- It's hard to know when bagpipes were first used. They do not survive, being made from organic materials and designed for outdoor use. According to bagpipe expert Oliver Seeler, a Hellenistic terra cotta figure in Berlin's National Museum is considered the oldest depiction of a bagpipe. There have been other sightings: in the first century A.D., Dio Chrysostom described a king, possibly Nero, playing a pipe with his mouth as well as his armpit.
Not until the medieval period did recognizable bagpipes start to crop up with any regularity. The 13th-century Cantigas de Santa Maria from Castile depict several types of bagpipes. Bagpipes are mentioned in "The Canterbury Tales," written in 1380, and shown in John Derrick's 16th-century "The Image of Irelande" painting.
The first definitive description and illustration of a bagpipe came only in 1619, in Praetorius' illustrated manual of organography. - Before the 1500s, it's believed that pipers had to come up with their own tunes. After the Scots took on the bagpipe, they started to compose music specific to the pipes. Pìobaireachd, meaning "big music," is special bagpipe music that was individual to a clan or piper family. It is the classical music of the bagpipes.
The profession of hereditary piper most likely arose around the 16th or 17th century. One famous example is the MacCrimmons, who became hereditary pipers to the MacLeods of Skye, with a bagpipe school at Dunvegan. Also on Skye, at ruined Duntulm Castle, there is a monument to the MacArthurs, hereditary pipers. - After the Jacobite rising, ended definitively at Culloden in 1746, King George II formed a militia to keep an eye on the Highlanders. Its nickname became the Black Watch---black because it was considered traitorous, and watch because it was for keeping an eye on the Scots. Each company maintained its own individual pipers.
Later, during the Napoleonic Wars, drummers were added and the now-famous Pipes and Drums of the Black Watch formed. - In 1760, Joseph MacDonald published what is considered the first serious study of the Great Pipes, his "Compleat Theory."
The 1830s saw music first being written down in regular staff notation, instead of each piper's individual code, and each Highland regiment of the British Army now has its own pipers and pipe bands with its own special repertoire.
In 1903, the The Piobaireachd Society formed to document and create definitive records of the "big music." - As military started to serve overseas, bagpipes spread. Dozens of pipe bands and regiments exist in the United States, Canada and beyond. The Kincardine Scottish Pipe Band in Ontario, Canada has been in service since 1908.
The late twentieth century saw the invention of electric bagpipes. Depending on the skill of the player, this may or may not be a good thing.
While the bagpipes have declined in many other countries, in Scotland they are still held dear, and it's rare that on a summer vacation to the Highlands you will not find at least one piper, playing music into the wilds as originally intended.
previous post