Bagpipes a Scottish Invention Not Really

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well hello there

and i would like to say this is quite an

exciting opportunity

they do say that what’s meant for you

will no go by you and i guess maybe this

is one of those examples now

but i’d like to start off by saying that

music

is wonderful noise isn’t generally

wonderful

and bagpipes are the missing link

between music

and noise now

bagpiping is traditionally what the

scots do

when you see a picture of bagpipes

you’re like yes the lone paper of hog

money

fantastic but actually we weren’t the

first

we’re the ones who proved it but as far

as i’m aware the original design

actually came from greece

but yeah they would have had one drone

this one here and possibly one other

tenor

so on the bagpipes there are three

drones it looks scary but it’s not

this one this great big long one here

gives you the base

it’s called the bass drone and it has

the lowest sound it’s usually tuned to

a but not a concert pitch a

and then we have the two tenor drones

these are

tuned two octaves above your bass drum

and they give a nice high pitch

now the best way to tune them is to try

and stop them from wavering

but we’ll get around to that in a second

then this bit here it’s what your

fingers go on

and then this bit here is what you blow

into to fill up the bag

but yeah in their original form they

would only have had maybe one or two

drones

and for some unknown reason they

migrated over to scotland

and that was all quite good for a long

time but then unfortunately disaster

happened

the english took over kilts were banned

bagpipes

banned oh it was terrible but it was

okay because over in the islands so

we’re talking about particularly the

isle of skye

and the western isles piping really took

off because what else are you going to

do when you’re marooned on an island

and so during the 1700s piping really

developed and this is where we can see

this design coming out of it

and interestingly at that time there was

a lot of

folklore people were very much into

fairies

goblins all that kind of thing and the

fairy flag is one of those relics that

dates from that time

it’s currently in denver castle over in

the isle of skye

but around about that time it was the

clouds on sky who really developed

the bagpipe and they wrote a lot of

tunes

originally at this time they would

compose tunes not the kind of music that

you generally hear nowadays

but a type of music called p brook or

kalmor

which means heavy music big music

as opposed to kill beg which is what we

play nowadays

now this kind of music is almost like

the classical music for bagpipes

it’s generally written as a lament

to your your chieftain of your clan who

died

tragically in some clan battle and

it comes in numerous parts you’ve got

the first part which is called the

ground

and it is a very slow

piece it has a slight melody but not

really

and then you get all your variations now

this is like the ground

but you’re adding in maybe another few

notes

you’re adding in different movements and

then gradually you build up build it up

and it gets to this climax

and then it stops it suddenly goes back

to the ground

so in that sense it is like a jumble of

notes for folk who don’t know it

but for experienced pipers who are well

tuned it’s pretty good

but as well as doing that they also

decided to start writing

happier tunes that’s why i was playing

in the welcome area

but it’s generally what you’ll hear from

pipe bands around the world and

it’s the light music jigs reels horn

pipes marches through space all of that

kind of light music

that’s the stuff that we’re really into

not many pipers nowadays will go into

kohlberg

uh sorry gilmore which is the heavy

music

that’s generally reserved for the folk

who do highland games and take it very

seriously and are very

proud to be a piper not to say i’m not

but it’s just not my jam

but yes so so these are the pipes this

kind of how it came to be when the

english cleared off and pipes and kilts

and

everything was allowed again it migrated

across scotland

and really sparked off a kind of

generation of pipers

and that was quite interesting because

in the country

you can almost cut a line down the great

highland fault line

you’ve got the east and the west and

interestingly the piping is very

different

between those two regions i never really

was aware of it

until i started learning myself from my

dad who was taught by the west coast

pipers

and they play certain movements slightly

differently to east coast so once you’re

well tuned into it you can pick up the

slight differences and say ah

that’s a west coast piper there and nope

that’s definitely an east coast person

so it’s quite interesting but yeah for a

long time then piping was only really

found in the army that was the only

place you could keep going with your

piping

and the army really refined the

instrument they very much

set the standard for this is how piping

should be done

and even nowadays that still exists um

there’s two books

the scots guards volume one scots guards

volume two

there’s now a third volume but volume

one and two they were

really almost like the bible for anyone

learning the bagpipes they were the the

music book you would go to

and they contain almost every tune

you’ll ever want to play

and that came from the army but as well

as that when you’ve got nothing to do

when you’re outposted in some location

around the world

what else do you do then take up your

pipes and start composing tunes

and so they would have piping

competitions and composition

tunes and and they would do all manner

of stuff and highland dancing really

picked up at that time as well

nowadays you tend to think of it as

young girls or dancing that’s the kind

main folk who would do it but back in

the day it was all the army

it’s interesting how times have moved on

the time of the army really brought

about a generation of

purely male pipers you know

back in i’m from wick but my dad used to

play in the town band in thurso

and there was a generation that had come

through the army and we’re all male

which now is starting to change we’ve

got girls and

women starting to join in to fight bands

but it was a very male dominated thing

for a long time

mainly because of the army but yeah so

that that’s kind of the history of

piping as best i know it

it’s a wee bit crude and rough around

the edges but

i’m sure dad would be proud and yes so

do we want to tune yes

okay now i haven’t played these since

this morning

unfortunately i bashed one of the drones

on a door that sometimes happens when

you’re carrying them about because

they’re quite

unwieldly instruments and so we’ll have

to do what they call a good old tuning

to try and make them sound slightly less

awful and start to make it sound more

like music

rather than noise so without further ado

will we get going

yup fantastic

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you