The great Highland bagpipe ( 'the great pipe') is a type of bagpipe native to Scotland, and the Scottish analogue to the great Irish warpipes. It has acquired widespread recognition through its usage in the British military and in pipe bands throughout the world.
The bagpipe of any kind is first attested in Scotland around 1400.Collinson, 135 The earliest references to bagpipes in Scotland are in a military context, and it is in that context that the great Highland bagpipe became established in the British military and achieved the widespread prominence it enjoys today, whereas other bagpipe traditions throughout Europe, ranging from Portugal to Russia, almost universally went into decline by the late 19th and early 20th century.
Though widely famous for its role in military and civilian pipe bands, the great Highland bagpipe is also used for a solo virtuosic style called pìobaireachd, ceòl mòr, or simply pibroch. Through development over the centuries, the great Highland bagpipes probably reached something like their distinctive modern form in the 18th century.
History
Though popular belief sets varying dates for the introduction of bagpipes to Scotland, concrete evidence is limited until approximately the 15th century. One clan still owns a remnant of a set of bagpipes said to have been carried at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, though the veracity of this claim is debated.The Bagpipe: The History of a Musical Instrument. Francis M. Collinson. Routledge, 1975 , . P. 132 There are many ancient legends and stories about bagpipes which were passed down through minstrels and oral tradition, whose origins are now lost. However, textual evidence for Scottish bagpipes is more definite in 1396, when records of the Battle of the North Inch of Perth reference "warpipes" being carried into battle.Collinson, 135 These references may be considered evidence as to the existence of particularly Scottish bagpipes, but evidence of a form peculiar to the Highlands appears in a poem written in 1598 and later published in The Complaynt of Scotland which refers to several types of pipe, including the Highland: "On hieland pipes, Scotte and Hybernicke / Let heir be shraichs of deadlie clarions."Collinson, 141.
In 1746, after the forces loyal to the Hanoverian government had defeated the Jacobites in the Battle of Culloden, King George II attempted to assimilate the Highlands into Great Britain by weakening Gaelic culture and the Scottish clan system, though the oft-repeated claim that the Act of Proscription 1746 banned the Highland bagpipes is not substantiated by the text itself, nor by any record of any prosecutions under this act for playing or owning bagpipes. However, the loss of the clan chief's power and patronage and widespread emigration did contribute to its decline. It was soon realised that Highlanders made excellent troops and a number of regiments were raised from the Highlands over the second half of the eighteenth century. Although the early history of pipers within these regiments is not well documented, there is evidence that these regiments had pipers at an early stage and there are numerous accounts of pipers playing into battle during the 19th century, a practice which continued into World War I when it was abandoned after the early battles, due to the high casualty rate.
The custom was revived by the 51st Highland Division for their assault on the enemy lines at the start of the Second Battle of El Alamein on 23 October 1943. Each attacking company was led by a piper, playing tunes that would allow other units to recognise which Highland regiment they belonged to. Although the attack was successful, losses among the pipers were high, and they were not used in combat again during the war. Bill Millin, the personal piper of Simon Fraser, 15th Lord Lovat, was at the landing of 1st Special Service Brigade at Sword Beach on 6 June 1944 in Normandy. At Lovat's request he marched up and down the beach playing his pipes under fire. The Calgary Highlanders had company pipers play during the unit's first battle in Normandy in July 1944, but likewise refrained from using pipers again for the rest of the war.Bercuson, David Battalion of Heroes: The History of the Calgary Highlanders in World War II A final use of the pipes in combat was in 1967 during the Aden Emergency, when 1st Battalion, The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were led into the rebel-held Crater district by their pipe major playing the regimental marches.1st Battalion The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders – Aden 1967 – The Re-entry into Crater
Design
The great Highland bagpipe is classified as a woodwind instrument, like the bassoon, oboe, and clarinet. Although it is further classified as a double-reed instrument, the reeds are all closed inside the wooden "stocks", instead of being played directly by mouth as most other woodwinds are. The great Highland bagpipe actually has four reeds: the chanter reed (double), two tenor drone reeds (single), and one bass drone reed (single).
A modern set has a bag, a chanter, a blowpipe, two tenor drones, and one bass drone.
The scale of the chanter is approximately in the Mixolydian mode, which has a flattened seventh scale degree, though many older pipes are set to a standard Ionian mode with a half step seventh note to the high A - essentially (on the piano) this is like a C major scale with a B♭ below the middle C. It has a range from one whole tone lower than the tonic to one octave above it. The drones are tuned to this tonic note, called A (specifically A4). The nine notes of the chanter scale are "low G, low A, B, C (sounds as a C), D, E, F (sounds as a F), high G, and high A". The A pitch of most pipers and pipe bands was historically close to the present-day standard pitch where , but currently is tuned somewhere around 470–480 Hz, or slightly above the standard pitch B♭ (466.16 Hz) The low G and low A are tuned an octave below their high counterparts. Highland bagpipe music is written in the key of A with no key signature, or in D major, where the C and F are understood to be sharp but are not denoted as such.
Traditionally, certain notes were sometimes tuned slightly off from just intonation. For example, on some old chanters the D and high G would be somewhat sharp. According to Forsyth (1935),Cecil Forsyth. Orchestration, 2nd Edition (London: MacMillan & Co. Ltd., 1935, 1948) the C and F holes were traditionally bored exactly midway between those for B and D and those for E and G, respectively, resulting in approximately a quarter-tone difference from just intonation, somewhat like a "blue" note in jazz.In Hirt, Aindrias "Addendum to 'The Devolution of the Shepherd Trumpet and It's Seminal Importance in Music History'", http://trumpetguild.org/journal-supplements, Hirt believes that the bagpipe scale is a linear and the pipe's F matches the D shepherd trumpet's 11th partial; the 11th partial is exactly halfway between E and G. Both play tunes together in the "rural mode". Today, however, the notes of the chanter are usually tuned in just intonation to the Mixolydian scale, with the G tuned to the harmonic seventh which is significantly flatter than the just minor seventh or the equal temperament minor seventh.
Materials
According to popular stories Highland pipes were originally constructed of locally available woods like European holly, laburnum, and boxwood. However, evidence from collections and records contradict this instead showing that pipes were made by Lowland professional turners using imported tropical hardwoods woods such as cocuswood (from the Caribbean) due its superior resistance to splitting or chipping. In the modern day, synthetic materials, particularly Polypenco, have become quite popular, especially among pipe bands where uniformity of chanters is desirable.
Ornamentation on stands of pipes can be made from: ivory, horn, nickel, German silver, silver, stainless steel, imitation ivory (often catalin or possibly bakelite depending on the year the pipes were made), or other exotic woods.
Music
Compared to many other musical instruments, the great Highland bagpipe is limited by its range (nine notes), lack of dynamics, and the enforced legato style, due to the continuous airflow from the bag. The great Highland bagpipe is a closed reed instrument, which means that the four reeds are completely encased within the instrument and the player cannot change the sound of the instrument via mouth position or tonguing. As a result, notes cannot be separated by simply stopping blowing or tonguing, so grace notes and combinations of grace notes, called "embellishments", are used for this purpose. These are more complicated ornaments using two or more grace notes include doublings, taorluaths, throws, grips, and birls. There are also a set of ornaments usually used for pìobaireachd, for example the dare, vedare, chedare, darado, taorluath and crunluath. Some of these embellishments have found their way into light music over the course of the 20th century. These embellishments are also used for note emphasis, for example to emphasize the beat note or other phrasing patterns. These three single grace notes (G, D, and E) are the most commonly used and are often played in succession. All grace notes are performed rapidly, by quick finger movements, giving an effect similar to tonguing or articulation on modern wind instruments. Due to the lack of rests and dynamics, all expression in great Highland bagpipe music comes from the use of embellishments and to a larger degree by varying the duration of notes. Despite the fact that most great Highland bagpipe music is highly rhythmically regimented and structured, proper phrasing of all types of great Highland bagpipe music relies heavily on the ability of the player to stretch specific notes within a phrase or measure. In particular, the main beats and off-beats of each phrase are structured. However, sub-divisions within each beat are flexible.
Music for the great Highland bagpipe is divided into piobaireachd and light music.
The Scottish Gaelic word literally means "piping", but it has been adapted into English as piobaireachd or pibroch. In Gaelic, this, the "great music" of the great Highland bagpipe is referred to as ceòl mòr. Ceòl mòr consists of a slow "ground" movement () which is a simple theme, then a series of increasingly complex variations on this theme, and ends with a return to the ground. The ceòl mòr style was developed by the well-patronized dynasties of bagpipers MacArthurs, MacGregors, Rankins, and especially the MacCrimmons and seems to have emerged as a distinct form during the 17th century.
"Light music" is also referred to as ceòl beag. Ceòl beag includes marches (, ,), dance tunes (particularly strathspeys, reels, hornpipes, and jigs), slow airs, and more. A common combination, particularly for competition purposes, is the march, strathspey, and reel (MSR).
Bagpipes are rarely played with other instruments due to their tuning. Most other instruments are tuned at standard concert pitch (440 Hz), whilst a bagpipe is tuned around 470–480 Hz. It is possible to change the pitch by using different chanters and reeds. "Few attempts have been made hitherto to combine the bagpipes with classical orchestral instruments, due mainly to conflicts of balance and tuning," said composer Graham Waterhouse about his work Chieftain's Salute Op. 34a for Great Highland Bagpipe and String Orchestra (2001). "A satisfactory balance was achieved in this piece by placing the piper at a distance from the orchestra." Peter Maxwell Davies' Orkney Wedding, With Sunrise (1985) also features a great Highland Bagpipe solo towards the end.
Cultural role