Bagpipes

Bagpipes are a class of musical instrument, aerophones using enclosed reeds. The term is equally correct in the singular or plural, although pipers most commonly talk of "pipes" and "the bagpipe".

Overview

File:Annotated bagpipes.jpg

A set of Scottish Great Highland bagpipes.
1) Chanter
2) Bag
3) Stock
4) Blowstick or blowpipe
5) Tenor drones
6) Bass drone
7) Tuning Slide
8) Cords

A bagpipe consists of an airtight bag, which can supply a continuous stream of air. Air is supplied either by a blowpipe or a set of bellows; the inlet to the bag normally has a one-way valve which prevents air from returning via the supply. Every bagpipe has a chanter, upon which the melody is played, and most have at least one drone harmony, although there are relatively many important exceptions to this rule. All these pipes are attached to the bag by a stock, a small, usually wooden, cylinder which is tied into the bag and which the pipe itself plugs into. The bag usually consists of leather, but in more recent times many other materials, such as rubber and Gore-Tex have become popular amongst many pipers, particularly Highland pipers. In the Middle East, and the Balkans, a whole goatskin is used, cured with salt and alum.

The melody pipe, or chanter, can have a single or double reed and a cylindrical or conical bore. The drone(s) usually have single tongue reeds but there are a number of important exceptions, including the Italian Zampogna, the French Musette du Cour, and several varieties of Scottish Small Pipes which all have double reeds (in conical bores for the Zampogna, and cylindrical bores for the Musette and Scottish Small Pipes). In general, chanters with a cylindrical bore will produce a very mellow clarinet-like sound, while chanters with a conical bore will produce a louder and brighter shawm-like sound.

Skirl (Gaelic for scream) is a term used by pipers to describe an unintended shrill sound made by the chanter, and is usually produced when the chanter reed is too easy and thus the chanter is overblown. Sometimes the term is also somewhat mistakenly used to describe the general sound produced by a bagpipe.

History

The history of the bagpipe is very unclear, however, it seems likely they were first invented in pre-Christian times. The Roman Emperor Nero is thought to have been a player, reportedly saying he would do penance, for not winning a poetry contest, by playing in public on the tibia utricularis (the Latin name for bagpipe). There are Greek depictions of pipers, and the Roman legions are thought to have marched to bagpipes. The idea of taking a whole or "case" skinned bag and combining it with a chanter and a blowpipe(inflation device) seems to have originated with various ethnic groups in the Roman Empire. Although the Aramaic word sum·pon·yah´, appearing in Daniel 3:5, 10, 15, has been translated "dulcimer" (a stringed instrument) (KJ, Kx) and "symphony" (Dy, Yg), modern Bible translations generally render the expression as "bagpipe." Koehler and Baumgartner’s Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros gives the meaning "bagpipe" (Leiden 1958, p. 1103).

When they were first introduced to the British Isles is debatable, though Ireland has references going back to the Middle Ages. An explosion of popularity seems to have occurred from around the year 1000; the tune used by Robert Burns for "Scots Wha Hae", "Hey Tutti Taiti", is traditionally said to have been the tune played as Robert the Bruce's troops marched to Bannockburn in 1314.

Many of the secondary sources from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are misleading or verging on fantasy (organist Grattan Flood, and his "The Story of the Bagpipe", published in1911), are particularly bad in this respect, but continue to be quoted and referenced to the present day. For example, an oft-repeated claim is that the Great Highland Bagpipe was banned after the '45 Rising. This claim is untrue; there is no mention of the bagpipe in the Act of Proscription, and the entire myth seems to stem from the 1822 letterpress of Donald MacDonald's A Collection of the Ancient Martial Music of Caledonia, called Piobaireachd, written by an unknown Romantic.

In the modern era the use of bagpipes has become a common tradition for military funerals and memorials in the anglophone world, and they are often used at the funerals of high-ranking civilian public officials as well. Weddings, dances, and parties, are also venues for piping, in fact any social event, that can be given a lift by the addition of this unique instrumental music.

In English-speaking regions, a bagpipe player is known as a "bagpiper" or "piper," and the surname Piper derives from the latter term. Other European surnames, such as Pfeiffer (German), Gaitero (Spanish), Gajdar (Czech), Dudar (Hungarian), and Tsambounieris (Greek), may also signify that an ancestor was a player of the pipes.

Types

There are many kinds of bagpipes; the following is an overview of some of the most common:

The great highland bagpipe

File:Photo irish bagpipes.jpg

Photograph of an Irish bagpiper playing the GHBs at the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Wilmington, Delaware. 2004.

Probably the most well known are the Great Highland Bagpipes (commonly abbreviated GHBs), which were developed in Scotland and Ireland. The picture at right shows a set of Great Highland Bagpipes.

A modern set has a bag, a chanter, a blowpipe, two tenor drones, and one bass drone. The scale on the chanter is approximately in mixolydian with a range from one degree lower than the tonic to one octave above it (in piper's parlance: Low G (natural), Low A, B, C (sharp), D, E, F (sharp), High G (natural), and High A). The two tenor drones are an octave below the keynote (Low A) of the chanter) and the bass drone two octaves below. This "A" of the GHB is actually slightly, slightly sharper than B-flat, around 480 Hz, and within the realm of competitve pipe bands, seems to get sharper each year. In the 1990s, there were a few new developments, namely, reliable synthetic drone reeds, and synthetic bags that deal with moisture arguably better than hide or older synthetic bags.

Regional usage

The GHB is widely used by both soloists and pipe bands (civilian and military), and is now played in countries around the world, particularly those with large Scottish and Irish emigrant populations, namely Canada, United States of America, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. It has also been adopted by many countries "touched on" by the British Empire, such as India (where it replaced the local bagpipes, "Moshak" and "Shruti"), Pakistan (with an extensive GHB manufacture), the Gurkas of Nepal (famous for their soldiers), Arabic countries, and Uganda (where Idi Amin forbade the export of African Blackwood, so as to encourage local bagpipe construction, during the 1970s).

The GHB was also adopted in Thailand; around 1921, King Rama VI ordered a set to accompany the marching exercises of the Sua Pa, or Wild Tiger Corps (a royal guard unit which had previously practiced to the sounds of an oboe called pi chawa). Although the bagpipes arrived from the British Isles with a user's manual, no one was able to figure out how to play them, so the bassoon player Khun Saman Siang-prajak went to the British Embassy and learned how to play the instrument with the British soldiers, until he was satisfied. He then returned to teach the Thai pipe band, until they could perform properly. The band, which plays Thai as well as Scottish tunes, still practices at Vachiravuth High School in Bangkok, which is named for Rama VI.^[1]

Pollig Monjarret introduced the GHB to Brittany during the Celtic revival of the 1920s Breton folk music scene, inventing the bagad, a pipe band incorporating the GHB, the Scottish pipe band drum section, the bombarde and recently, almost any added grouping of wind instruments, e.g. saxophones, brass instruments, such as the trumpet and trombone, etc. Well known bagads include Bagad Brieg, Bagad Kemper, and Bagad Cap Caval. In Brittany, the GHB is known as the Biniou Brahz, meaning Great Biniou, in contrast to the biniou koz, the small traditional Breton bagpipe.

In Ireland, a presumably related instrument is seen in a woodcut by Derrick (an Elizabethan Englishman), in his book, entitled, "Derrick's Image of Ireland", circa 1580, showing a piper leading a group of soldiers and playing a two drone instrument with a long chanter. This instrument apparently died out in Ireland during the 1700s. In the late 1800s a number of Irish pipers attempted a romantic revival with the Brian Boru pipe (see below). Another version of a revived "Irish" bagpipe, was essentially a GHB with a bass drone, and a single tenor. This was often termed the Irish Warpipes. This configuration, with two drones (either a bass and tenor, or two tenors), has some historical basis, having been depicted in paintings, and other art, in Scotland in the 1700s. In all, the two-drone pipe is now a rarity in Ireland, having been replaced by the GHB.

Music

As with most other types of bagpipe, the fact that the air flow is continuous means that two notes cannot be separated by simply stopping blowing or tonguing or the like. The gracenote is therefore used for this purpose. A number of more complicated ornaments using a series of grace notes are also used, such as doublings, taorluaths, throws, grips and birls. These are used for emphasis on, say, the first beat of a bar, or just as a more musical way to get from one note to the next. These gracenotes are performed rapidly, by quick finger movements, giving an effect similar to tongueing or articulation on modern wind instruments.

Beginning in the late Middle Ages we have the first evidence of piobaireachd (also written pibroch). This form of music is often called the "big music" of the GHB (in Gaelic Ceòl Mòr), and has something of a scholarly circle devoted to it. It consists of a slow ground movement (Gaelic urlár) which is a simple theme, then a series of somewhat minimalist variations on this theme, and ends with a return to the ground. The other music for the GHB, sometimes called "light music" (Gaelic Ceòl Beag), includes marches (2/4, 4/4, 6/8, 3/4, etc), dance tunes (particularly strathspeys, reels, hornpipes, and jigs), slow airs, and more. It dates largely from the last two centuries, being either Scottish or Irish folk music played on the pipes, tunes written by pipers in the British Army during this time, or, increasingly, tunes composed by pipers in civilian pipe bands.

Related instruments

A smaller, quieter instrument, the practice chanter, with a smaller reed than the GHB chanter reed, and lacking a bag or drones, is suitable for practice in settings where a great volume of sound would be inappropriate or unappreciated by your neighbors or family members. Another practice instrument, called a goose, has a bag, with the practice chanter, but lacks drones, and allows a student to practice "winding" the pipe with the proper mix of breath and bag pressure.

The Irish uilleann bagpipe

The next most common type is the Irish or Uilleann (pronounced "illin," Irish for elbow) bagpipe; this vies with the Northumbrian smallpipe for the title of most developed bagpipe in existence. This Irish bellows-blown pipe plays a two octave diatonic scale in D major and a cross-fingered C natural is used to play a huge number of G major tunes (indeed, tunes in G major probably outnumber those in D in the Irish traditional music canon) Also tunes in E minor, A minor, B minor, and D mixolydian. The second octave is produced by overblowing, and extra keys and/or cross-fingering can be used to produce other tones than those in a diatonic D major scale. The most commonly added keys on "D" sets give the notes: C natural, B-flat, G-sharp, and F natural. Although the chanter does not have a completely closed end, like the Northumbrian smallpipes, the player can press the end of the chanter against a leather pad on his/her knee while closing all fingerholes, producing complete silence. This is used to play short staccato passages. The leather pad (piper's appron) is sometimes replaced by an air-tight popping valve at the distal end of the chanter, which makes it easier to close the pipe completely against the knee, although the chanter does sit higher on the knee. The Uilleann pipes also have three drones (although there are a few examples of sets with four drones, these are non-standard), set in a common stock, all tuned to three different octaves of D, and up to three (or in rare cases four and five) regulators which are effectively a kind of plugged chanter with keys, designed to be played by the wrist. Accomplished players can use these to provide a limited but powerfully impressive chordal accompaniment, while playing the chanter at the same time, and with/with out the drones, which have their own on/off switch. Often Uilleann pipes are found without any drones or regulators; these sets are called somewhat misleadingly "practice sets". In fact, many pipers use these sets for their entire piping careers. Another common choice is to have only the drones, without regulators. This is known as a half-set. A final occasional variant, the three-quarter set, omits the bass regulator. A "full set" is a chanter, 3 drones (tenor,baritone,and bass)3 regulators (treble, baritone, and "G"bass) The Irish bagpipes can be in different keys: E flat, D, C, B, and B flat. The lower pitch sets (C, B, and B flat) are very quiet, due to their very narrow bores.

The Northumbrian smallpipe

The Northumbrian smallpipe is a bellows-blown pipe which, as noted above, shares the unusual characteristic with the Uilleann pipes of being able to stop the sound of the chanter. This is done by giving the chanter a completely closed end. This combined with the unusually tight fingering (each note is played by lifting only one finger) means that much Northumbrian piping tends to be very staccato in style. The chanter has a number of keys, most commonly seven, but chanters with a two octave range can be made which require seventeen keys, all played with either the right hand thumb and left hand pinkie. There is no overblowing to get this two octave range, due to the cylindrical bore, the keys are integral, along with the length of the chanter, to obtain the two octaves. The original (18th century) short keyless chanters only had the range of one octave. In practice, few players find they require anything more complex than the seven key chanter. Traditionally, the chanter is pitched in what Northumbrian pipers refer to as F+, a pitch approximately twenty cents sharp of F natural. The music, however, is always written in G. Nowadays, chanters are available anywhere from D to G, G and true F natural being the most popular for playing ensemble. There are usually four drones on the Northumbrian pipes, which can be tuned to several different combinations of pitch for playing in different keys.

The Scottish smallpipe

The Scottish smallpipe is a bellows-blown bagpipe developed from the Northumbrian smallpipe by Colin Ross (1970s), to be playable according to the Great Highland Bagpipe fingering system. Historical antecedents do exist, but modern designs are not based on these and there is no unbroken line of traditional playing. Most modern players use any comfortable open fingering or are trained GHB players. It has a cylindrical bore chanter, most commonly pitched in A, although any key is feasible; D, C, and B flat are the next most common keys. They are most commonly unkeyed, but occasionally G sharp, F natural, and C natural keys are added. It is possible to add enough keys to produce a two-octave chromatic scale, but this is rarely done. The present writer cannot think of any prominent piper using such a set, and the most keys witnessed on a chanter is 6, giving an range of low G to high C in G major on an A chanter. The drones are set in a common stock and are tuned an octave below the tonic, either the fifth or an octave below the fifth (a few players choose to tune this to the fourth instead), and two octaves below the tonic. It is perhaps the youngest bagpipe with any popularity, having only existed since its invention in the early 1980s. It is however extremely popular, particularly with Highland pipers, many of whom keep it or a Border pipe as a second instrument. Mouth-blown versions are available, but it is difficult to produce quality tone from these instruments due to the reed's delicate construction.

The biniou

The Biniou , or Biniou Koz (old style bagpipe) is a mouth blown bagpipe from Brittany, a Celtic region of France. It has a one octave scale with the flat lead tone below, and one note over the octave with a cross fingering. The Biniou is very high pitched--an octave higher than the Scots Great Highland Bagpipe. It has a single drone two octaves below the tonic. Traditionally it is played as a duet with the bombarde, a shawm which sounds an octave below the biniou chanter, for Breton folk dancing. It is the most famous bagpipe of France, but not the most played due to the revival of other French bagpipes in other regions, including Bourbonais, Limousin, Auvergne, and others.

French and Occitan bagpipes

The Center-France bagpipes (called in French cornemuse du centre or musette du centre) are of many different types, some mouth blown, some bellows blown; some names for these instruments include chevrette (which means "little goat," referring to the use of a goatskin for its bag), chabrette, chabretta, chabreta, cabreta, bodega, and boha. It can be found in the Bourbonnais, Nivernais, and Morvan regions of France.

In the northern regions of Occitania:Auvergne, we find the (generally) bellows blown cabreta, and in Limousin the mouth blown chabreta. The Occitan names also refer to the goat. In the Occitan region of Languedoc, and especially in the Montanha negre (Black Mountain) area, the bodega is played. This is a very large mouth blown pipe made from the skin of an entire goat. In Gascony, a small mouth blown bagpipe called boha (from bohar meaning "to blow") is used.

There are a number of piping schools. One of the most important is the Conservatoire Occitan, located in the city of Toulouse (Occitania) but there are also important schools in Limoges, Aurillac, Belin, Mazamet, and other towns. Although Central French pipes are generally used to play traditional music, some Occitan pop groups use them as well. Such groups include La Talvera, Familha Artus, and Tenareze.

The border pipe

The Border pipe is a close cousin of the Highland bagpipe, and is commonly confused with the Scottish smallpipe, although it is a quite different and much older instrument. With one conical chanter and three drones in a common stock, tuned as per Highland pipes or Scottish smallpipes, this bagpipe combines the Highland pipe tone with the more manageable key of A=440. Because of smaller internal diameter bores, in contrast to the GHB, the pipe has a lower volume. This makes it suitable for playing in folk bands and at informal folk sessions. Other names for this pipe are Scots lowland pipes, the Cauld (cold) Wind Pipes (due to the fact that air is provided by a bellows rather than the player's lungs), the Oxter (underarm) pipes, and the Northumbrian Half-Long pipes, which has a bass/baritone/tenor drone configuration. The term "Border Pipes", can be any bagpipes, played on the Scottish/English border. Thus you have to include the "Pastoral or New Bagpipe" (this is the name given to the ancestor of the Irish Pipes) from the title of the tutor (or instruction book) by J. Geoghan, published in London,1745. These pipes were manufactured on both sides of the border of Scotland and England.

The gaita

Gaita is the Spanish and Portuguese name for the bagpipe used in Galicia, Asturias and northern region of Portugal. It has a conical chanter with a partial second octave, obtained by overblowing. Pipe bands and folk groups playing these instruments have become popular in recent years.

Gaitas can be found in the keys of G, A, B-flat, B, C, C sharp (Do brillante), and D, with some groups using a combination of keys. For example: there may be several sets in C and a set in G acting as a bass, or A and D together and so on for a bagpipe "choir" (different ranges played together). For many years the playing of close harmony (thirds and sixths) with two gaitas of the same key was/is the normal style, and this influenced the French pipers, starting in the 1970s, who began the bagpipe "ensemble des cornemuses", or bagpipe choirs. (Bulgaria also had similar choirs starting in the 1950s, with gaidas in different keys.)

Gaitas have various drone arrangements. All will have a bass drone, called roncon (literally "snorer"), which sits horizontally over the player's shoulder. Some will also have a tenor drone, pitched an octave higher than the bass, and a few have a "screamer" (called ronquito or roncón). This last is in unison with the fifth of the chanter scale, and has a plug to close it off, if it becomes too irritating!

The gaita's name is presumed to derive from a Gothic root meaning goat (gait or gata), as the bag is a whole, case-skinned goat hide; Gothic was spoken in Spain as late as the eighth century. It is also possible, however, that the name originates with the ghaita (also spelled rhaita in Morocco and algaita in Niger) a North African oboe similar to the zurna whose name derives from an Arabic word meaning "farm," and that the Gothic connection is an example of folk etymology.

The Brian Boru bagpipe

The Brian Boru bagpipe was invented in 1910 by Henry Starck, an instrument maker (who also made regular GHBs), in London, in consultation with some Irish pipers. The name was chosen in honour of the Irish king Brian_Boru, though this bagpipe is not a recreation of any pipes that were played at the time of his reign. The Brian Boru pipe is related to the Great Highland Bagpipe, but with a chanter that adds four to ten keys, to extend both the upper and lower ends of the scale, and optionally adds chromatic notes. His original pipes changed the drone configuration to a single tenor drone pitched one octave below the chanter, a baritone drone pitched one fifth below the tenor drone, and a bass drone pitched two octaves below the chanter, following the drone set-up of the Northumbrian Half-long pipes. Some later designs of these pipes reverted back to the Great Highland Bagpipe configuration of two tenor drones and one bass drone. The Brian Boru bagpipe was played for a number of years by the pipe band in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, as well as a number of civilian pipe bands. It is still played in Ireland but has lost most of its former popularity. Bagpipe makers in Pakistan still make the chanters.

Other types

File:Traditional Swedish bagpipes.jpg

Traditional Swedish bagpipes, säckpipa, made by Leif Eriksson

Pontic bagpipe/dankiyo/tulum consist of :1 . Post - Skin (bag) : Animal Skin, 2 . Fisaktir - blowpipe : Wood or Bone, 3 . Avlos - flute : Wood & Reeds, 4 . Kalame - Reeds: Reeds

There are literally hundreds of types of bagpipe; what follows is not by any means an exhaustive list.

Cornemuse : French bagpipe featuring a bass drone and a tenor drone that emerges from a common stock with the chanter.
Cornish pipes : extinct double chanter bagpipe, undergoing a revival.
Dankiyo: An ancient word for bagpipe in Trebizond area in the text of Evliya Çelebi (17. century, Ottoman Era)"The Laz's of Trebizond invent bagpipe called dankiyo..." Etymology: < Ancient Greek To ankiyo, angion(άγγείον) "skin, bagpipe" Source: Öztürk, Özhan (2005). Karadeniz: Ansiklopedik Sözlük. 2 Cilt. Heyamola Yayıncılık. İstanbul. p. 300 ISBN 975-6121-00-9.
Dudelsack : German bagpipe with two drones and one chanter
Dudy (also known by the German name "Bock") : Czech bellows-blown bagpipe with a long, crooked drone and chanter that curves up at the end.
Gaida (also called kaba gaida in Bulgaria): very large Greek and Southern Balkan (i.e. Bulgarian and Macedonian) bagpipe with one drone and one chanter
Lancashire Great-pipe : another extinct English bagpipe undergoing revival
Magyar_Duda or Hungarian duda (also known as tömlösíp and börduda) has a doubled chanter with single reeds and a bass drone. It is typical of a large group of pipes played in the Carpathian Basin.
Musette : French ancestor of the Northumbrian pipes, used in folk music as well as classical compositions in the 18th century French court. The shuttle design for the drones was recently revived and added to a mouth blown Scottish smallpipe.
Pastoral bagpipe : Ancestor of the Irish bagpipe, played by the Scots and N.E. English as well!
Sac de gemecs : Used in Catalonia. In the Balearic Islands, Mallorca, Minorca, (but not Ibiza), this same bagpipe is called a "Xeremie" and is played in a duet with a Flabiol (one handed) whistle and drum.
Säckpipa : Also the Swedish word for 'bagpipe' in general, this instrument was on the brink of extinction in the first half of the 20th century. It has a cylindrical bore and a single reed, as well as a single drone at the same pitch as the bottom note of the chanter.
Schweizer Sackpfeife (Swiss bagpipe): In Switzerland, the "Sackpfiffe" was a common instrument in the folkmusic from the middle-age to the early 18th century – documented by iconography and in written sources (one or two drones and one chanter with double reeds).
Tsampouna (also tsambouna, tsabouna, etc.) : Greek bagpipe made from an entire goatskin.
Tulum : skin bag; Turkish bagpipe featuring two parallel chanters, (and no drone) usually played by the Laz and Hemşin people.
Zampogna : "Symphony" An Italian bagpipe, with different scale arrangements for two chanters (for different regions of Italy), and two drones (which sound a fifth, in relation to the chanter keynote). The Zampogna is played with the Piffero ( a Shawm, or folk Oboe), the Piffero plays the melody and the Zampogna provides chord changes and "vamping" or rhythmic harmony figures as an accompaniment. The word "tzimpounas/tsimponas" still used for bagpipe in Pontic Greek and Turkish (Trebizond region of northeast Anatolia; its Romanian counterpart is "cimpoi", which also means symphony or "many sounds played together".

Bagpipes in non-traditional forms of music

Classical works featuring bagpipes

Ur Og and Aji, for 4 bagpipes, bass clarinet & tabla by Canadian composer Michael O'Neill.
An Orkney Wedding, With Sunrise (1984) by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
Sinfonia Concertante for Six Solo Instruments and Orchestra by P.D.Q. Bach features bagpipes as one of the six instruments.

Bagpipes in jazz

U.S. musician Rufus Harley (b. 1936) was the first jazz performer to use the Great Highland Bagpipes as his primary instrument.

Bagpipes in rock

The heavy metal band AC/DC first gained renown for the marriage of bagpipes and rock and roll with their 1975 song "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)"; the bagpipes were played by band member Bon Scott, who in his youth had played bagpipes and drums in the Fremantle (Western Australia) Scots Pipe Band.
Although not as well known, bagpipes were used a year earlier in rock by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, a Scottish group which featured the instrument in their 1974 single "Anthem."
UK rock band Wizzard featured the bagpipes on their 1974 single "Are you ready to rock".
Paul McCartney's song "Mull of Kintyre" (1977) with the band Wings, made strong use of bagpipes for a characteristically Scottish sound.
The Scottish-Canadian punk rock band Real McKenzies (formed 1992) has featured bagpipes on all their albums, played by various pipers. Their most recent piper, Matt MacNasty, has been playing with the group since their 2003 album Oot & Aboot and also played on their 2005 album 10,000 Shots.
The nu-metal band KoЯn (formed 1993) often uses bagpipes in their songs (played by vocalist Jonathan Davis).
Irish-American punk rock stalwarts Dropkick Murphys (formed 1995) also incorporate bagpipes into their sound.
The German heavy metal band In Extremo uses bagpipes.

Bagpipes in other forms of music

Originally a hymn, "Amazing Grace" is often thought of as a bagpipe tune since it is particularly powerful on the pipes and is commonly heard at funerals when the pipes are present.
The U.S. funk band Parliament used bagpipes on the track "Silent Boatman, from their 1970 debut Osmium.
Canadian-born Scottish musician Martyn Bennett (1971-2005) played Great Highland Bagpipe in combination with hip-hop and electronic dance music.
Bagpipes (played by Rufus Harley) are featured on the title track of the 1995 album Do You Want More?!!!??! by the U.S. hip hop group The Roots.
Orchestra Macaroon - Breakfast In Balquhidder -Scottish Latin-American jazz folk-rock with the apposite "Warning: This product may contain traces of bagpipes".
Part of Orbital's single, "Style", includes a remix with (probably synthesized) bagpipes called "Big Pipe Style". The original was played with a Stylophone.
In the video game Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME, the song bag is composed of synthesized bagpipe sounds.

Bagpipe aphorisms

"He who pays the piper calls the tune." is a commonly used metaphor to describe general situations in which a person paying for goods or services has the most say over how those goods or services are to be rendered.

"The piper will lead us to reason."/"The piper's calling you to join him" -- (Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven)

"And all the people came up after him, and the people piped with pipes, and rejoiced with great joy, so that the earth rent with the sound of them." -- 1 Kings 1:40, The Bible(King James Version)

"Piper at the Gates of Dawn" is an album by Pink Floyd

Bagpipe humour

Even among aficionados, it is recognized that bagpipes, bagpipers, and bagpipe music can all be legitimate sources of humour. A typical gentle-jab at the field is exemplified by the following jokes:

The music of the pipes is best appreciated when heard over a body of water.

The width of the Atlantic Ocean is usually considered to be sufficient.

and

Q. Why do bagpipers walk as they play?

A. They're trying to get away from the noise.

Notes

^ Roongruang, Panya (1999). "Thai Classical Music and its Movement from Oral to Written Transmission, 1930-1942: Historical Context, Method, and Legacy of the Thai Music Manuscript Project." Ph.D. dissertation. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University, p. 146.

External links

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