There’s meat and music here, as the fox said when he ate the bagpipe.—Gaelic Proverb.

The “Encyclopædia” definition—The simple reed—Early forms—Simple bagpipes—The chorus—The volynka—Continental pipes—British pipes—The Northumbrian—The Irish—The Highland—Tuning—Modern pipes—Prize pipes.

“A wind instrument whose fixed characteristic has always been two or more reed pipes attached to and sounded by a wind chest or bag, which bag has in turn been supplied either by the lungs of the performer or by a bellows.”

This is the encyclopædia definition, and generally speaking it is correct. But the bag is certainly an addition to the simple reed or shepherd’s pipe. And if we wish to go further back we can go to the time when a schoolboy on his way to school pulled a green straw from the cornfield, and biting off a bit, trimmed the end and made for himself a pipe. “Many a pipe,” says J. F. Campbell, “did boys make of straws in the days of my youth, and much discord did we produce in trying to play on the slender oaten pipe in emulation of John Piper.” Boys being still boys, they still pull the green straws in the passing by, and no doubt if the pipes were not already in existence they would again grow out of this primitive pipe, slowly but surely. Without the bag the pipe is the most ancient of all instruments. It was quite natural that people should try to form sounds by blowing through a tube, and afterwards to vary the sounds either by varying the size or shape of the tube or by fitting into it some special mechanism. The pipe was well known to the Trojans, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, who had different kinds for different measures, and from contemporary writings we learn that the strain of blowing these early pipes was so great that the player had to bandage his lips and cheeks with a leathern muzzle. One ancient picture represents a player blowing a triple pipe, that is, three pipes joined at the mouth-piece, but separate further down, a performance which must have made the need for some improved method of supplying wind very obvious. The name of the genius who first thought of having a reserve supply in a bag attached to the pipes, which would keep an equable current for the purposes of the music, while at the same time it would relieve the player’s mouth of the continued strain of blowing, is lost to posterity, but in all probability the idea was originated at different places and at different times by different people. Mac Lean, in his History of the Celtic Language, considers the bagpipe as originally consisting of a bladder with drones and chanter of reeds and bulrushes, and affirms that he himself made and played on such an instrument. The first real bagpipe would, however, be a skin, most likely that of a goat or kid, and the invention of the valve in the mouth-piece would follow as a matter of course—that is, if the man who thought of the bag did not also think of having a bellows. There were, no drones in the early pipes. St. Jerome, who lived in the fifth century, says that at the synagogue, in ancient times there was a simple species of bagpipe, consisting of a skin or leather bag, with two pipes, through one of which the bag was inflated, the other emitting the sound. This was the first real bagpipe and it was also, it may be added, the germ of the organ, for the bagpipe is but the organ reduced to its simplest expression.

There was an ancient instrument, called the chorus, which seems to have been closely related to the bagpipe. The chorus was composed of the skin of an animal, which was inflated by a pipe in the back of the neck, and had another pipe issuing from the mouth. That it was not exactly the same as the bagpipe is evident from the fact that it was called alterum genus cori to distinguish it from the instrument composed of a bag specially manufactured with mouth-piece and pipe, which was known as unum genus cori. Giraldus Cambrensis, one of the most authoritative writers of the twelfth century, assigns the chorus to Scotland, but says nothing of its construction, although he credits the country with superior musical skill. Some ancient writers class the chorus with stringed instruments, and assert that it has no connection whatever with the bagpipe. Living as we do at the beginning of the twentieth century, we cannot possibly decide such a delicate point. And it does not matter much that we cannot.

Those who hold that the instrument was originally imported into Scotland believe that the parent of the Scottish bagpipe was an instrument known as the volynka, found in some provinces of the Russian Empire and ascribed more particularly to the Finns, who called it pilai. It was a rude instrument, consisting of two tubes and a mouth-piece, all apart, inserted in a raw, hairy goatskin. It was not held in high esteem, for when the Czar degraded the Archbishop of Novogorod in 1569 he alleged that the worthy father was “fitter for a bagpiper leading dancing bears than for a prelate.” But no less than five different kinds of bagpipes were known on the Continent in the seventeenth century, some of them with very high qualities as musical instruments. They were:—

I. The cornemuse, a simple instrument inflated by the mouth, with a chanter having eight apertures for notes, but without any drones.

II. The chalemie, or shepherd’s pipe, used by peasants at festivals, and also in country churches. It was inflated by the mouth, had a chanter with ten holes, and had also two drones.

III. The mussette, which was inflated by a bellows. It had a chanter with twelve notes, besides other apertures and valves opened by keys, and with four reeds for drones, enclosed in a barrel. It was a complicated instrument, and elaborately made. In one instance, we read, the bag of the mussette was made of velvet embroidered with fleurs de lis. It was, however, the “class” variety of the bagpipe, and was played before Royalty. The mussette was said to sound most sweetly, “especially in the hands of Destouches, the Royal Piper.” So they had a royal piper in those days and the pipes were honoured.

IV. The surdelina of Naples, an instrument with two drones, two chanters, and numerous keys.

V. The Italian peasant’s bagpipe, having two chanters, each with a single key, and one drone.

In Germany the instrument was known as the sackpfeife, in Italy as the cornamusa, in Rome as tibia utricularis, in Lower Brittany as bignou, and other Continental names for it were tiva, ciarmella, samponia or samphoneja and zampugna.

There was besides the simple combination of reed and bladder, so simple that it could be made by the shepherd boy himself, without the aid of tools and without any special aptitude for mechanics. From it spring all the others which demand the skill of the finished artisan and the help of turning laths and latter-day implements. The Italian bagpipe, which was made familiar in Britain through the wandering pifferari, was a very rude instrument, consisting of a goat’s skin, with an enormous drone, on which the player performed by means of a mouth tube, another player making the melody on a separate chanter. A visitor to Naples in 1824 describes a musician in a sheepskin coat, with the wool outwards, playing a bagpipe, of which the bag consisted of “the undressed skin of a goat inflated by one of the legs in its original shape.” How anything could be inflated by the leg of a goat he does not stop to inform us, but as the bagpipe now used in Italy is very agreeable and also presentable, though limited in power, it must have been improved considerably since 1824. That it did exist in a more finished condition is evident from the statement of another traveller, made in 1850, that he had heard the national music of Hungary played at Pesth on the dudelsack, “a genuine bagpipe, with a fine drone, adorned in front with a goat’s head, and covered with a goat’s skin.” It is not clear whether he means that the bag or the drone was adorned in front with the goat’s head, but most likely it was the bag, and the head would be in its original relation to the skin of the goat. The sackpfeife (bagpipe) and chalemie (shepherd’s pipe) seem to have been intimately associated with the wandering minstrels of Germany from time immemorial, and under the name of dudey or dudelsack, is still well known to the German peasant.

There are three recognised kinds of bagpipes in the British Islands:—

I. The Northumbrian bagpipe.

II. The Irish bagpipe.

III. The Great Highland Bagpipe.

The Northumbrian bagpipe is in two forms, one like the Highland, but of smaller dimensions and milder tone, and the other a miniature of this, and having the same relation to it as a fife has to a German band. The Lowland bagpipe of Scotland may be identified with the Northumbrian, but it is looked on rather contemptuously by the devotees of the Highland, because, in their opinion, it merely imitates other instruments, and is not fitted to perform what they consider the perfection of pipe music—the pibroch.

The Northumbrian and the Lowland pipes were easily carried about, and were much gentler than the great Highland, but they did not resemble those used on the Continent. They had the same tone as the Highland, but were less sonorous, and were blown by a bellows put in motion by the arm opposite to that under which the bag was held. In this latter respect they were similar to the Irish, and like them they had the drones fixed in one stock and laid horizontally over the arm, not borne on the shoulder. The real Lowland bagpipe, however, never got farther than two drones. A new form of the Northumbrian was played until very lately, perhaps still is. It also was a bellows instrument, and had several keys on the chanter, which gave it a chromatic scale. A peculiarity of its fingering was that only one hole was uncovered at a time, the end of the chanter being kept shut. Although the Great Highland Bagpipe has now surpassed the Lowland, the latter is not quite extinct, and a few years ago there were, even in Aberdeenshire, at least two performers on it. In the Borders of Scotland there were probably many more. The Northumbrian pipes, it may be added, were often wholly formed of ivory, and richly ornamented with silver. The bag was covered with cloth or tartan, and fringed or otherwise adorned. The compass of the old Northumbrian small pipe chanter was only of eight notes (one less than that of the Highland); but with a few keys to produce semi-tones, all the old Northumbrian airs could be played. The modern chanter has been lengthened by the addition of keys until the scale extends from D below the treble clef to B above it.

The Irish bagpipe is the instrument in its most elaborate form. It also is supplied with wind by a bellows. The drones are all fixed on one stock, and have keys which are played by the wrist of the right hand. The reeds are soft and the tones very sweet and melodious, and there is a harmonious bass which is very effective in the hands of a good player. Some of the drones are of great length, winding as many as three times the length of the apparent tube. The player is seated with one side of the bellows tied firmly to his body, the other to his right arm, the drones under his left leg, and the end of the chanter resting on a pad of leather on his knee, on which it is tipped for the purpose of articulating many of the notes. The bag is made of goat’s skin and is rendered pliable by means of bees’ wax and butter. Originally it, like that of the Highland pipe, was filled by the mouth, but it was changed so as to be filled by the bellows. In later instruments several finger keys were adapted to a fourth tube, whereby a perfect chord could be produced, and thus the instrument was rendered fit for private apartments, where as the Highland and the Lowland were only suitable for the open air. The sweetness of the sound, the result of the smallness and delicacy of the reeds and the prolongation of the pipes; the capacity of the instrument, the result of the many keys, and the capability of the chanter; have earned for the Irish pipes the title of the Irish organ. The compass of the instrument is two octaves. Like the Lowland, the Irish bagpipe is fast dying out, but there is in Glasgow at least one player, an old man, bent with years, but devoted to his pipes, who takes his stand near the top of the classic High Street, and can always depend on a small but select audience, to appreciate his rendering of Scotch and Irish airs on the bagpipe of Erin. Both the Irish and the Northumbrian pipes have, it may be added, been elaborated until they have almost ceased to be bagpipes.

And lastly, we have the “Great Highland Bagpipe.” In this instrument a valved tube leads from the mouth to an air-tight bag which has four other orifices, three large enough to contain the base of three fixed long tubes termed drones, and another smaller, to which is fitted the chanter. The three are thrown on the shoulder while the latter is held in the hands. All four pipes are fitted with reeds, but of different kinds. The drone reeds are made by splitting a round length of “cane” or reed backward from a cross cut near a knot or joint towards the open end. They thus somewhat resemble the reed in organ pipes, the loose flap of cane replacing the tongue, and the uncut part the tube or reed proper. They are set downward in a chamber at the base of the drone, so that the current of air issuing from the bag tends to set the tongue in vibration. The drone reeds are only intended to produce a single note, which can be tuned by a “slider” on the pipe itself, varying the length of the consonating air column.

The chanter reed is different in form, being made of two approximated edges of cane tied on to a metal tube. It is thus essentially a double reed, like that of the oboe or bassoon, while the drone reed roughly represents the single beating reed of the organ or clarionet. The drone reed is an exact reproduction of the “squeaker” which children in the fields fashion out of joints of tall grass, probably the oldest form of this reed in existence.

The drones are in length proportional to their note, the longest being about three feet high. The chanter is a conical wooden tube, about fourteen inches long, pierced with eight sounding holes, seven in front for the fingers and one at the top behind for the thumb of the right hand. Two additional holes bored across the tube below the lowest of these merely regulate the pitch, and are never stopped; were it not for them, however, the chanter would require to be some inches shorter, and would consequently have a less pleasing appearance.

The two smaller drones produce a note in unison with the lowest A of the chanter, and the larger an octave lower. The indescribable thrill which the bagpipe is capable of imparting is produced by a sudden movement of the fingers on certain notes, which gives an expression peculiar to the pipes, and distinguishes the pibroch from all other music. The drones, as has been said, are tuned by means of “sliders” or movable joints, and this tuning, or preparation for playing, which generally occupies a few minutes of the piper’s time before he begins the tune proper, is heard with impatience by those not accustomed to the instrument. It gave rise to the saying, applied to those who waste time over small matters, “You are longer in tuning your pipes than playing your tune.” It cannot, however, be helped so long as this instrument remains exactly as it is. The piper’s warm breath goes almost directly on to the reeds, and the consequence is that no sooner does he get his pipes in tune than he starts to put them out of tune—by blowing into them. What is needed is some contrivance that will prevent this, by cooling the air before it reaches the chanter. There are several contrivances in use among leading players, each generally the invention of the man who uses it, but none has come into general favour. Highlanders are a conservative race, and they are not willing to make any changes on their much-loved instrument. It would, however, be well if they would take this matter into consideration, and do something to render unnecessary that preparatory tuning which many people find so unpleasant—that is if it is possible to prevent the reeds getting wet while wet breath is blown into the instrument. The bellows of course gets over the difficulty, but we hardly wish to see a bellows attached to the Highland Bagpipe. It would not then be Highland.

The Highland bagpipe is louder and more shrill than any other, probably because it was all along intended for use as an instrument of war, and pipe music is known to have been heard at a distance of six miles, and, under specially favourable circumstances, of ten miles. The Duke of Sutherland has a bagpipe which was played on in the ’45, and could be heard at a distance of eight miles.

Modern pipes are generally made of black ebony or cocoawood, the ferrules or rings being of ivory. Sometimes the pipes are half-mounted in silver, that is the high ferrules in ivory and the low in silver. The drones of the best makers have the inside lined with metal, where there is friction in the tuning slide. The bag is formed of sheepskin, in which are securely fastened five pieces of turned wood called stocks. These receive the ends of the chanter, the mouth-piece, and the drones. The chanter reed is formed of two pieces of Spanish cane, placed side by side. The tops of these are worked down to a fine edge, and the bottoms are tied with fine hemp to a small metal tube. The blowpipe has on its lower end a valve, which prevents the return of the wind to the mouth. The drones provide a background or additional volume of sound, which gives body to the music. The big drone is fitted with two, and the others with one tuning slide each. The drones are interchangeable, so that the big drone can be placed in the right or left stock to suit a right or left-handed player. When the bag is filled with wind the pressure of the player’s arm must be so regulated that there is always just sufficient force of air to bring out the notes clearly without interfering with the steady action of the drones. The bag is held well under the arm, the big drone rests on the shoulders, and the others are suspended from it by ribbons and silk cords. The bag is generally held slightly in front, so that the short drones rest on the shoulder. When on full-dress parade a banner flies from the big drone, with the arms of the regiment or chief as a motto. The drones are generally placed on the left shoulder, but many players place them on the right. The whole instrument is kept in position by the tension of the bag. The instruments used by present-day pipers are the full set, the halfset or reel pipes, and the practising chanter.

The bagpipe had originally but one drone. A second was added about 1500, and a third about 1800. Bagpipes with one drone are still used occasionally, and so late as the winter of 1899 an itinerant player might sometimes be seen, late at night, playing for coppers at Jamaica Street corner, Glasgow, on such an instrument. The two drone pipes were barred at competitions owing to some supposed advantage they gave to the player, and they appeared last in 1821.

The pipes awarded as prizes at competitions under the auspices of the Highland Society of London are almost always of cocoa wood, having armorial bearings and a silver plate inscribed with the name of the successful competitor. The bagpipe is the result of an evolution process, and if this process continues we may yet see it further improved, and the instrument made so that it will commend itself not only to Highlanders themselves, but to lovers of music generally. A great deal of the prejudice against the pipes is, however, caused by the ignorance of their critics, and perhaps if people criticised less and understood more we would not hear so much of the shortcomings of the instrument.