In Scotland, bagpipes have been used in military contexts for centuries, but it is in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that the national imaginary was formed, branding the Highland pipes as a national and martial instrument. The use of bagpipes in European military contexts dates at least as far back as the sixteenth century, with examples recorded in Germany, Eastern Europe, and Ireland. Although Scottish bagpipes are played extensively in civilian contexts, they are known across the world due to their presence in the British military. Clan leaders had personal pipers who had often learned their skills in Ireland, where bardic-and later piping-schools were established. They were incorporated into Scottish clan culture, as clan pipers assumed positions traditionally occupied by bards. Bagpipes appeared in Scotland around the fifteenth century. The Met owns a fine instrument made by Henderson in Glasgow around the 1930s, featuring a MacGregor tartan bag cover. The main instrument that comes to mind when bagpipes are mentioned are, of course, the Great Highland bagpipes from Scotland. The variety of bagpipes found in this one manuscript underscores the diversity of the instrument already in the early fourteenth century their frequent illustration also marks them as well-known instruments that would have regularly been heard both in courtly environments and in the streets. Within this tiny illuminated manuscript, several different types of bagpipes can be found: some with drones, others without, some with animal heads sprouting the melodic pipes, others with simpler designs. The Met’s earliest bagpipe depictions can be found throughout The Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux, Queen of France (1324–28). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Grisaille, tempera, and ink on vellum, single folio: 3 5/8 x 2 7/16 in. Detail of Folio 35r of The Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux, Queen of France, ca. Jean Pucelle (French, active Paris, 1319–34). The bagpipe bag is covered with what looks like a detailed textile bag, and the melodic pope emerges from a gargoylesque head. Alongside this rich collection, which speaks to the global diversity of the instrument, there are also many different examples of bagpipes scattered across the Museum in paintings, manuscripts, wall hangings, and sculptures. Mainly collected by Mary Elizabeth Brown at the turn of the twentieth century, the instruments come from India, Egypt, France, Russia, the British Isles, Greece, Croatia, Spain, and many other locations. The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds a rich collection of fifty-three bagpipes from across the world. Over the years, I learned to play the Galician and French pipes as well as a few others, and have used my academic research as an opportunity to take a closer look at this diverse field. I had unknowingly stumbled across one of Spain’s most vivid bagpipe cultures, kickstarting a lifelong passion. Northern Iberia has a rich culture of bagpipes, with about a dozen different types of instruments. I discovered the bagpipes as a young teenager when visiting my Spanish pen pal in Galicia one summer. Today, more than a hundred different types of bagpipes are still played around the world. Today, more than a hundred types of bagpipes are still played around the world. Bagpipes became prevalent in Europe from the Middle Ages onward, rapidly spreading across the territory and taking on a variety of forms. 40–115 CE) has described the instrument in detail, throwing serious doubts as to whether Nero was piping or fiddling as Rome burned. The earliest named piper was Emperor Nero (37–68 CE), and the Greek historian and orator Dio Chrysostom (ca. The bag functions like an external pair of lungs and enables the instrument to maintain its characteristic sustained sound.īagpipes are thought to have emerged from the Middle East. In the instrument’s simplest form, bagpipes are composed of a bag and some pipes: the melodic pipe on which the tune is played, the drone(s) that create one or more continuous note(s), and the blow pipe, which brings air into the bag. Did you know that there are more than 130 different types of bagpipes around the world? From India to Ireland, Sweden to Libya, bagpiping covers a wide geographic expanse roughly aligned with the Indo-European map, as well as the Middle East and Northern Africa.
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