Bagpipe(s)

An ancient wind instrument of Eastern origin, still popular in Great Britain, Ireland, and many European cultures. Basically, the instrument consists of an air-holding bag and pipes. The Scottish highland bagpipe is typical with its four pipes: three drone pipes, single- or double-reed pipes tuned to a tone, its fifth, and its octave; and one chanter (melody pipe), a single- or double-reed pipe with six or eight holes. The bag is a leather sack. Held upright, it is filled with wind either from the mouth (through a blowpipe) or from small bellows worked by the player's arm; the sounding pipes are inserted in and receive wind from the bag. The most familiar Irish pipe is the union or uilleann pipe, which is smaller, bellows-blown, and lap-held and adds regulator pipes, whose keys are played with the heel of the hand, permitting chords to be played.

Although the bagpipe is the national instrument of Scotland and Ireland, many similar instruments are found in Europe: Northumbrian small-pipe (England); musette, cornemuse, and biniou (France); gaita and zampoña (Spain, Portugal); Dudelsack (Germany); zampogna and cornamusa (Italy); gajde (Yugoslavia, Macedonia, Bulgaria); duda (Hungary, Belarus); cimpoi (Romania); dudy (Czech Republic); gajdy (Slovakia); dudy and koziol (Poland); and mashq (India). The bag-hornpipe is a family of instruments found from Crete and Turkey to the Caucasus and Volga regions and in northern Africa; these lack drones, and have double-chanter (or melody) pipes.