Early Highland bagpipes

[OC Richard]

I got seriously offtopic on a different thread, and thought that this topic deserved its own thread.

So, what did early Highland bagpipes look like? What sort of Highland pipes would be suitable for playing, say, at a Renaissance Faire?

All the firm evidence, as far as specific appearance goes, can be broken down into two sorts:

1) depiction of pipers in early works of art

2) surviving instruments in museums

One can also take a look at the closest relatives of the Highland pipes, which branched off from the same tree at some unknowable early period, much like things happen in genetics.

The earliest clear depiction of the Great Highland Bagpipe only takes us back to the early 18th century, 1714, and this is of course the famous and oft-reproduced Piper To The Laird of Grant.



This set of pipes is fascinating in several ways.

As to materials, it is probably made of local hardwood and mounted in grey cowhorn or pewter. Cowhorn mounts, black or grey, have long been standard in many very old piping traditions including those of Spain and Bulgaria. Pewter has long been used for bagpipe mounts in Bulgaria and France.

Having the two tenors in a common stock is a feature seen on some other early Highland pipes and links the Highland pipes to other British & Irish bagpipes (the Highland pipe with all drones in separate stocks is the lone exception to the situation where all British and Irish bagpipes have drones in a common stock). There's also a strong link to early Danish pipes: the Highland pipes and the Danish pipes, both with duplicate tenor drones, are the lone exception to the general situation throughout Europe where each drone of multi-drone bagpipes plays a unique note.

Also intriguing with the Laird Grant pipes are the shapes of the drone tops, rather different from the classic "chalice" drone tops of the mid-18th century. The pipes below will shed some light on the shapes seen in the Laird Grant pipes.

As far as early surviving Highland pipes in museums, the trouble is that these have no provenance and cannot be assigned to any specific (or rough) date. Here's what appears to be a very early set showing echoes of the Laird Grant set and also the Spanish Gaita.



The bass drone tops seen above have strong similarities to the bass drone top of the Spanish gaita. Also note the similarities in chanter shape between the gaita below and the Laird Grant pipes. The materials, brown hardwood and grey cowhorn, are also the same between the two sets.



The shapes seen in the earliest knowable period of the Highland pipes, seen above, are rather different from the well-known classic "chalice" drone tops of the mid-18th century.

Here are the famous so-called "Waterloo drones" thought to date to the mid-18th century alongside a reproduction made by Julian Goodacre of Peebles, Scotland. How different these massive bulbous drone tops are to the elegant tulip-like shapes seen above.

[tulloch]

Very interesting! Last year I talked to a woman who plays gaita and I got to look at her instrument. Played very differently it seemed to have the same hole quantity and spacing in the chanter. She was playing chromatic scales rather than our simple, 9-note scale. Additionally she could plug in or remove segments of her drones to change keys.

[Stitchwiz]

Would love to hear her play them!
If I understand the way these instruments are made, this would open up the range of music which she could play. My daughter used to play and mentioned several times that there were many pieces she just couldn't play properly.

[tulloch]

Would love to hear her play them!
If I understand the way these instruments are made, this would open up the range of music which she could play. My daughter used to play and mentioned several times that there were many pieces she just couldn't play properly.

this will give you a flavor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm4Fc6gFFxQ
Hear how she can stop playing and then strike in drones and chanter at the same time. Truly different and wonderful.

Here is a photo of a gaita chanter I saw in Glasgow last summer:

[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.