The bagpipe is a woodwind instrument that uses sealed reeds connected to a bag that holds air. The Scottish Great Highland bagpipe is famous, but people have played bagpipes for many years in many places across Europe, North Africa, West Asia, the Persian Gulf, and northern parts of South Asia.

The word "bagpipes" is commonly used, but musicians often call them "the pipes," "a set of pipes," or "a stand of pipes."

Bagpipes belong to the aerophone group because air must be blown into the instrument to create sound.

Construction

A set of bagpipes has at least four main parts: an air supply, a bag, a chanter, and one or more drones. Some bagpipes have more than one drone or chanter, which are held in place by stocks—special sockets that connect the pipes to the bag.

The most common way to supply air to the bag is by blowing into a blowpipe or blowstick. In some designs, the player must cover the blowpipe’s tip with their tongue while inhaling to stop air from escaping. However, most blowpipes have a one-way valve that prevents this need. Today, special tools help create clean air flow and collect moisture.

Using a bellows to supply air is a newer method that began in the 16th or 17th century. These pipes, sometimes called "cauld wind pipes," do not use the player’s breath to warm or moisten the air. This allows the use of more delicate reeds. Examples include the Irish uilleann pipes, Scottish smallpipes, and French musette de cour, among others.

The bag is a sealed container that holds air and controls its flow through pressure from the player’s arm. It stays inflated by blowing air through a blowpipe or using a bellows. Traditionally, bags are made from animal skins like goats, sheep, or cows. Recently, synthetic materials such as Gore-Tex are also used. Some synthetic bags have zippers to attach moisture traps inside. However, synthetic bags can still grow mold if not cleaned properly.

Bags made from large materials are stitched with extra fabric to prevent leaks. Holes are cut to fit the stocks. When using animal skins, stocks are often tied at the points where the animal’s limbs or head connected to its body, a technique common in Central Europe. Different regions treat hides in various ways, such as using salt, milk, or flour. Hides are usually turned inside out so the fur is on the inside, reducing moisture buildup.

The chanter is the melody pipe, played with both hands. All bagpipes have at least one chanter; some have two, especially in North Africa, the Balkans, and Southwest Asia. A chanter can have a cylindrical or conical shape. Common materials include boxwood, cornel, or fruit wood.

Most chanters are open-ended, meaning they cannot be stopped from making sound. This creates a continuous, smooth sound with no pauses. To create the illusion of stops or accents, players use special techniques called embellishments. Some bagpipes, like the uilleann pipes or Northumbrian smallpipes, have closed ends or are covered by the player’s leg, allowing the chanter to be silenced when all holes are covered.

A practice chanter is a simpler version without a bag or drones. It has a quieter reed, making it easier to practice without distractions.

The word "chanter" comes from the Latin "cantare," meaning "to sing," similar to the French word "chanter."

A unique feature of the gaida’s chanter (and some other Eastern European bagpipes) is the "flea-hole," a small hole covered by the left hand’s index finger. The flea-hole raises notes by a half step and is used to create the distinctive sounds in Balkan music.

Some gaida types, like the Serbian three-voiced gajde, have chanters with eight fingerholes. The top four are covered by the left hand’s thumb and first three fingers, while the right hand covers the remaining four.

The chanter’s sound comes from a reed at its top. Reed types include single reeds (one vibrating piece) or double reeds (two pieces vibrating together). Double reeds are used in Western European pipes, while single reeds are more common elsewhere. Modern reeds may combine materials like cotton phenolic and clarinet reeds for louder, more stable sound.

Most bagpipes have at least one drone, a pipe that produces a constant note (usually the tonic of the chanter). Drones are typically cylindrical tubes with single reeds, though some have double reeds. They are often made in sections with sliding joints to adjust pitch. Drones may be placed over the shoulder, across the arm, or alongside the chanter. Some have tuning screws to change pitch or turn the drone off. In most one-drone pipes, the drone is two octaves below the chanter’s tonic. Additional drones may add notes an octave below or consonant with the fifth of the chanter.

History

The evidence for bagpipes before the 13th century is still unclear, but some written and picture clues have been suggested. The Oxford History of Music says that a sculpture of bagpipes was found on a Hittite stone at Euyuk in Anatolia, from around 1000 BCE. Another view of this sculpture suggests it might instead show a pan flute being played with a friction drum.

Some writers connect the ancient Greek askaulos (a combination of a wine-skin and a reed pipe) with the bagpipe.

Dio Chrysostom, who lived in the 1st century CE, wrote about a ruler (possibly the Roman emperor Nero) who could play a pipe (tibia, a type of Roman reed instrument) with his mouth and also by holding a bladder under his arm.

In the 2nd century CE, Suetonius described Nero as a player of the tibia utricularis.

Modern scholars believe these instruments were not seen as a separate category but as variations of mouth-blown instruments that used a bag as a blowing aid. It was only after the addition of drones in the European Medieval era that bagpipes were considered a distinct type.

In the early part of the second millennium, images of bagpipes appeared more often in Western European art and writings. The Cantigas de Santa Maria, written in Galician-Portuguese and compiled in Castile in the mid-13th century, shows several types of bagpipes.

Bagpipes are also shown in the Chronique dite de Baudoin d’Avesnes, a 13th-century manuscript from northern France.

Although there is debate about whether bagpipes were in the British Isles before the 14th century, they are clearly mentioned in The Canterbury Tales, written around 1380.

Bagpipes were often carved into wooden choir stalls in Europe during the late 15th and early 16th centuries, sometimes with images of animals playing music.

Very few actual bagpipes from before the 18th century have survived. However, many paintings, carvings, engravings, and manuscript drawings remain. These show that bagpipes varied widely across Europe and even within regions. Early examples of folk bagpipes in continental Europe can be found in the paintings of artists like Brueghel, Teniers, Jordaens, and Durer.

The oldest known part of a bagpipe is a chanter found in Rostock, Germany, in 1985, dated to the late 14th or early 15th century.

The first clear mention of the Scottish Highland bagpipe comes from a French history that describes their use at the Battle of Pinkie in 1547. George Buchanan claimed that the bagpipe replaced the trumpet on battlefields. This period saw the creation of ceòl mór, a type of music that reflected the bagpipe’s military origins, including battle tunes, marches, and laments. In the early 17th century, Highland piping families such as the MacCrimmonds, MacArthurs, MacGregors, and the Mackays of Gairloch developed.

The earliest Irish mention of the bagpipe is from 1206, about 30 years after the Anglo-Norman invasion. Another mention links their use to Irish soldiers in Henry VIII’s siege of Boulogne. The 1581 book The Image of Irelande by John Derricke includes clear pictures of a bagpiper. These images are considered accurate representations of 16th-century English and Irish clothing and equipment.

The "Battell" sequence in My Ladye Nevells Booke (1591) by William Byrd, likely referencing the Irish wars of 1578, includes a piece titled "The bagpipe: & the drone." In 1760, Joseph MacDonald’s Compleat Theory was the first serious study of the Scottish Highland bagpipe and its music. A manuscript from the 1730s by William Dixon of Northumberland contains music for the border pipe, a nine-note bellows-blown bagpipe with a chanter similar to the modern Great Highland bagpipe. However, the music in Dixon’s manuscript differs greatly from modern Highland tunes, mostly consisting of extended variations of dance tunes. Some tunes in Dixon’s manuscript match those in early 19th-century Northumbrian smallpipe manuscripts, such as John Peacock’s rare book of 50 tunes with variations.

As Western classical music developed, bagpipes in many areas became less popular because of their limited range and function. This led to a slow decline that continued into the 20th century.

Traditional bagpipes are displayed in collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the International Bagpipe Museum in Gijón, Spain, the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, England, the Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum in Northumberland, and the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.

The International Bagpipe Festival is held every two years in Strakonice, Czech Republic.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, Scottish regiments in the British Empire helped spread the popularity of the bagpipe. This was further boosted by Allied pipers in World War I and World War II. This period also saw a decline in traditional bagpipe styles across Europe, as classical instruments and later gramophones and radios became more common.

Pipers were easily recognized in battle, leading to high combat losses, estimated at 1,000 in World War I. Front-line use was banned after heavy losses in the Second Battle of El Alamein in 1943, though some later instances occurred.

In the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries like Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, the Great Highland bagpipe is often used in the military and during formal ceremonies. Other militaries modeled after the British army, such as those of Uganda, Sudan, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Jordan, and Oman, also adopted the Highland bagpipe. Many police and fire services in Scotland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and the United States have also used pipe bands.

In recent years, the revival of native folk music and dance has led to a renewed interest in many types of bagpipes. In Brittany, the Great Highland bagpipe and pipe-band style were adapted to create a Breton version called the bagad. The pipe-band style has also been applied to the Galician gaita. Bagpipes are often used in films about Scottish and Irish history, such as Braveheart and the show Riverdance, which helped increase awareness of the uilleann pipe.

The bagpipe is sometimes played at formal events at Commonwealth universities, especially in Canada. Because of Scottish influence on curling, the bagpipe is also the official instrument of the World Curling Federation and is played during ceremonial team processions before major curling competitions.

Bagpipe making was once a craft that produced many unique, local styles. Today, Pakistan is the world’s largest producer of bagpipes, with an industry valued at $6.8 million

Modern usage

Today, many types of bagpipes are found in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and parts of the former British Empire. The word "bagpipe" is often used to describe the Great Highland bagpipe, which is the most well-known type. However, there are many other traditional forms of bagpipes that are also important. Although some of these types have become less common over time, many have recently become popular again as musicians have started to play them. For example, the Irish piping tradition, which had only a few master players by the middle of the 20th century, is now thriving. Similar revivals have happened with the Asturian gaita, the Galician gaita, the Portuguese gaita transmontana, the Aragonese gaita de boto, the Northumbrian smallpipe, the Breton biniou, the Balkan gaida, the Romanian cimpoi, the Black Sea tulum, the Scottish smallpipes and pastoral pipe, and other types. In Bulgaria, the Kaba gaida is a large bagpipe from the Rhodope Mountains with a hexagonal and rounded drone. It is often described as deep-sounding. The Dzhura gaida has a straight conical drone and a higher pitch. The Macedonian gaida is between these two types and is described as medium-pitched.

In Southeastern and Eastern Europe, bagpipes are known as gaida. These include the Albanian gajde, mishnica, and bishnica; the Aromanian gaidã; the Bulgarian гайда (gaida); the Greek γκάιντα (gáida), τσαμπούνα (tsaboúna), or ασκομαντουρα (askomandoura); the Macedonian гајда (gajda); the Serbo-Croatian gajda/гајда; the Turkish gayda, also called tulum; and the Ukrainian gayda/ґайда.

In Tunisia, the bagpipe is called "mezwed." It is used in a type of pop music also named mezwed.

Examples of bagpipe players and types include:
– A piper in Jerash, Jordan
– A Kaba gaida player from Bulgaria
– The Scottish Great Highland bagpipe played at a Canadian military event
– A musician with a Northern Italian Baghèt wearing traditional clothing
– Central and southern Italian zampogna
– A Laz man from Turkey playing a tulum
– Cillian Vallely playing Irish Uilleann pipes
– Kathryn Tickell playing Northumbrian smallpipes
– A man from Skopje, North Macedonia playing the Gaida
– Galician gaita
– Sruti upanga, a Southern Indian bagpipe
– Hungarian duda
– Serbian piper
– Polish pipers
– Bagad of Lann Bihoué from the French Navy
– Swedish säckpipa
– Pastoral pipes with removable footjoint and bellows
– Estonian torupill player
– Lithuanian piper
– Modern German huemmelchen
– A bagad in Brest, France
– Gaita asturiana
– Welsh bagpipes (double-reed type)
– Cantabrian pipe band
– Syrian piper in Damascus, Syria
– Various forms of the Tsampouna, found in Greek islands
– Belarusian piper
– Maltese Żaqq
– A piper playing by the Royal Palace of Amsterdam
– Romanian cimpoi player
– Ľubomír Párička playing bagpipes, Slovakia
– Bagpipes made in Ab Pakhsh, Iran
– Chanter of bagpipes from Ab Pakhsh
– Sac de gemecs, from Catalonia
– Xeremies, from Mallorca
– A Greek shepherd playing gaida
– A Bulgarian gaida player, terminus ante quem 1945
– A reconstruction of an "askaulos" in the Kotsanas Museum of Ancient Greek Technology, Greece

Since the 1960s, bagpipes have also been used in other types of music, such as rock, metal, jazz, hip-hop, punk, and classical music. Examples include Paul McCartney’s "Mull of Kintyre," AC/DC’s "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)," and Peter Maxwell Davies’s composition An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise."

Publications

The article mentions periodicals that focus on different types of bagpipes.

• An Píobaire (Dublin): Published by Na Píobairí Uilleann.
• Chanter (The Bagpipe Society).
• The Piping Times (Glasgow): Published by The College of Piping.
• Piping Today (Glasgow): Published by The National Piping Centre.
• Utriculus (Italy): Published by Circolo della Zampogna.
• The Voice (Newark, DL): Published by The Eastern United States Pipe Band Association.

• Baines, Anthony (November 1991), Woodwind Instruments and Their History, Dover Publications, ISBN 0-486-26885-3.
• ——— (1995), Bagpipes (3rd edition), Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, ISBN 0-902793-10-1, 147 pages with illustrations.
• Cheape, Hugh, The Book of the Bagpipe.
• Collinson, Francis (1975), The Bagpipe: The History of a Musical Instrument.
• Vereno, Michael Peter (2021), The Voice of the Wind: A Linguistic History of Bagpipes, International Bagpipe Organisation, ISBN 978-1838369804.