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.

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.

The Scottish pipes, the Great Pipe, or piob-mhor, first had only one drone pipe. The second pipe was added in the mid 1500s and the third pipe was added in the 1700s.

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.

 Usage in warfare 
Bagpipes have been used in war for an extended time period, with some accounts of it going back to the Scottish Battle of Pinkie in 1547. Bagpipes have been used in war to raise morale upon others whilst demoralizing enemies, and coordinating troops and tactics, an example of this being how it was used within clans in the Jacobite Uprisings due to their distinctive and loud noise. Military usage of bagpipes can be for funerals or parades, in which case their likely played by Pipe and Drum bands.

 Historical background 

 Possible ancient origin 
Evidence of the usage of bagpipes is still to be proven. However, a number of visual and textual hints have been proposed. The Oxford History of Music posits that a sculpture of bagpipes has been found on a Hittite slab at Euyuk in Anatolia, dated to 1000 BC. 

TBA

References