Early Highland bagpipes

[Stitchwiz]

Wow! There a quite a few more pieces on youtube - these pipes take us into a whole different realm of music!

[Jack Daw]

In 2008, my niece and I attended the Worldwide Gathering of Clan MacIntyre in Glenoe on Loch Etive, Taynuilt, and Oban. We had a banquet dinner in Oban, and one of the features was the so-called 'MacIntyre Faery Pipes'. All attendees received a laminated history of the pipes, which I don't have readily available, but I found this bit of information from another source (from the web) who was also in attendance:

"The ‘Faery’ pipes were on loan by permission of Kinlochmoidart, chieftain of that MacDonald branch and the West Highland Museum in Fort William. They are the oldest Highland pipes in existence and were handmade by a MacIntyre piper over 800 years ago. They contain the extra sounding hole at the end of the chanter that he placed there on the advice of a faery in order to have the sweetest sounding pipes in Scotland. These pipes were played at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 and played only once in the last century, fittingly by our own master piper, Archie McIntyre, who is a descendant of the MacIntyres who formerly possessed them and the Gentleman Piper to the High Council of Clan Donald. He played them at our Banquet, for the first, and perhaps only, time in this new century. To see them was special, but to hear them was a thrill of historic proportions."

I cannot attest to any of the legend as true, but I can tell you the pipes were too old to be melodic in any way, with all due respect to a fine piper as Archie Mac; so apparently, the faery has long since abandoned the pipes. Anyway, here is the only pic I took of them:



Poster's Edit:
Ah, I found a video (and, audio)! Click on the link, read the explanation in the page middle, then go to the bottom of the page and click on "View the video here."

http://www.electricscotland.com/webc...ring/faery.htm

[Calgacus]

I cannot attest to any of the legend as true, but I can tell you the pipes were too old to be melodic in any way, with all due respect to a fine piper as Archie Mac; so apparently, the faery has long since abandoned the pipes

I dunno, I've heard less melodic pipes played on the streets of Aberdeen and Edinburgh...

[creagdhubh]

I dunno, I've heard less melodic pipes played on the streets of Aberdeen and Edinburgh...

As have I. And in Glasgow too!

[OC Richard]

I work with a Spanish guy who plays gaita and around ten years ago he got me really into it. I got a very nice gaita from Spain. I learned the fingering (which is quite different from the Scottish pipes) and learned several Spanish tunes and did a number of duet gigs with this guy.

There are several 'bullet points' to keep in mind when speaking of the Spanish gaita:

-There are two major styles, from Asturias and Galicia. They superficially resemble each other, however the fingering of the chanter is almost diametrically different between the two. The modern Galician gaita fingers rather like a recorder; the Asturias gaita fingers more like a Northumbrian pipe. Neither fingers like a Scottish pipe.

-In Galicia a distinction is made between the traditional gaita and the neo-gaita called either the gaita marcial or the gaita de banda.

The fully traditional gaita is in the key of C (one full tone higher than the GHB), made of boxwood with black horn mounts, and having a bass drone only, up on the shoulder exactly like a Scottish bass drone. A tenor may also be present, which often has a shutoff valve. The tenor sticks out of the side of the bag. More rarely a tiny third drone is added, sticking up from the neck of the bag.

There is also the modern updated traditional gaita, made of blackwood with nickel mounts, often in the key of D (one full step higher than the traditional gaita) in order to play with folk ensembles. This is the style of gaita made famous by Carlos Nunez and Susana Seivane.

The modern marching band gaita (gaita de banda or gaita marcial) is in the key of Bb (the same as the GHB), made of blackwood with nickel mounts, and has all the drones (whether one, two, or three) all up on the shoulder Scottish-style.

All these Galician gaitas have a chanter capable of a mostly (or sometimes fully) chromatic scale, and going at least a couple notes into the 2nd octave.