Pipe Dreams and Musings
“A baggepipe wel koude he blowe and sowne, and therwithal he broghte us out of towne.”
– The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer, late 14th century
Bagpipes are magical. The sound of a solitary piper playing a Great Highland bagpipe is unmistakable and harkens back to ancient and epic times. When I hear bagpipes, my mind’s eye sees a Scottish Highlander in a misty strath draped in sash and kilt, festooned with a furry sporran pouch in front, knee socks with colorful side flashes, and perhaps a small Sgian-Dubh (knife) protruding at his knee.
When played on a bagpipe, a traditional Scottish or Irish tune, such as a march, a jig, a shanty, or a retreat can mystically transport listeners to different times and places. To me, the sound of a solitary piper playing a Great Highland bagpipe evokes strong feelings of duty, honor, and tradition. Bagpipes are musical instruments, to be sure, but they are much more; for many, bagpipes symbolize the solemn blood ties of clan and kin and brothers-in-arms. This is why bagpipes are often played at graveside ceremonies for fallen soldiers, law enforcement officers, and firefighters. When Amazing Grace is played on the bagpipes I can guarantee that it will bring tears to the eyes of many listeners. Watch and you will see this for yourself.
Bagpipes are War Pipes. Indeed, in the United Kingdom the bagpipe was once classified as a weapon. Supposedly, the original purpose of pipes in battle was to signal tactical movements to the troops. After the Battle of Culloden in 1746 – which effectively ended the Scottish Jacobite rebellion – the victorious English infamously tried and executed a captured Scottish piper named James Reid. He was first hanged and then drawn and quartered. The judges at his trial reasoned that, because a highland regiment never marched to war without a piper at its head, the bagpipe was therefore an instrument of war in the eyes of the law.
During World War One, bagpipes were often used to lead the men “over the top” of the trenches and into battle. Of course, participating as the piper in such daft maneuvers into “no man’s land” was not without consequences; it is estimated that around 1,000 pipers died in WWI.
During the World War Two D-Day landing in Normandy, one solitary piper, “Piper Bill” Millin, is famously known to have played his bagpipes while under heavy fire on Sword Beach. Miraculously not a single German bullet struck him during his combat recital. As comrades fell around him, Piper Bill stood playing on the beach clad in a Cameron tartan kilt sans underwear (or so it is claimed and in keeping with Scottish tradition). After the battle, captured German snipers confided that they hadn’t targeted Piper Bill because they thought he was crazy.
Bagpipes are Mixolydian. Although the bagpipe is classified as a woodwind instrument, the nine notes on the chanter’s limited scale do not match those of a piano, guitar, or standard Western wind instrument. Instead, the bagpipe’s notes are based on a “natural” Mixolydian scale that is true to the physics and mathematics of sound – like playing only the white keys on a piano beginning on a low “G” and ending on a high “A”. In contrast, a typical Western instrument uses a 12-note octave (again, think piano, this time with all of its white and black keys) with each note equally spaced apart. This equal spacing between notes is an artificial compromise – certain notes will clash; it is not natural and not in keeping with the physics and mathematics of sound.
Bagpipes are cantankerous. As I personally continue striving to master playing the Great Highland bagpipe, I can attest that the instrument certainly is cantankerous enough to be considered an instrument of war (or an instrument that is seemingly sometimes at war with its operator). The concept is simple enough – blow air into a bag, squeeze the bag, finger out a tune on the chanter – but mastering piping is a multi-year endeavor. Geez! There are a lot of things going on at the same time.
Because the bagpipe’s sound comes from a constant flow of pressurized air a unique technique must be mastered. First the piper “strikes in” the bagpipe’s tall bass and tenor drones by inflating the bag and then literally punching the bag briskly with his hand to make all of the drones come moaning to life abruptly and simultaneously. Then the piper subtly increases the bag’s playing pressure to activate the nine-holed “chanter” equipped with a cane reed that hangs down to the front of the bag.
Squeeze and blow the bag too hard and the higher pressure will cause the drones to choke off and cease playing. Squeeze and blow the bag too softly and the melody chanter will stop playing – especially on the high notes.
Unlike a brass or woodwind instrument, any articulation between notes cannot be created by stopping your blowing or by tonguing the mouthpiece. Instead, any note changes and musical flourishes must be created solely by the piper’s nimble fingers. Consequently bagpipe sheet music is quite different too. Articulations between notes are depicted in small print as “grace notes” that the piper “plays” in rapid, complex sequences interspersed with actual melody notes. The objective is to allow listeners to hear separations between notes, but not to impart any definable pitch to the grace notes themselves. Exceptions to this “rule” abound and vary depending on the type of music being played, the musical arrangement, and sometimes even the nationality of the player and the particular style of play that is common in that country or region.
It is difficult to tune a band with many bagpipes to the same pitch and to have them all make sounds that are complementary to each other. First of all, this is because bagpipe makers do not subscribe to any single set of agreed upon dimensional standards. Indeed, the earliest pipes were made in segmented wooden sections that likely were hollowed out with hot pokers, drill bits, and scraping tools. Secondly, a cane or synthetic reed in each of the bagpipe’s three drone sticks and in its nine-holed chanter must each be broken in and then fine tuned to complement each other, and adjusted to the preferred operating pressure adopted by any particular piper. Thirdly, the pipers themselves come in various body types; some are short, some are tall, some are fat, some have long arms, some have short arms. So necessarily, each bagpipe is experimentally fitted to its piper over time, collecting bits and bobs from various bagpipe makers until the entire contraption seems to fit and work “about right” for the piper. Finally, changes in heat and humidity can very quickly wreak havoc to a bagpipe’s tuning. Bagpipes are definitely cantankerous.