Great Highland Bagpipe
The origins of this bagpipe are lost in the beginnings of the Antiquity, at least in Europe and North Africa.
The bagpipes were probably introduced in Scotland at the time of the Roman invasion and occupation of the British Isles.
The pipes played in Scotland will experience an original evolution that will make them completely different from the others.
Initially equipped with a single drone tenor playing an octave below the chanter, it began to single out likely from the fourteenth-fifteenth centuries by adopting a second drone tenor.
Then, in the seventeenth century, a bass drone was added, playing two octaves below the chanter and giving the instrument its actual structure.
Historically tuned in the key of A, the Great Highland Bagpipe is actually tuned in B flat most of the time, especially among the "bagadoù" of Brittany which have gradually adopted the Highland bagpipe after the Second World War.
A short description of the instrument :
-- A bag made of skin or synthetic material (or a mix of the two),
-- A cover placed on the bag, in the color of the clan (Tartan),
-- 5 stocks set in the bag for the blowpipe used to inject the air, the chanter which plays the melody and three drones tuned like the chanter.
The reeds are double reeds for the chanter, single reeds (often made of synthetic material) for the drones.