Bagpipes

What it means

The bagpipe is a wind instrument in which an air bag serves as a reservoir, filled by the player through a blowpipe and kept under pressure with the arm. Air flows steadily from the bag into a chanter with finger holes for the melody and into one or more drone pipes, which sound a sustained, usually single-note root or a fifth continuously.

Musical use

Bagpipes exist in many regional forms across Europe and the Near East, with the Scottish Highland bagpipe, with its three drone pipes and loud sound, being the best-known variant in the West; other significant traditions are found in Ireland, Galicia, the Balkans, and North Africa, among others. The bagpipe traditionally accompanies dances, processions, and military occasions, its penetrating, sustained sound carrying well outdoors.

The bagpipe should be distinguished from the hurdy-gurdy, which produces a similar drone sound but generates it through a turned wheel on strings rather than air through pipes. Regionally related, simpler forms such as the duda usually differ from the bagpipe through a smaller number of drone pipes and a plainer, less standardised construction.

Performance practice

Practise filling the bag and keeping it under even pressure separately from fingering, so the drone pipes sound without interruption while you breathe. Since the bagpipe allows no pauses in the air flow, shape the melody's phrasing and articulation through deliberate fingering technique and brief ornaments, rather than through changes in volume or note length as on other wind instruments.