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SCOTS WHA HAE MAC LEWIS DUO"Scots Wha Hae"
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Bagpipe with two drones (1409)
The bagpipes played in Scotland will experience an original evolution that will make them completely different from the others. Initially fitted with a single drone tenor playing an octave lower than the chanter (melodic pipe) , it began to single out likely from the fourteenth-fifteenth centuries by adopting a second drone tenor, as on the bagpipe kept at the Museum of Edinburgh, dated 1409. In the seventeenth century, a bass drone was added, playing two octaves below the chanter, giving the bagpipe its actual structure. Historically tuned in the key of A, the Great Highland Bagpipe is today tuned in B flat most of the time, especially among the bagadoù of Brittany which have gradually adopted the Highland bagpipe after the Second World War, replacing their "binioù braz" (great bagpipe).
The Great Highland Bagpipe
The origins of the bagpipe are lost in the past. Some say it was introduced in Scotland at the time of the Roman invasion and occupation of the British Isles. If we take for granted (but not yet established with certainty) that local celtic populations did not use this instrument so far, we are breaking a myth : the bagpipes are not celtic but simply mediterranean... But we do have a lot to learn about it yet... If the materials that are used and the general shape of the instrument differ by country, the principle remains the same : some pipes attached to a bag to replace the cheeks of the player as a reserve of air.
Description of the actual instrument : - a bag in skin or synthetic (or a blend of the two materials), - a cover-bag in the tartan colour of the clan, - five stocks on the bag for : the blowpipe allowing to inflate the bag, the chanter producing the melody, the three drones playing the basic chanter note (B flat); those pipes and stocks made in ebony most of the time, - the reeds are natural for the chanter and often in synthetic materials (or a blend natural-synthetic) for the drones. I play a McCallum bagpipe, with a McLeod of Lewis or Royal Stewart cover-bag.
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If a big part of its existence has been undercover, the bagpipe was finally adopted by the british army, which then contributed to spread it almost all other the world.
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