Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 23 on 14/10/2005.

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The pipes, the pipes are calling

The bagpipes act as a strange ambassador for Scotland. Ronald M. James looks at their chequered history

After the 1745 Jacobite Rising in Scotland, anyone caught with a set of bagpipes could be executed.

English forces regarded the instrument as a weapon of war because they recognised that the pipes had power to stir the soul of a nation. With the prohibition lifted after a few decades, the bagpipe became essential to Highland regiments as they travelled the world to fight in Britain’s wars.

Perhaps no other instrument inspires more contradictory responses than the beloved and despised pipes. With a single, forceful volume, the bagpipe demands attention, and for those with no appetite for the sound, it can be torture. In contrast, others find the traditional pipe music of Scotland close to the divine.

The bagpipe is peculiar in a number of ways. It appears to be the only musical instrument with its own verb in the English language: only a bagpipe can ‘skirl.’ Because it has four sets of reeds, the pipes are obnoxiously easy to play out of tune. In general, wind instruments, even when poorly played, are at least in tune with themselves. A solo piper with a tin ear, however, can produce a hideous sound, with the ability to raise the dead and make them angry at the same time.

The bagpipe is also one of the few surviving European folk instruments without a place in the symphonic orchestra.

Unlike the fiddle, the flute, and various horns, for example, the bagpipe followed its own evolutionary path, leaving it with the likes of the concertina and its descendant, the accordion.

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By Ronald M James

Section : Scottish Music

Page number : 62