Great Highland Bagpipe Pathfinder

The focus of this pathfinder is the Great Highland Bagpipe, one of a variety of wind instruments utilizing air forced from a bag past reeds.  The Great Highland Bagpipe is named for its geographical origin in the Scottish Highlands.  It consists of a bag made from elk hide with three drones, a blowpipe, and a chanter.  The drones consist of four pieces of blackwood which are tightly inserted one into another and provide a continuous tone, tuned by sliding the individual pieces up or down (see pipe extending over shoulder in picture at left).  The blowpipe allows the player to fill the bag with air which, when squeezed by the arm, is blown out past the reeds in the chanter and the three drones.  The chanter has holes in it which allow a tune to be played.

This pathfinder was created according to guidelines prescribed by the instructor of 5711 Internet Resources and Utilization, at the University of North Texas School of Library & Information Science.

Keywords and Keyword Combinations

• bagpipe, bagpipes, bagpiping, dudelsack
• highland NOT uillean NOT northumbrian
• piper, dudelsacker
• piobaireachd or pibroch
• "ceol mor"

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Encyclopedias

• Microsoft Encarta 96 Encyclopedia. [CD-ROM] (Redmond, Wash. : Microsoft Corp., 1995).
• World Book Encyclopedia. (Chicago : World Book, 1998).

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Books on This Topic Are:

• Cannon, Roderick C.  The Highland bagpipe and its music.   (Edinburgh : Donald, 1988)
• Collinson, Francis M. The bagpipe : the history of a musical instrument.   (London ; Boston : Routledge & K. Paul, 1975).
• Flood, William Henry Grattan.  The story of the bagpipe.   (Portland, Me. : Longwood Press, 1976).
• Haddow, A. J.  The history and structure of Ceol Mor : a guide to Piobaireachd, the classical music of the great Highland bagpipe : a collection of critical and historical essays.  ( [Scotland] : M.R.S. Haddow, 1982).
• MacDonald, Joseph.  A compleat theory of the Scots Highland bagpipe.   (Norwood, Pa., Norwood Editions, 1973).
• MacNeill, Seumas.  Piobaireachd: classical music of the Highland bagpipe.   (London : British Broadcasting Corporation, 1968).
• Podnos, Theodor H.  Bagpipes and Tunings.  (Detroit, Mich.: Information Coordinators, 1974).
• Shepherd, R. T.  Learn to play the bagpipe : a new method of practice chanter tuition.  (Glasgow : Kintail of Loch Lomond, 1982).

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Internet Resources

• Bagpiper.com
  http://www.bagpiper.com (accessed 8/2/98)
  links to pipe bands, individual pipers, and general information about bagpiping including a good article on the 'pipes since the mid-1700s.
• The Bagpipe FAQ
  http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~wrinnes/BagpipeFAQ/   (accessed 8/2/98)
  Group effort at providing answers to frequently asked questions about 'piping.

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Special Sources Relative To This Topic Are:

• Eastern US Pipe Band Association
  ( http://www.serve.com/Voice/euspba/ )
  
• Privy piping : a most curious collection of tunes arranged for the highland bagpipe. [Musical score] (Bruceton Mills, W.V. : Scotpress, 1991).
  
• Scots Guards:  Standard Settings of Pipe Music, Vols. 1 and 2. [Musical score] (London : Patterson's Publications, 1992).
  

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