A Few Notes On The Bagpipes

The bag-pipes consists of an air-tight leather bag having three to five apertures, each of which contains a fixed stock or short tube. The stocks act as sockets for the reception of the pipes, and as air-chambers for the accomodation and protection of the reeds. The pipes are of three kinds:
(1) a simple valved insuffiation tube or “blow-pipe,” by means of which the performer fills the bag reservoir;
(2) the “chaunter“ (chanter) or the melody-pipe, having according to the variety of the bag-pipe a conical or a cylindrical bore, lateral holes, and in some cases keys and a bell; the “chaunter” is invariably made to speak by means of a double-reed;
(3) the “drones,” jointed pipes with cylindrical bore, generally terminating in a bell, but having no lateral holes and being capable, therefore, of producing but one fixed note. The main characteristic of the bag-pipe is the drone ground bass which sounds without intermission. Each drone is fitted with a beating-reed resembling the primitive “squeaker “ known to all country lads; it is prepared by making a cut partly across a piece of cane or reed, near the open end, and splitting back from this towards a joint or knot, thus raising a tongue or flap. The beating-reed is then fixed in a socket of the drone, which fits into the stock.

The sound is produced by the stream of air forced from the bag into the drone-pipe by the pressure of the performer’s arm, causing the tongue of reed to vibrate over the aperture, thus setting the whole column of air in vibration. The drone-pipe, like all cylindrical tubes with reed mouthpieces, has the acoustic properties of the closed pipe and produces the note of a pipe twice its length. The drones are tuned by means of sliding-joints.

The blow-pipe and the chaunter occupy positions at opposite extremities of the bag, which rests under the arm of the performer while the drones point over his shoulder. These are the main features in the construction of the bag-pipe, whose numerous varieties fall into two classes according to the method of inflating the bag:
(1) by means of the blow-pipe described above;
(2) by means of a small bellows connected by a valved feed-pipe with the bag and worked by the other arm or elbow to which it is attached by a ribbon or strap.

Class I. comprises: (a) the Highland bag-pipe; (b) the old Irish bag-pipe; (c) the cornemuse; (d) the bignou or biniou (Breton bag-pipe); (e) the Calabrian bag-pipe; (f) the ascaulus of the Greeks and Romans; (g) the tibia utricularis; (h) the chorus.

To Class II. belong: (a) the musette; (b) the Northumbrian or border bag-pipe; (c) the Lowland bag-pipe; (d) the union pipes of Ireland; (e) the surdelina of Naples. I.

The Highland Bagpipe
The construction of the Highland pipes is practically that given above. The chaunter consists of a conical wooden tube terminating in a hell and measuring from 14 to 16 in. including the reed. There are seven holes in front and one at the back for the thumb of the left hand, which fingers the upper holes while the right thumb merely supports the instrument. The holes are stopped by the under part of the joints of the fingers. There is in addition a double hole near the bell, which is never covered, and merely serves to regulate the pitch. As the double reed is not manipulated by the lips of the performer, only nine notes are obtained from the chaunter. The notes do not form any known diatonic scale, for in addition to the C and F being too sharp, the notes are not strictly in tune with each other. Donald MacDonald, in his treatise on the bag-pipe states that “the piper is to pay no attention to the flats and sharps marked on the clef, as they are not used in pipe music; yet the pipe imitates several different keys which are real, but ideal on the bag-pipe, as the music cannot be transposed for it into any other key than that in which it is first played or marked.”

Mr Glen, the great dealer in bag-pipes, gave it as his opinion “that if the chaunter were to be made perfect in any one scale, it would not go well with the drones. Also, there would not be nearly so much music produced (if you take into consideration that it has only nine invariable notes) as at present it adapts itself to the keys of A maj., D maj., B mm., G maj., E mm. and A mm. Of course we do not mean that it has all the intervals necessary to form scales in all those keys, but that we find it playing tunes that are in one or other of them.”

Mr Ellis considers that the natural scale of the chaunter of the bag-pipe corresponds most nearly with the Arab scale of Zalzal, a celebrated lutist who died c. A.D. 800. The three drones are usually tuned to A, the two smallest one octave below the A of the chaunter, and the largest two octaves below.

The excessive use of ornamental notes on the Highland bag-pipe has arisen from a technical peculiarity of the instrument, which makes a repetition of the same note difficult without the interpolation of what is known among pipers as “cuts “ or ”warblers,” i.e. grace notes fingered with great rapidity. These warblers, which consist not only of single notes but of groups. From three to seven notes, not consecutive but in leaps, assist in relieving the constant discord with the drone bass. Skilful pipers have been known to introduce warblers of as many as eleven notes between two beats in a bar. The use of musical notation for the Highland pipe tunes is a recent innovation; the pipers used verbal equivalents for the notes; for instance, the piobaireachd Coghiegh uha- Shie, “ War of peace,” which opens as shown here, was taken down by Capt. Niel MacLeod from a piper from Skye as verbally taught to apprentices as follows :— Hodroho, hodroho, haninin, hiechin, Hodroha, hodroho, hodroho, hachin, Hiodroho, hodroho, haninin, hiechin,” &c. The conclusion of the tune is thus expressed: Hiundratatateriri, hiendatatateriri, hiundratatateriri, hiundratatateriri.” Written down this seems a mere unintelligible jumble, but could we hear it, as sounded by the pipers, with due regard for the rhythmical value of notes, it would be a very different matter.

Alexander Campbell relates that a melody had to be taken down or translated “from the syllabic jargon of illiterate pipers into musical characters, which, when correctly done, he found to his astonishment to coincide exactly with musical notation.” A Highland bag-pipe of the 15th century, was exhibited at the Royal Military Exhibition in London in12890. There were two drones, inserted in a single stock in the form of a wide-spread fork, and tuned to A in unison with the lowest note of the chaunter, which had seven finger-holes in front and a thumb-hole at the back.

The old Irish Bag-pipe
Very little is known about this instrument. It is mentioned in the ancient Brehon Laws, said to date from the 5th century (they are cited in compilations of the 10th century), in describing the order of precedence of the king’s bodyguard and household. Poets, harpers, pipers, horn-blowers and jugglers have their place in the south-east part of the house. The old Irish bag-pipe had a long conical chaunter with a bell and apparently seven holes in front and a thumb-hole behind; there were two drones of different lengths, one very long, both set in the same stock. It is exceedingly difficult to procure any accurate information concerning the development of the bag-pipe in Ireland until it assumed the present form, known as the union-pipes, which belong to Class II.

The cornemuse and chalemie were the bag-pipes in use in France, Italy and the Netherlands before the advent of the musette, to which they bear the same relation as the old Irish bag-pipe does to the union-pipes, or the cornemusa or pica to the sampogna or surdelina in Italy. Two kinds of cornemuses were known in France during the 16th and 17th centuries, differing in one important structural detail, which affected the timbre of the instruments. The cornemuse or chalemie used by shepherds, and as a solo instrument, was similar to the Highland bag-pipe; it consisted of a leather bag, inflated by means of a valved blow-pipe; a large drone included the beating-reed, which measured 23/4 in., and was fixed in the stock; the small drone, 1 ft. in length including a reed 2 in. long, also had a beating-reed and was fixed in the same stock as the chaunter. The two drones were tuned to C. The chaunter had a conical bore and a double reed like an oboe, but hidden within the stock; it could be taken out and played separately, when the compass given by the eight holes (seven in front and a thumb-hole) C to C could be increased by a third to E, by overblowing the D and E an octave by :oral pressure of the breath and lips on the reed, now taken directly into the mouth.

The second kind of cornemuse was played only in concert with a family of instruments known as Hautbois de Poitou, a hautbois having the reed enclosed in an air-chamber, just as is the case with the reeds of the bag-pipe. This cornemuse had but one drone which could, like the others, be lengthened for tuning by drawing out the joint; the reed was not a beating-reed but a double reed like that of the chaunter; this constitutes the main difference between the two cornemuses. The chaunter had eight holes, the lowest of which was covered by a key enclosed in a perforated box.

The Sack pfeife or Dudel sack of Germany was an instrument of some importance made in no less than five sizes. They consist of the Grosser Bock or doublebass bag-pipe, a formidable-lookinginstrument with a single cylindrical drone of a great length, terminating, as did the chaunter also, in a curved ram’s horn (to which the name was due). The chaunter had seven finger-holes and a vent-hole in front, and a thumb-hole at the back. The drone was tuned to G, an octave below the chaunter. Compass of Compass of chaunter. chaunter.

The Bock, of similar construction, was pitched a fourth higher in C. The Schaferpfeife had two drones in B and F. Praetorius explains that the upper notes of the chaunter of this sackpfeife had a faulty intonation which could not be corrected owing to the absence of the thumb-hole, usual in all other varieties of the instrument.

The Hümmelchen had two drones tuned to F and C. The Dudey or treble sackpfeife was the smallest of the family, and had three drones, and a chaunter with a compass. Praetorius also mentions a different kind of sackpfeife he saw in Magdeburg which was somewhat larger than the schaferpfeife and pitched a third lower. There were two chaunters mounted in one stock, each having three holes in front and one for the thumb at the back. The right-hand chaunter sounded the five notes D, E, F, G, A, and the left-hand chaunter, G, A, B, C, D. The performer was thus able to play simple two-part melodies on the Magdeburg bag-pipe. Praetorius mentions in addition the French bag-pipe (muselte), similar in pitch to the hummelchen, but inflated by means of the bellows.

The Calabrian bag-pipe has a bag of goatskin with the hair left on, and is inflated by means of a blow-pipe. There are two drones and two chaunters, all fixed on one stock. Each chaunter has three or four finger-holes and the right-hand pipe has the fourth covered by a key enclosed in a perforated box; both drones and chaunter have double reeds. The ancient Greek bag-pipe belonged to this class of instrument, inflated by the mouth, but it is not certain that they had drones.

II. The second class of instruments, inflated by means of a small bellows worked by the arm, has as prototype the musette, which is said to have been evolved during the 15th century;3 from the end of the 15th century there were always musette players at the French court, and we find the instrument fully developed at the beginning of the 17th century when Mersenne gives a full description of all its parts. The chief characteristic of the musette was a certain rustic Watteau-like grace. The face of the performer was no longer distorted by inflating the bag; for the long cumbersome drones was substitute,d a short barrel droner, containing the necessary lengths of tubing for four or five drones, reduced to the smallest and most conipact form. The bores were pierced longitudinally through the thickness of the wood in parallel channels, communicating with each other in twos or threes and providing the requisite length for each drone. The reeds were double ”hautbois” reeds all set in a wooden stock or box within the bag; by means of regulators or slides, called layettes, moving up and down in longitudinal grooves round the circumference of the barrel, the length of the drone pipes could be so regulated that a simple harmonic bass, consisting mainly of the common chord, could be obtained.

The chaunter, of narrow cylindrical bore, was also furnished with a double reed and had eleven holes, four of which had keys, giving a compass of twelve notes from F to C. This number of holes was not invariable. After Mersenne’s time, Jean Hotteterre (d. 1678), a court musician introduced certain improvements in the drones of the rnusette. His son Martin Hotteterre (d. 1712) added a second chaunter to the musette, shorter than the first, to which it was attached instead of being inserted into the stock. The Hotteterre chaunter, known as le petit chalumeau, had six keys, whereas the grand chalumeau had seven, besides eight finger-holes and a venthole in the bell. All these keys were actuated by the little finger of the left hand and the thumb of the right hand, which were not required to stop holes on the large chaunter.

The grand and petit chalumeaux are figured in detail with keys and holes in a rare and anonymous work by Borjon (or Bourgeont), who gives much interesting information concerning one of the most popular instruments of his day. The bellows, he states, borrowed from the organ, were added to the musette about forty or fifty years before he wrote his treatise. The compass of the improved musétte of Hotteterre was eight holes of the grand chalumeau. The chaunters and drones were pierced with a very narrow cylindrical bore, and double reeds were used throughout, causing them to speak as closed pipes, which accounts for the deep pitch of these relatively short pipes.

Praetorius in 1618 figures and describes the Magdeburg sack pfeife with two chaunters, but without keys and with a conical bore. The surdelina or sam pogna is described and illustrated by Mersennei as the musette de Naples; its construction was very complicated. Mersenne states that the instrument was invented by Jean Baptiste Riva (who was living in Paris in 1620), Dom Julio and Vincenze; but Mersenne seems to have made alterations himself in the original instrument, which are not very clearly explained. There were two chaunters with narrow cylindrical bore and having both linger-holes and keys; and two drones each having ten keys. The four pipes were fixed in the same stock, and double reeds were used throughout; the bag was inflated by means of bellows. Passenti of Venice published a collection of melodies for the zampogna under the title of Canora Zampogna.

The modern Lowland bag-pipe differs from the Highland bag-pipe mainly in that it is blown by bellows instead of by the mouth. The Northumbrian or Border bag-pipe, also blown by means of bellows, is chiefly distinguished by having a chaunter stopped at the lower end so that when all the holes are closed, the pipe is silent. There are seven finger-holes, one for the thumb, and a varying number of keys. The four drones are fixed in one stock and are tuned by means of stoppers, so that, as in the musette, any one of them may be silenced.

The union pipes of the 18th century, or modern Irish bag-pipe, blown by bellows, had one chaunter with seven finger-holes, one thumb-hole and eight keys, which together gave the chromatic scale in two octaves. The drones were tuned to A in different octaves, and three regulators or drones with keys, played by the elbow, produced a kind of harmony; the regulators correspond to the sliders on the drone-barrel of the musette.

History of The Bagpipe
There is reason to believe that the origin of the bag-pipe must be sought in remote antiquity. No instrument in any degree similar to it is represented on any of the monuments of Egypt or Assyria known at the present day; we are, nevertheless, able to trace it in ancient Persia and by inference in Egypt, in Chaldaea and in ancient Greece. The most characteristic feature of the bag-pipe is not the obvious bag or air-reservoir from which the instrument derives its name in most languages, but the fixed harmony of the buzzing drones. The principle of the drone, i.e. the beating reed sunk some three inches down the pipe, was known to the ancient Egyptians. In a pipe discovered in a mummy-case and now in the museum at Turin, was found a straw beatingreed in position. The arghoul, a modern Egyptian instrument, possesses the characteristic feature of drone and chaunter without the bag.

The same instrument occurs once in the hieroglyphs, being sounded on a mural painting preserved in the Musée Guimet. During Jacques de Morgan’s excavations in Persia some terracotta figures of musicians, dating from the 8th century b.c., were discovered in a tell (mound) at Susa, two of which appear to be playing bag-pipes; the chaunter, curved in the shape of a hook from the stock, is clearly visible, the bag under the arm is indicated, and the lips are pursed as if in the act of blowing.

It is curious that the bag-pipe was known in Italy and Spain during the middle ages, the two countries through which Eastern culture was introduced into Europe, by the name of zampogna or sampogna, which strongly recall the Chaldaean sumponya; and further that in the same countries the word sinfonia should be coexistent with zampogna and have the original meaning attached to the classical, “a concord of sound.”

The Greeks had undoubtedly received some kind of bag-pipe from Egypt, or from Chaldaea, but it remained a rustic instrument used only by shepherds and peasants.

That the bag-pipe was introduced by the Romans ‘into the British Isles is a conclusion supported by the discovery in the foundations of the praetorian camp at Richborough of a small bronze figure of a Roman soldier playing the tibia utricuiaris. The Romans had instituted colleges for training pipers on the bag-pipe, a practice followed in the Highlands in the 18th century and notably in Skye. Bianchini gives a drawing of a bag-pipe with two long drones, which, he says, was copied from a marble relief over the gateway of the palace of the prince of Santa Croce in Rome, near the church of San Carlo ad Catinarios. If the drawing be accurate and the sculpture of classical Roman period, it would corroborate the details of the instrument held by the little bronze figure of the Roman soldier.

From England the bag-pipe spread to Caledonia and Ireland, where it took root, identifying itself withthe life of the people, as a military instrument held in great esteem by the Celtic races. The bag-pipe was used at weddings and funerals, and at all festivals; to lighten labour, during the 18th century, as for instance in Skye, in 1786, when the inhabitants were engaged in roadmaking, and each party of labourers had its bag-piper.

It was used in old mysteries at Coventry in 1534. Readers who wish to follow closely the history of the bag-pipe in the British Isles should consult Sir John Graham Dalyell’s Musical Memoirs of Scotland (London, 1849, with illustrative plates). On the downfall of the Roman empire, the bag-pipe, sharing the fate of other instruments, probably lingered for a time among itinerant musicians, actors, jugglers etc;

It was about 1250 that the human or animals’ heads were used as stocks and as bells for the chaunters. The opinion advanced that the bellows were first added to the bag-pipe in Ireland seems untenable and is quite unsupported by facts; the bellows were in all probability added to the union-pipes in imitation of the musette. In the Image of Ireland and Discoverie of Woodkarne, by John Derrick, 1581, the Irish insurgents are portrayed in pictures full of life and character, as led to rebellion and pillage by a piper armed with a bag- pipe, similar to the Highland bag-pipe.

The cradle of the musette is inconceivable anywhere but in France; among the courtiers and elegant world, turning from the pomps and luxuries of court life to an artificial admiration and cult of Nature, idealized to harmonize with silks and satins., The cornemuse of shepherds and rustic swains became the fashionable instrument, but as inflating the bag by the breath distorted the performer’s face, the bellows were substituted, and the whole instrument was refined in appearance and tone-quality to fit it for its more exalted position. The Hotteterre family and that of Chédeville were past masters of the art of making the musette and of playing upon it; they counted among their pupils the highest and noblest in the land. The cult of the musette continued throughout the 17th and 18th centuries until the seventies, when its popularity was on the wane.

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