History of the Bagpipe

[OC Richard]

So what about Irish and Scottish Highland bagpipes?

Surprisingly there's very little to go on, as far as documentation goes. It does appear that Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland, being on the fringe of Europe, were rather late to the party regarding bagpipes. In the Middle Ages when bagpipes were becoming all the rage across Europe the Gaelic peoples were playing harp and an early form of fiddle.

The first image we have of a Gaelic bagpipe is from John Derricke's The Image Of Ireland written in 1578.



The bagpipe pictured appears generally similar to the type which was popular at the time in The Low Countries, seen in the 16th century paintings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder.



The Irish warpipe, though, had the large trumpet-shaped "bells" giving it a more archaic look.

Modern reconstructions suggest that the extremely long drones, close in length to each other, were possibly a bass drone and a second drone a fourth lower, a contrabass drone if you will.

Now what did these sound like? We're not 100% sure but it might have been like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQHwnJLBDQ8

The fact is that no "ancient Irish warpipes" have survived, and we just don't know exactly what they looked like, or what they sounded like.

The Irish warpipe in the Derricke illustration looks so little like the Highland pipes that it's hard to imagine them as being from the same species. Yet there are accounts of early Highland pipers being sent to Ireland to complete their education in piping.

What are we to make of it?

There are other north-western European bagpipes of the period that begin to look a bit more akin to the Highland pipes, though the long narrow chanter is quite unlike the shorter steeply conical chanter of the Highland pipes.



But the evidence of the instruments themselves, our earliest images of Highland pipes and earliest surviving instruments, suggests a connexion to the bagpipes in Brittany and Spain rather than to central or northern Europe.

The iconography of the Highland pipes is so very late; our earliest clear depiction dates to 1714



And truth be told we just don't know what the Highland pipes looked like before that.

The brown wood (possibly local hardwood) and pewter ornamentation fit right into what's seen across numerous species of European bagpipes.

As to actual specimens, here's one of our earliest surviving Highland sets



The similarity of the bass drones on the two Highland sets above to the bass drone of the Spanish pipes is quite striking and simply could not be mere coincidence IMHO.



People who are only used to the Highland pipes may not realise that they have an extremely unusual feature: a redundant drone.

As I mentioned all Eastern European and many Western European bagpipes only have a single drone, a bass drone. This was the universal feature of bagpipes in the Middle Ages. In the Renaissance period the popularity of bagpipes greatly increased especially in France, Germany, and the Low Countries and there was much technological experimentation with multiple chanters, keyed chanters, extra drones, even keyed drones. Adding a second drone, a tenor drone (playing one octave higher than the bass drone) or a baritone drone (playing a fourth or fifth higher than the bass drone) became popular.

And one sees bagpipes with both the tenor and baritone drones added, making a total of three.

What one doesn't see is the addition of a redundant drone, such as the Highland pipes having two tenor drones.

Except the extremely interesting old illustration of a set of Danish bagpipes, which has only two tenor drones and no bass drone.



(This is a reconstruction, I'll try to find the original image.)

What's interesting is that there were early Highland pipes like that, two tenors and no bass.



Also interesting is that in some early Highland pipes the two tenors shared a common stock (seen in the 1714 painting above) while in other sets the tenor drones were turned in a style rather different than the bass drone (seen in the old museum set above).

This almost has the appearance of the bass drone of the Spanish pipes added to the tenor drones of the Danish pipes to create the modern Highland pipes. It does make one wonder.