A VERY SHORT HISTORY OF THE PIPES
The story of the pipes is as old as history. Ancient texts, including the bible, mention reed instruments.Various Summerian texts refer to reed-blown pipes making beautiful music. As early as Roman times, a bag was added to the long chanter, and the bagpipes were born! Many cultures, especially those of the Indian Sub-continent, have instruments which resemble the shape of the bagpipe's chanter (a diagram of which I will add soon), and are played with a style known as "circular breathing". This is where one breathes through the nose, and uses the cheeks as a bellows when taking a breath. This method is used in other instruments, such as the Austrialian didjeridu, and is sometimes done by trumpeters and flautists.
There are many permutations of the instrument. While the Great Highland Pipe is the best know world wide, and the instrument one usually associates with bagpipes, there are many other variants played all over Europe. In the Middle Ages, bagpipes could be found in almost every country. However, as music styles changed, more people began playing the violin, (well, fiddle) and this began to compete with the pipe as a popular instrument. For the most part, the pipes did not die out, but were transformed into smaller, indoors-friendly instruments, of which the Irish Uileann Pipe is perhaps the best known example.Those with a knowledge of Scottish folk music are already familiar with the "small-pipe" and "shuttle-pipe".
But the Great Pipe has a resiliancy few can argue with. Love 'em or hate 'em, the Great Highland Pipe stirs one to passions of many sorts. Even outlawing the instrument doesn't seem to stop it! Oliver Cromwell attempted to ban the Irish from playing the Great War Pipe, and made it a crime to do so. This was done after the Irish rebelled from English authority in the late 17th Century, resulting in the Penal Laws. A number of Irish historians will try to tell you this is why the uileann pipe is so popular in Ireland today; that it is an evolution of the bagpipe into a form where one could play it in the parlour, away from the prying eyes of the English authorites. No doubt, this may have stirred many on to play the smaller pipes indoors, but the general trend was headed that way already, so all Cromwell did was encourage the evolution further.
The English attempted similarly in Scotland, with mixed results. Since the 15th Century, schools of piping styles had grown in Scotland. Every Cheiftan had his own personal piper, who was payed quite well. Much in the same way the troubador was valued on the Continent, so was the piper in Scotland. Some of these schools live on today. However, the English destroy or steal much more often than they do good, and the bagpipe faced a crisis at their hands. In 1715, a band of Scottish nobles, calling themselves Jacobites, and following the lead of James III, the man who they believed should be King of England, Scotland and Ireland, invaded the English countryside and were soundly beaten back. James' son, Charles, attempted the same in 1745, with much more success. This success is, of course, relative, but for a few months this beautiful young upstart of a Bonnie Prince gave George I of Engand and his generals a run for their money. Striking fear into the hearts of English, Scottish Highlanders led on by their pipers, almost walked into London to take the English Crown. However, fate has never been kind to most of the Scots who have stayed in their native home, and the same is true for Bonnie Prince Charlie. An inglorious defeat ended the hopes of Jacobites at Culloden, and ushered the beginning of the end of the Highland way of life. Many penal laws were rushed through Parliament to punish errant Scots, and the ban on the Great Highland Pipe was one of them. However, just as you can't keep a good man down, you can't keep a great instrument from being played, and the tradition in the lonely hills and glens lived on.
As the union of Scotland, Ireland, and England became more secure, the English realized that the same fighting spirit they encountered in the Celts could be used against their enemies. And, since in the eyes of many English, Celts are suitable for mining and cannon fodder, generally, many Irish and Scots were encouraged to join the British army. At this time in England's next door colonies, the prevailing economic situation was grim during good times, and bleak during bad. Most regiments of the army were filled by the boys of particular areas, and a great number of Scots joined a number of Scottish Regiments. In these regiments, the tradtion of the bagpipe lived on. In fact, English officers quickly realized that Scottish, and many Irish, soldiers were more motivated to march (in general as well as in place), to fight and to be in the Englishman's wars when the pipes were playing, and being that it is a weapon of war (as declared by the English), the pipes were allowed to stay.
In the late 19th Century, different Gaelic traditions resurged, and the playing of pipes was one of them. Organized Scottish games started in the 1840s and 1850s, and piping competions grew out of this. We follow very much the same customs in today's games as did our forebearers. Today, there are many piping competitons, the most important of which are held every year during August in Glasgow, Scotland.