The Great Highland Bagpipe

Bagpipes are found over much of the world, and are among the oldest musical instruments still in use. They are reed instruments, meaning they produce their sound by passing air over thin pieces of reed or cane; the reeds vibrate in the air stream, and that vibration is amplified by the shape of the instrument.

This basic design is seen in instruments found in the ruins of ancient Sumer and Egypt. We’ll never know what musical genius first thought of adding a bag (no doubt adapted from a blacksmith’s bellows) to make possible a constant airflow, but it was a very long time ago—the Romans are known to have played bagpipes. Today some form of bagpipe is found in Italy, France, the Balkans, India and many other places. None, however, matches the Great Highland Bagpipe for size and volume.

In a way, a Scottish piper plays four instruments in one. Each of the three drones on his or her shoulder contains a reed made from a section of cane, like a small length of bamboo. A flap is cut in the side of the cane, and this tongue vibrates when the air from the bag passes through (modern reeds combine high-tech materials with this same ancient technology). The drone is tuned by adjusting its length—the top section of the drone slides up and down on the lower—to play constant notes that harmonize with the melody being played on the chanter.

The chanter contains the fourth reed. It resembles an oboe’s reed, being formed of two pieces of cane tied together. The air passes between the two pieces, making both vibrate with more volume than a drone reed. The chanter is cut with eight holes; covering different combinations of holes with the fingers produces a short scale of one octave plus a note. This scale is similar to, but not the same as, the A-flat scale of classical Western music. It’s a challenge for pipe music composers to create interesting melodies with such a limited range of notes.

What makes bagpipes unique, of course, is the bag. This is a simply an air reservoir. A piper fills the bag by blowing in the blowpipe; a one-way valve lets air go into the bag and out the drones and chanter, but not back out the blowpipe. When the piper draws a breath, he squeezes the bag with his arm to keep the air pressure constant on the four reeds. One of the first techniques a piper has to learn is how to keep the alternating pressure from lungs and arm constant so that the sound does not waver; it’s not easy. Between the physical difficulty of playing the pipes and the numerous special techniques that have to be mastered, it takes seven years or more to become an expert.

Constant volume is one of the chief characteristics of the bagpipes. Once they are ‘struck in’ they play until the tune is finished (another technique a piper has to learn is when to stop blowing and let the bag empty). And because the piper cannot mark notes with standard rests (moments of silence) to make them stand out clearly, he has to learn a multitude of grace notes. These are very quick combinations of notes inserted between the main notes of a melody to make them more clear and interesting. Piobaireachd (pronounced peebrock), the classical music of the bagpipes, is characterized by wonderfully intricate patterns of grace notes.

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