bagpipe

bagpipe, musical instrument whose ancient origin was probably in Mesopotamia from which it was carried east and west by Celtic migrations. It was used in ancient Greece and Rome and has been long known in India. Some form of bagpipe was later used in nearly every European country; it was particularly fashionable in 18th-century France, where it was called the musette. Its widest use and greatest development was in the British Isles, particularly Northumberland, Ireland, and Scotland. The island of Skye was the home of a school for pipers. The Highland pipe of Scotland, the most well-known type, was a martial instrument and from it comes the modern great pipe; but at least six other types were once used in the British Isles. The basic construction of a bagpipe consists of a bag, usually leather, which is inflated either by mouth through a tube or by a bellows worked by the arm; one or two chanters (or chaunters), melody pipes having finger holes and fitted usually with double reeds; and one or more drones, which produce one sustained tone each and usually have single reeds, though the musette drones have double reeds (see reed instrument). Associated with folk and military music, it has been neglected by composers, possibly because of its short range.

Bibliography

See T. H. Podnos, Bagpipes and Tunings (1974); T. Collinson, The Bagpipe (1975).

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bagpipe

Wind instrument consisting of two or more single- or double-reed pipes, the reeds being vibrated by wind fed by arm pressure on a skin or cloth bag. The pipes are held in wooden sockets tied into the bag, which is inflated either by the mouth or by bellows strapped to the body. Melodies are played on the fingerholes of the melody pipe, or chanter, while the remaining pipes, or drones, sound single notes. Bagpipes existed by about AD 100. The early bag was an animal bladder or a nearly whole sheepskin or goatskin. Bagpipes have always been folk instruments, but after the 15th century some were used for court music, and others have survived as military instruments. An important related instrument is the Irish union (or uilleann) pipe.