Early Highland bagpipes

[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!