Border pipes

The border pipes are a type of bagpipe related to the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe. It is perhaps confusable with the Scottish smallpipe, although it is a quite different and much older instrument. Although most modern Border pipes are closely modelled on similar historic instruments, the modern Scottish smallpipes are a modern reinvention, inspired by historic instruments but largely based on Northumbrian smallpipes in their construction.

The name, which is modern, refers to Scotland's border country, where the instrument was once common, so much so that many towns there used to maintain a piper. The instrument was found much more widely than this, however; it was noted as far north as Aberdeenshire, south of the Border in Northumberland and elsewhere in the north of England. Indeed, some late 17th-century paintings, such as a tavern scene by Egbert van Heemskerck, probably from south-eastern England, show musicians playing such instruments. Other names have been used for the instrument: Lowland pipes and reel pipes in Scotland, and half-long pipes in Northumberland. However, the term reel pipes historically refers to instruments similar to Highland pipes, but primarily intended for indoor use.

While the instrument had been widespread in the 18th century, by the late 19th century it was no longer played. There was an attempt to revive it in Northumberland in the 1920s, and the term half-long pipes is now used to refer specifically to surviving examples from this period.

A sketch of the early history of the instrument is found in,

The instrument consists of a chanter which plays the melody, drones which play a constant unchanging harmony, a bag which holds the air to blow drones and chanter, and a set of bellows to supply air to the bag. An early photograph from Northumberland, c. 1859, shows the instrument well.

The instrument has a conical-bored chanter, in contrast to the cylindrically-bored Scottish smallpipe. The modern instruments are louder than the Scottish smallpipe, though not as loud as the Great Highland Bagpipe; they blend well with string instruments.

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