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Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, Northern Africa, Western Asia, around the Persian Gulf and northern parts of South Asia.
These are thus a transposing instrument in D-flat major (i.e. the pitch at which a notional C, were the bagpipe able to play it, would sound), but in bagpipe terminology are referred to as B ♭ instruments, with the pitch given for the tonic A rather than the C of conventional transposition terminology.
Great Highland Bagpipe: This is perhaps the world's best-known bagpipe. It is native to Scotland. It has acquired widespread recognition through its usage in the British military and in pipe bands throughout the world. The bagpipe is first attested in Scotland around 1400, having previously appeared in European artwork in Spain in the 13th century.
The pastoral bagpipe may have been the invention of an expert instrument maker who was aiming at the Romantic market. The pastoral pipes, and later union pipes, were certainly a favourite of the upper classes in Scotland, Ireland and the North-East of England and were fashionable for a time in formal social settings, where the term "union pipes ...
Though bagpipes are closely associated with Scotland, the instrument (or, more precisely, family of instruments) is found throughout large swathes of Europe, North Africa and South Asia. The most common bagpipe heard in modern Scottish music is the Great Highland Bagpipe, which was spread by the Highland regiments of the British Army ...
The first bagpipes to be well attested for Ireland were similar, if not identical, to the Scottish Highland bagpipes that are now played in Scotland. These are known as the " Great Irish Warpipes ". In Irish and Scottish Gaelic , this instrument was called the píob mhór ("great pipe").
The instrument is widespread in the Greek islands. [2] The word is a reborrowing of zampogna , the word for the Italian double chantered pipes. [ 3 ] Tsampouna is etymologically related to the Greek sumfōnia ( Greek : συμφωνία ), meaning "concord or unison of sound" [ 4 ] (from σῠν- sun-, "with, together" + φωνή phōnḗ ...
From the 14th century onwards, bagpipes start to appear in the historical records of European countries, however half the mentions come from England suggesting Bagpipes were more common in England. Bagpipes are mentioned in English literature as early as The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer , written between the 1380s and 1390s.