Lowland Bagpipes
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Glasgow Museums has a small collection of 39 bagpipes and related material which dates from the 17th - 19th century. This collection includes a small, but important, collection of lowland bagpipes, as well as an example of Northumbrian pipes, and Picardy pipes from England and France. Together they represent the widespread use of pipe music in other European countries. The fact that this collection also dates from the 17th to 19th centuries enables it to represent music, and social customs, for a period spanning 200 years. The Lowland pipe collection represents the history of the music and people from Lowland Scotland, in the Border regions of the country with England. The Lowland pipe collection contains 3 examples of bagpipes and 1 example of bellows made for Lowland pipes, which were mostly accessioned into Glasgow Museum’s collections between 1940 and 1943. All of these pipes date to the 19th century, and share some common defining characteristics of bagpipes from Lowland Scotland such as having three drones, a conical chanter, colourful tartan covered bellows and materials of bone, horn, wood, leather and fabric for the bellows. One of the bagpipes was even owned by a Scottish nobleman, the Marquess of Breadablane. Hallmarks on the pipe indicate that it was made in Edinburgh between 1808 and 1809, but the fact that a Lowland pipe was purchased for a West Highland Laird shows the popularity and appeal of the Lowland pipe’s music and tone which is lower than the vibrancy of Highland pipes, but offers more variants in scale, pitch and vibrancy and allow for solo playing. Perhaps the Marquess also played traditional Lowland pipe tunes like “The Day it Daws”, written in the 15th century but played in the region for 200 years since it was first heard.
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