.............by Alistair Macdfuff

Of course, it is still shrouded in the mysteries of the centuries, but a popular consensus of opinion points to the Nile Delta as one of the earliest forms of the pipe.

The truth of the matter is however, that wherever in the world herders tended animals, they tended to make simple reed flutes or pipes to satisfy an inherent musical need, and to pass the long hours of doing nothing but watch the grass grow.

After a while it occurred to someone that constantly blowing the reed pipe demanded some effort, so they made a bag of sheep-skin or camel skin or whatever, attached it to the pipe so that they could keep the pipe going while they drew breath - a natural enough development. Over the centuries these hillside people in Europe and elsewhere got the idea to add long tubes to the bag, and thus multiply the volume by a goodly number of decibels. These tubes (now referred to as drones) were of varying numbers and lengths - sometimes just a single drone - sometimes two, and finally three, as in the present day bagpipe.

Sharpe & Co "Kintail Chalice"
Argyle Bagpipes & Highland Supplies
Alexandria, Dunbartonshire, Scotland

So, hundreds of types of bagpipes came into existence - some with pipes worked with one arm, or between the knees and even a set of bellows pumped by one foot. By about 1650, the Great Highland Bagpipe had reached a degree of perfection and sophistication in Scotland, the Scots as a race having shown more interest in its potential, developed it to its present form. From the time until this very minute, the Great Highland Bagpipe has remained essentially unchanged. The instrument consists of a skin bag - sheepskin, largely in Scotland, horse-hide in Canada, Kangaroo hide in Australia. Into the bag in precise position, five short, African blackwood tubes (stocks) are fitted and tied very tightly. Into the stocks are fitted one bass drone, the longest of the three, and two tenor drones of equal length. In the fourth stock, the blow-pipe is added, which has a one- way leather valve, and finally, into the last stock goes the pipe - chanter - the original flute. It has a nine note scale, very similar or even perhaps identical to North African snake charmers pipes. With the chanter sounding A in the scale, the tenor drones also sound A, an octave below the chanter, while the bass drone is one octave below the tenors.

All the wood of the best bagpipes is made of African Blackwood, while the chanter reed - a double reed, and the tubular single tongue reeds of the drones are made exclusively of a Spanish cane called Donax Arondax. Being made of hygroscopic material, they take moisture and by nature are very temperament. They do not like being too wet, too dry, too hot or too cold. In fact, in the parlance of modern North America they are a ‘royal pain in the ass'. It is a given reason for the fact that a great number of pipers - even the best - are near alcoholics, and to change to the parlance of broad Scots language, "nay bloody wonner".

In spite of that, the masters of the instrument can produce a sound of such beauty and melancholy as moves the hearts of human beings from John O' Groats to the fastnesses of Tibet. I have seen men and women around the world weeping openly at the sound of a solo piper or that of a Highland regiment.

Coming back for a moment to the fickleness of pipe-chanter reeds, let me make a bold statement, and in fact, throw out a challenge. Any man or woman who is genius enough to invent a pipe chanter reed which will play in perfect pitch, day in, day out, year in, year out for evermore, will be a millionaire in a year, and a multi-millionaire in a few years. I will act as their world agent. It can be made of gold, silver, space age plastic, specially treated toilet paper, camel-hoof, whatever. If someone comes up with such a reed, they will never work again. Many have tried - all have failed - miserably!

It is interesting for those who do not know, that the Japanese have taken up piping, and not only that, but the Tokyo pipe band won the world wide championship a handful of years ago. It is even more interesting that so far, they have not, as far as I know, started to make bagpipes!

The Japanese make every other kind of musical instruments - superb classical guitars, pianos, concert brass instruments, French horns, trumpets, trombones, and woodwinds - so why not bagpipes?

Of even more interest, why not chanter reeds? Why not indeed if they are so bloody smart? Come to think of it they canny make Scotch Whiskey either. The stuff they call whiskey, I couldn't even get my car to run on it when I tried! Finally, a couple if sets of bagpipes which are the same, but different.

Some fifteen years ago, I had the chance to work with a set of pipes which had been played at Culloden. The bag was incredibly small - like a child's balloon, also too brittle to mess with. The bass drone reed, still in the pipe, and intact, was not the present day five inch piece of cane, but a thick monster if almost nine inches long. They must have had some lungs in ‘they days'.

In contrast to that, I have waiting for me in Scotland, a custom set of pipes of a 16th century design, in which the African Blackwood drones terminate in an ivory ‘tulip' - also the mouth of the chanter. The mounts are ivory and the top slides and ferrules in gold over an engraved Runic design. Beautiful as they are, they still have Spanish can reeds. The great piper to the queen, Robert E. Brown once said, in my presence, "Aye, there's nay instant pipes" - there is the understatement of the century.