BAGPIPES

A few of my family play in the local Pipe Band. Pipers and drummers.

In the case of the highland bagpipie, first you must inflate the bag and then squeeze with your arm while still inflating by blowing, and fingering the chanter to produce the notes. The constant release of air through the pipes (drones) produces a constant low tone (usually round about the A pitch).

All of this explains why I opted for the guitar. All that squeezing, blowing and stuff all happening at the one time is way too complicated for me.

Alan,
the pipes I tihnk were also banned in Scotland as well as the kilt if used for battle.

I love the pipes. allpipes, but especially the irish Uilleann pipes, they are quiet enough to play and listen to in a pub at a folk night.

I have quite a few cd's with pipes.

Ken

Yea, I have say after one or two bagpipe songs that's about the limit of my attention span, I do however enjoy "amazing grace" on pipes when accompanied by a orchestra

"The continuous mono-drone starts to get inside of my head and a war begins with my sanity and my ability to control it."

Precisely why they were carried into battle !

Theres lots of info about pipes on Wikipedia. There I learned that the uileann pipes are a relatively recent development and previously the Irish played something like, if not identical to, what is now considered the 'Scottish' pipes . But bagpipes are found in many other nations outside the Scottish/Irish tradition.

"Depicted in one of the panels on the High Cross of Clonmacnois (dated about 910 a.d.) is a sculpture of a man playing a bagpipe standing on two cats"

I wonder is the sculptor refering to the sound of the pipes here ?!

when my father was stationed in italy, there was a detachment from cananda that would play the bagpipes on certain occasions. some of my fondest memories are of listening to theses gentleman play. according too a friend of mine who plays the pipes, the hardest thing about playing them is not offending people who dont like them. i dont understand why most dont have an ear for them. (no offense to south paw!) such beutiful, mournful sound they have. wish i had the time to learn how to play them. sorry so long and not to the point.

I've been playing pipes longer than i've been playing guitar, and I think that its kind of disappointing when your at a gig and the only song the crowd whats to hear is amazing grace when there is a slew of more beautiful tunes out there. listen to flowers of the forest, the moreen, lexie-bex, for example. i'm just ranting and lynyrd skynyrd might feel the same way about free bird. watch a youtube video of jack lee, 78th frasiers, or field marshall montgomery and i bet they feel the same way.

to answer a few of the questions above, Great Highland Bagpipes are the most common by far(used in the AC/DC song), and their from scotland. There in the key of A, but at like 470hz, so its sounds like Bb. The notes on the "chanter" aren't on the western scale, so the notes aren't really in tune even at 470hz, but their making 440 chanters now, so that pipers can play with nonpipers. as far as difficulty to learn, I took lessons for about two and a half years until I was able to play in a band and not sound terrible. also, you have to practice fairly regularly in order to keep up the endurance to play, unlike guitar where one doesn't suffer largely from not playing for a few weeks.
sorry about the long post~