| Name | Image | Tradition | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bagpipes |  | Europe | Bagpipes are a class of musical instrument, aerophones using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The term is equally correct in the singular or plural, although pipers most commonly talk of "pipes" and "the bagpipe." A bagpipe minimally consists of an air supply, a bag, a chanter, and usually a drone. It seems likely the bagpipe was developed from (and coexisted with) an instrument similar to a hornpipe or shawm. The earliest possible reference to a bagpipe occurs around 400 BC, when Aristophanes, the Athenian poet jibed that the pipers of Thebes (an enemy of Athens) blew pipes made of dogskin with chanters made of bone. The image shows an oil painting titled "The Bagpiper", 1624, Walraff-Richartz Museum, Cologne. |
| Biniou |  | France | Binioù means bagpipe in the Breton language. There are two kinds of Binioù found in Brittany: the binioù kozh (kozh means "old" in Breton) and the binioù bras (bras means "big"), sometimes also called pib-veur. The binioù bras is essentially the same as the Scottish great Highland bagpipe; sets are manufactured by Breton makers or imported from Scotland or elsewhere. |
| Border Pipes |  | Scotland | The border pipes are a musical instrument that is a close cousin of the Great Highland Bagpipe. It is commonly confused with the Scottish smallpipe, although it is a quite different and much older instrument. Other names have been used for the instrument - lowland pipes in Scotland, and in Northumberland, half-long pipes, this term now referring particularly to surviving examples from the 1920's when there was a partially successful attempt to revive the instrument. The instrument has a conical-bored chanter, in contrast to the cylindrically-bored Scottish smallpipe, and hence sounds at pitch, rather than an octave lower, as the latter instrument does. It is also much louder than the Scottish smallpipe, though not as loud or raucous as the Great Highland Bagpipe. |
| Chabreta |  | France | Chabreta is a mouth blown bagpipe from Lemosin (France). It is a pipe with a triple-bored bass drone played across the player's arm rather than over the shoulder. The form of the chabrette chanter appears similar to early oboes, including a swallow-tail key for the lowest note which is placed under a fontenelle. |
| Cimpoi |  | Romania | Cimpoi, the Romanian bagpipe, has a single drone and straight bore chanter and is less strident than its Balkan relatives. The number of finger holes varies from five to eight and there are two types of cimpoi with a double chanter. The bag is often covered with embroidered cloth. The bagpipe can be found in most of Romania apart from the central, northern and eastern parts of Transylvania. |
| Cornemuse |  | France | The Center-France bagpipes (called in French cornemuse du centre or musette du centre) are of many different types, some mouth blown, some bellows blown; some names for these instruments include chevrette (which means "little goat," referring to the use of a goatskin for its bag), chabrette, chabretta, chabreta, cabreta, bodega, and boha. It can be found in the Bourbonnais, Nivernais, and Morvan regions of France. |
| Dankiyo |  | Turkey | Dankiyo, also called Pontian Touloum, is a type of bagpipe which the ancient Greeks called an askavlo (aski – skin, avlo – flute). It consists of a lamb skin, a blow pipe, and the double reed chanter. The dankiyo is played in small villages near Trabzon and Rize. |
| Diple |  | Croatia | Diple, a bagpipe which uses diple (a flute) as its chanter, is a traditional folk instrument of Croatian Dinaric population, including Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is consisted of tanned goat or sheep skin through which the air is blown. Two single blade reeds are situated inside the diple on chanter. |
| Doedelzak |  | Belgium | Doedelzak is a bagpipe from Flanders. It is the type of bagpipe made famous in the paintings of Pieter Brueghel the Elder. |
| Duda |  | Hungary | Duda, (also known as tömlösíp and börduda) is a traditional bagpipe of Hungary. The duda’s chanters use single reeds much like Western drone reeds. Duda or dudmaisis are made of sheep, ox, goat or dogskin or of sheep’s stomach. A blowing tube is attached to the top. On one side of the bag is a pipe with fingerholes, on the other side are one or two drone pipes without fingerholes, which play at a single tone. The mouthpieces of the pipes, which have reeds made of goose quill or cane, are usually inside the bag. On the outside end are attached bent horn-shaped tips made of apple or pine wood. |
| Dudelsack |  | Germany | Dudelsack is a German bagpipe with two drones and one chanter. It is also called Schäferpfeife (shepherd pipe) or Sackpfeife. The drones are sometimes fit into one stock and do not lie on the player's shoulder but are tied to the front of the bag. |
| Gaida |  | Macedonia | The gaida (also spelled gajda) is a bagpipe from South Eastern Europe (the Balkans). It is played in Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, and the Thracian regions of Greece. The bag is the reservoir that supplies the pipes with air. It is an airtight sack made out of goat or sheep hide. When this bag is squeezed under the player's arm, air is forced through the reeds of the pipes, creating sound. Different regions have different ways of treating the hide. |
| Gaita de fole |  | Portugal | Gaita de fole is a Portuguese bagpipe from the Tras Os Montes region. |
| Galician Gaita |  | Spain | The (Galician) gaita or gaita de fole is a traditional bagpipe used in Galicia (Spain), and Portugal. The Galician gaita has a conical chanter and a bass drone (ronco) with a second octave. It may have one or two additional drones playing the tonic and dominant notes. Three keys are traditional: D, C, and Bb. Galician pipe bands playing these instruments have become popular in recent years. |
| Highland Bagpipe |  | United Kingdom | The Great Highland Bagpipe is probably the best-known variety of bagpipe. Abbreviated GHB, and commonly referred to simply as "the pipes", they have historically taken numerous forms in Ireland, England and Scotland. A modern set has a bag, a chanter, a blowpipe, two tenor drones, and one bass drone. The scale on the chanter is in Mixolydian mode with a flattened 7th or leading tone. The GHB is widely used by both soloists and pipe bands (civilian and military), and is now played in countries around the world, particularly those with large Scottish and Irish emigrant populations, namely England, Canada, United States of America, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. |
| Mišnice |  | Hungary | The mišnice (also mjeršnice) is an instrument like a bagpipe, made from goatskin. Its date of invention is unknown but it is known to have existed in Europe by the 9th century. Different forms of the instrument were found in North Africa and Eastern Europe, especially Croatia, Serbia, Hungary and Ukraine. It is played by blowing into one pipe while using the fingers to cover or uncover holes in another pipe. It sounds similar to modern bagpipes, but not identical. The chanter, on which the melody is played, is actually a double pipe, with six holes on each side; one set of holes is used as the drone, while the other plays the tune in almost the same register. |
| Musette De Cour |  | France | The musette de cour or baroque musette is a musical instrument of the bagpipe family. Visually, the musette is characterised by the short, cylindrical shuttle-drone and the two chalumeaux. Both the chanters and the drones have a cylindrical bore and use a double reed, giving a quiet tone similar to the oboe. The instrument is always bellows-blown. The image shows a portrait by Anthony van Dyck in the 17th century. |
| Northumbrian Smallpipes |  | England | The Northumbrian smallpipes (also known as the Northumbrian pipes) are bellows-blown bagpipes from the north-east of England. They share the unusual characteristic (along with the Uilleann pipes, played on the knee), of being able to play staccato. Here this is done by giving the chanter a completely closed end. This combined with the unusually tight fingering (each note is played by lifting only one finger or opening one key) means that traditional Northumbrian piping is staccato in style. The chanter has a number of metal keys, most commonly seven, but chanters with a two octave range can be made which require seventeen keys, all played with either the right hand thumb or left hand pinkie. |
| Píob Mhór |  | Ireland | The píob mhór (also called Great Irish Warpipes, The Bagpipes, or The Pipes) is an instrument that in modern practice is identical, and historically was analogous or identical to the Great Highland Bagpipe. "Warpipes" is an English term. The first use of the Gaelic term in Ireland is recorded in a poem by Sean O’Neachtain (c. 1650-1728), in which the bagpipes are referred to as píb mhór. The Warpipes have a long and significant history in Ireland and in Scotland. The image shows a piper playing an instrument with two drones and a chanter in the usual positions. The drones are of unequal length and all pipes have flaring Medieval-style bell ends. The painting is from a c. 16th century Irish missal, now in the Bodleian Library. |
| Polish Bagpipes |  | Poland | General name of bagpipes in Polish are kozioł (buck), gajdy or koza (goat). They are used in folk music of Podhale, Żywiec Beskids, Cieszyn Silesia and mostly in Greater Poland. Four basic variants of Polish bagpipes: (1) dudy wielkopolskie (2) kozioł biały weselny or shortly kozioł biały (3) kozioł czarny ślubny or shortly kozioł czarny (4) sierszeńki. The image shows a man with a dudy wielkopolskie and a woman with a kozioł czarny. |
| Säckpipa |  | Sweden | Säckpipa are a variety of bagpipes from the Kingdom of Sweden. This instrument was on the brink of extinction in the first half of the 20th century. It has a cylindrical bore and a single reed, as well as a single drone at the same pitch as the bottom note of the chanter. Today there are a couple of Swedish folk music groups that include the bag pipes in their setting. The most well-known of these is by no doubt Hedningarna. The image shows one of Alban Faust's modernised set of Swedish bagpipes. Chanters in A and G, three drones, and bellows. |
| Scottish Smallpipes |  | Scotland | The Scottish smallpipe, in its modern form, is a bellows-blown bagpipe developed from the Northumbrian smallpipes by Colin Ross and others, to be playable according to the Great Highland Bagpipe fingering system. The instrument is distinguished from the Northumbrian smallpipes by having an open end to the chanter, and usually by the lack of keys; this means that the sound of the chanter is continuous, rather than staccato, and that its range is only nine notes, rather than the nearly two octaves of the Northumbian pipes. A further distinction from the Northumbrian smallpipes is that there has been no unbroken line of traditional playing. |
| Tulum |  | Turkey | The Tulum (Guda (გუდა) in Laz) is a musical instrument, a form of bagpipe from Turkey. It is droneless with two parallel chanters, usually played by the Pontic Greeks (particularly Chaldians), Laz and Hamsheni people. |
| Uilleann Pipes |  | Ireland | Uilleann pipes (or "Union pipes") are the characteristic national bagpipe of Ireland. The uilleann pipes bag is inflated by means of a small set of bellows strapped around the waist and the right arm. The bellows not only relieves the player from the effort needed to blow into a bag to maintain pressure, they also allow relatively dry air to power the reeds, reducing the adverse affects of moisture on tuning and longevity. The uilleann pipes have a different harmonic structure, sounding sweeter and quieter than many other bagpipes. The uilleann pipes are usually played indoors, and are almost always played sitting down. The chanter has a range of two full octaves, including sharps and flats. The chanter can be played staccato by resting the bottom of the chanter on the piper's knee to close off the bottom hole and then open and close only the tone holes required. |
| Volynka |  | Ukraine | The Volynka (Ukrainian: Волинка) is a Slavic bagpipe. Its etymology comes from the region where it probably was invented - Volyn of Ukraine. The volynka is constructed around a goat skin air reservoir into which air is blown through a pipe with a valve to stop air escaping. Two to four of playing pipes extend from the reservoir holding the air. The main playing pipe on which the melody is played has five to eight finger holes. The other pipes produce a drone. This is usually either a single tonic note or a perfect fifth. Each of these playing pipes has a double reed usually made from a goose quill. |
| Welsh Bagpipes |  | Wales | Welsh bagpipes have been documented in Wales since the 10th century. Welsh traditional music declined somewhat with the rise of Nonconformist religion in the 18th century, which emphasised choral singing over instruments and religious over secular uses of music, the pipes had disappeared from use in Wales by the late 19th century. In the last 20 or so years there has been a revival in piping in Wales. This revival led to the formation of a repertoire of Welsh piping tunes, the reconstruction of extinct instruments and the introduction of new instruments based on common European types. |
| Zampogna |  | Italy | Zampogna is a generic term for a number of Italian double chantered pipes that can be found as far north as the southern part of the Marches, throughout areas in Abruzzo, Latium, Molise, Basilicata, Campania, Calabria, and Sicily. The tradition is now associated with Christmas, and the most famous Italian carol, "Tu scendi dalle stelle" (You Come Down From the Stars) is derived from traditional zampogna music. All chanters and drones are fixed into a single round stock that the bag is attached to. Each chanter is tuned differently, according to the tradition it represents, and there are dozens. Today some pipers are substituting the traditional goat and sheep hide bags with a rubber inner tube which is covered with an artificial fleece. |
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