The history of the bagpipe is very unclear, however, it seems likely they were first invented in pre-Christian times. The
Roman Emperor Nero is thought to have been a player, reportedly saying he would do penance, for not winning a poetry contest,
by playing in public on the tibia utricularis (the Latin name for bagpipe). There are Greek depictions of pipers, and the
Roman legions are thought to have marched to bagpipes. The idea of taking a whole or "case" skinned bag and combining it with
a chanter and a blowpipe(inflation device) seems to have originated with various ethnic groups in the Roman Empire. Although
the Aramaic word sum·pon·yah´, appearing in Daniel 3:5, 10, 15, has been translated "dulcimer" (a stringed instrument) (KJ, Kx)
and "symphony" (Dy, Yg), modern Bible translations generally render the expression as "bagpipe." Koehler and Baumgartner’s
Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros gives the meaning "bagpipe" (Leiden 1958, p. 1103).
When they were first introduced to the British Isles is debatable, though Ireland has references going back to the Middle Ages.
An explosion of popularity seems to have occurred from around the year 1000; the tune used by Robert Burns for "Scots Wha Hae",
"Hey Tutti Taiti", is traditionally said to have been the tune played as Robert the Bruce's troops marched to Bannockburn in 1314.
Many of the secondary sources from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are misleading or verging on fantasy (organist
Grattan Flood, and his "The Story of the Bagpipe", published in1911), are particularly bad in this respect, but continue to be
quoted and referenced to the present day. For example, an oft-repeated claim is that the Great Highland Bagpipe was banned after
the '45 Rising. This claim is untrue; there is no mention of the bagpipe in the Act of Proscription, and the entire myth seems
to stem from the 1822 letterpress of Donald MacDonald's A Collection of the Ancient Martial Music of Caledonia, called Piobaireachd,
written by an unknown Romantic.
In the modern era the use of bagpipes has become a common tradition for military funerals and memorials in the anglophone world,
and they are often used at the funerals of high-ranking civilian public officials as well. Weddings, dances, and parties, are also
venues for piping, in fact any social event, that can be given a lift by the addition of this unique instrumental music.
In English-speaking regions, a bagpipe player is known as a "bagpiper" or "piper," and the surname Piper derives from the latter
term. Other European surnames, such as Pfeiffer (German), Gaitero (Spanish), Gajdar (Czech), Dudar (Hungarian), and Tsambounieris
(Greek), may also signify that an ancestor was a player of the pipes.
Notes:
- Source: wikipedia.org
- Copyright of this article is under the
GNU Free Documentation License
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