This evening around 8 p.m., my walking partner Marilu Cleaver and I heard in the distance a lilting melody played by a unique instrument — a bagpipe. We thought maybe the coronavirus somehow upset our brain waves because why would we hear a bagpipe outside in Addison,Texas, at sunset? We followed our ears to find a man standing in the shadows of Loos Field House — the second largest high school gym in the U.S. with a seating capacity of 7,500 — who was indeed playing a bagpipe. Apparently, he practices there regularly because no one is usually around on a Thursday night. Of course, there are lots of people out walking now. He is a member of the Fort Worth Scottish Pipes and Drums and kindly offered to play us a tune. We requested Amazing Grace and were thoroughly entertained by his rendition.
According to Wikipedia, the evidence for bagpipes prior to the 13th century is still uncertain. The Oxford History of Music says that a sculpture of bagpipes has been found on a Hittite slab at Euyuk in Anatolia, dated to 1000 BC. Several authors identify the ancient Greek askaulos (ἀσκός askos – wine-skin, αὐλός aulos – reed pipe) with the bagpipe. According to Ben Johnson’s article “The Piob Mohr, or the Great Highland Bagpipes” in Historic UK, one of the most famous exponents of the pipes is said to have been the great Roman Emperor Nero, who may well have been piping rather than fiddling while Rome burned.
Although evidence of bagpipes in the British Isles prior to the 14th century is contested, they are explicitly mentioned in The Canterbury Tales (written around 1380):
A baggepype wel coude he blowe and sowne, /And ther-with-al he broghte us out of towne.
— Canterbury Tales
Bagpipes were also frequent subjects for carvers of wooden choir stalls in the late 15th and early 16th century throughout Europe, sometimes with animal musicians.
The first clear reference to the use of the Scottish Highland bagpipes is from a French history, which mentions their use at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh in 1547. George Buchanan (1506–82) claimed that they had replaced the trumpet on the battlefield. It is said that the shrill and penetrating sound worked well in the roar of battle and that the pipes could be heard at distances of up to 10 miles away. This period saw the creation of the ceòl mór (great music) of the bagpipe, which reflected its martial origins, with battle-tunes, marches, gatherings, salutes and laments. The Highlands of the early 17th century saw the development of piping families including the MacCrimmonds, MacArthurs, MacGregors and the Mackays of Gairloch.
The first probable reference to the Irish bagpipe is from 1544, which mentions their use by Irish troops in Henry VIII's siege of Boulogne. In 1760, the first serious study of the Scottish Highland bagpipe and its music was attempted, in Joseph MacDonald's Compleat Theory. Further south, a manuscript from the 1730s by a William Dixon from Northumberland contains music that fits the border pipes, a nine-note bellows-blown bagpipe whose chanter is similar to that of the modern Great Highland bagpipe.
According to Johnson, due to their inspirational influence, bagpipes were classified as instruments of war during the Highland uprisings of the early 1700s, and following the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, the government in London attempted to crush the rebellious clan system. An Act of Parliament was passed which made the carrying of weapons — such as those vicious bagpipes — and the wearing of kilts a penal offence.
Although the Act was eventually repealed in 1785, it was the expansion of the British Empire that spread the fame of the great Highland bagpipes worldwide. Often spearheading the various campaigns of the British Army would be one of the famous Highland regiments, the "Devils in Skirts," and at the head of each regiment would be the unarmed solitary piper leading the troops into and beyond the "jaws of death."
According to Callum Watts article “Ten fun facts about bagpipes” in the Oxford University Press blog, the song “A Flame of Wrath for Patrick MacCrimmon” is a piping standard. It gets its name from the story of a piper from Glenelg, near The Isle of Skye. The musician set a whole village alight to avenge the murder of his brother, the eponymous Patrick. It is said the piper overlooked the blaze from a hill, playing this relentless chant.
Aspiring and seasoned pipers alike have been selecting to attend Carnegie Mellon’s School of Music in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as bagpipe performance majors for over 75 years. Bagpiping, as an art form, has long been a unique part of the Carnegie Mellon traditions thanks to the strong Scottish heritage of founders Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon.
In April 2015 the bagpipes came unstuck again when busking regulation introduced by Boris Johnson sought to limit performances which involved instruments with “loud repetitive sounds.” Apparently, the bagpipe fell afoul of this regulation.
Bagpipe making was once a craft that produced instruments in many distinctive local traditional styles. Today, the world's biggest producer of the instrument is Pakistan, where the industry was worth $6.8 million in 2010.
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