and d", and between e" and f" are equally divided so that the c' and the f" are each about a quarter of a tone sharp, and this particular tuning has been traditionally maintained by the pipers." This is not a usual Western scale, either major or minor, and yet the music most often heard from bagpipes is as Western as any music in existence.
The uilleann pipe is an extremely elaborate and complicated instrument with a completely different sound and character than the Highland pipe. The chanter has seven finger holes, a thumb hole, and eight keys; its range is a 2-octave chromatic scale beginning and ending on D. There are three drones, tuned to A in different octaves, and in addition there are three pipes called regulators, fitted with keys operated by the player's wrist. They are capable of providing a simple harmony. This instrument is played in a sitting position. It too is capable of a number of different styles of music, from solos to ensembles.
This instrument was adopted by the Irish as a result of the old Irish bagpipes being outlawed by the English. The old mouth-blown style was adopted by the Scots and transformed into the modern Great Highland pipes. Both styles of pipes are flourishing today and can be found in such diverse situations as pub jam sessions and pop music recordings, besides their classical traditional aspects which are experiencing a revitalization in this day and age of "finding your roots". A number of artists have released new CDs featuring traditional music, either pure or in adapted forms; these include recordings of bagpipes from all over the world, particularly the gaita in the past two or three years. The Great Highland Pipes remain the most distinctive and popular performers at highland and Celtic festivals around the world, and the uilleann pipes are being gradually absorbed into the mainstream of global culture.
Sources:
- Colles, H. C., Ed. Grove's Dictionary of Music & Musicians, 3rd Edition. Vol. I.
N. Y. The MacMillan Company, 1935. - Apel, Willi. Harvard Dictionary of Music. Examples: uilleann pipes:
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1945. - Anecdotes, practical experience, and miscellaneous information provided by John Kelly, in a series of conversations, interviews, stories, and performances between 1979 and 1998.
- Kilberry.com, the homepage of Kilberryıs, a bagpipe manufacturer based in Edinburgh.
- AberdeenBagpipe.com, the homepage of the Aberdeen Bagpipe Supply Company