Bagpipes CMYK Layout 1

The Bagpipes!

Imagine you’re walking along in a beautiful, This means that the bagpipes can produce a quiet glen, which is a type of small valley. You’re sound even when the player is taking a breath. going about your business, enjoying the peace of All the piper needs to do is press on the bag, and nature. Suddenly, you hear something that the air keeps flowing. sounds like a large goose being strangled. Then, So, pushing air out of a bag is a pretty great way the sound of suffering fowl is replaced by music. to make music, right? Well, yes, but it does have What is that? a drawback. Since pipers don’t put their mouths That’s a set of bagpipes, an ancient instrument directly on the reed as an oboe, clarinet, or with its origin in the Middle East. Throughout bassoon player does, they can’t easily stop the their history, bagpipes have played an important flow of air. In fact, it’s impossible for a player to role in the folk music of many countries, make the short pauses in the airflow that divide particularly in Scotland and Ireland. one note from another. If you look at the diagram to the right, you’ll So, pipers have to use something else to divide see a bag with up to five tubes or pipes attached the notes. They use grace notes. These are very to it. short notes that are played in between the regular notes. Players even string several grace notes • One pipe is called the blowpipe. The piper together into short little melodies called gracings uses this to fill the bag with air. or movements. When you listen to a good piper • One pipe is called the chanter. The chanter play, it’s hard to hear the individual grace notes or has a double reed at the end that attaches to movements, but that’s what makes the bubbly the bag, and a series of holes carved into it. sound also associated with the instrument. The piper covers or uncovers the holes in the chanter to play the melody, much as a recorder player does. • Then, there can be one, two, or three more pipes. These pipes are called the drones. The drones also have reeds in them, but they only play one note. They give the bagpipes their distinctive humming sound. So, how do bagpipe players bring all these pipes together to play music? The bagpipes are technically woodwind instruments, like the clarinet, bassoon, or oboe. They make sound by forcing air over a reed. The air causes the reed to vibrate. The reed then makes the air in the resonator (in this case the air in the chanter and the drones) vibrate, and that produces a sound. Unlike oboe, bassoon, or saxophone players, however, bagpipe players do not blow air directly over the reed. Instead, they fill a bag with air and then press on the bag to force the air out.

1 The bagpipes that we’re most used to seeing instrument, we should remember that traditional today are called the Great Highland Bagpipes. bagpipe makers didn’t have much else to work They come from the northern, mountainous part with. Originally, the bagpipes were an of Scotland. This type of pipes has three drones, instrument played by the common people, not (each tuned to A), and a range of only nine the upper classes. Unfortunately, this means that notes – G through A. Still, the we don’t have very many Great Highland Bagpipes can written records about how early play a variety of music, ranging bagpipes were constructed or from marches, jigs, and reels to played. Nonetheless, bagpipe the traditional Scottish folk music and traditions connect tunes called piobaireachd (which us to our history, and they tell sounds like “peeb-rock”). us a little bit about how people lived long ago. One of the most notable things about the Great Highland Today – to the great relief of Bagpipes is their volume. This pipers and animals – bagpipes instrument is loud. Really, really are made out of modern loud. These pipes are so loud, in materials. Gortex® and other fact, that they were used in airtight fabrics have replaced battle to scare the enemy. At the sheep’s stomach. Some the time of the American pipers also use drone reeds Revolution, British regiments made out of synthetic often had a piper march with materials, although chanter them into battle, and even reeds are still made out of cane. today, you can find regiments of On their journey from the Great Highland Bagpipe players Middle East to Great Britain, in the British military. JustASC / Shutterstock.com A young piper competes at the Highland Games the bagpipes changed quite a Bagpipes weren’t always this big bit. In each country, pipers and loud. In fact, they didn’t always have three developed their own style of instrument and drones. We’re not sure exactly who made the music to fit in with their own particular culture. first set of bagpipes. Maybe it was a shepherd In some countries, the pipes were small, perhaps somewhere in the Middle East who figured out with only one drone. In other countries, people a way to use a sheep or goatskin as an air curved the chanter up to project the sound. One reservoir for a flute. No matter what the origin, famous type of bagpipes is the uillean (which however, the bagpipes spread over time to sounds like “ill-n”) pipes from Ireland. These ancient Greece and Rome. Eventually, they pipes are small and have a sweet sound. The made their way to Europe. piper doesn’t use a blowpipe to fill the bag, but rather a type of air pump called a bellows. The The first bags were actually made out of animal uilleann pipes are quiet enough to be played skin (eew) or sometimes sheep’s stomachs (double inside, and they have a special type of drone that eew). To this skin or stomach, the maker would allows the player to create chords and play in then attach the pipes made out of wood. The various keys. reeds were different, too. They were made out of a piece of an actual plant called a cane. This People today still play many wonderful variations plant has a hollow stalk. A little bit of one side of the bagpipes. You might hear them played in was cut away from the rest, and this little bit folk music concerts, in parades, at weddings, or in could then vibrate and produce the sound when special religious ceremonies. So, the next time it was placed in the instrument. you hear bagpipes, take a moment to appreciate this old and amazing instrument. Although we might find it gruesome to use animal skins and organs to make a musical © 2012 Plank Road Publishing, Inc. 2