World's Oldest Highland Pipe Chanter

[pancelticpiper]

Yes indeed as Baines points out

"Drone-tuning in fifths is borne out in many pictures from Breughel to Hogarth where the artist has depicted two drones with length ratio somewhere near 3:2.

17th century Flemish and Dutch artists, on the other hand, show drones usually with the ratio closer to 2:1, i.e. drones in octaves.

The puzzling examples are those where the two drones approach equal length. There are predominantly 16th century, as in Virdung. Whether they are casually drawn drones in fifths or fourths, or whether one is a dummy, on can hardly say.

It remains important, however, that the only positive evidence on the subject- Praetorious- puts the drones in fifths. The Estonian drones lend indirect support to the same conclusion."

We have to keep in mind that stock length can vary. A bagpipe with a bass drone and a drone a 4th below it, especially if the bass has a stock of equal or greater length, can have drones which appear at that 4:5 or 7:8 ratio often seen. It's even possible to have a common stock where the two drones have different stock lengths: I used to have a Walloon bagpipe like that.

[Celtpastor]

Another Point is: It is not alltogether correct to say, the first Drones added to Bagpipes had been a single Bassdrone. As true as it is to say, that there's no other historical Evidence (afaIk) for two Tenors without Bass except for early GHBs, most medieval Carvings You find in Churches from 12th C. on show pretty detailed one-droned Bagpipes with rather a Tenor- than a Bassdrone - pretty much like most Veuzes and Binious nowadays.

So, early GHBs with two Tenordrones might have been something like a Veuze with doubled Drone - especially if we remember the many already mentioned Parallels between Gaita and early GHB as well as the Fact, that the Chanters and Sound of Veuze and Gaita are as close as You may get. The fingering is basically the same, some Veuze-Players even use Gaita-Chanterreeds!

Another Question in this Thread was, where Bagpipes were "invented" anyway. Middle-East was mentioned, which does contain some truth insofar as most "GHBs" nowadays do come from Middle-East...
But seriously: Oldest Fragments of Reed-Instruments were found in Middle-East, but the oldest Mentionings of anything like a Bagpipe come from hellenistic Greece, some Centuries later from ancient Rome, connected to Nero and his Admiration for Greek Music and Culture.

There is no Proof whatsoever of anything like Bagpipes North of the Alpes before the Time of the Crusaders. Considering also, that the Breton Shawm was introduced by returning Crusaders, I propose Introduction of Bagpipes in non-mediterranean Europe the same way and time - maybe an Instrument quite like the Veuze - mouth blown, one Tenordrone - as depicted in many European Churches from at least 12th. C.

[CHasR]

completely agree that ( & this is one of my pet theories) there was some sort of widespread, common, recreatable, 'proto-euro-pipe'; mouthblown, with 1 or 2 cylinder single reed drones & a double reed conical chanter, and that this pipe devolved into the seperate varieties we have today.
but,
disagree that the shawm (& its derivations) do not predate the crusades in N Euro.

As I always point out in these discussions, (of which weve had many), to not include the fact that the zampogna played a central, pivotal, and critial developmental role of the N Euro. pipe, is simply absurd.

[Yuri]

I personally tink that the Zampogna, along with the Sardinian Launeddas, are holdovers from the Ancient World. You know, aulos and whatever was the local equivalent. Probably there was no interest in the polyphonic capabilities further up North, so it never spread. Then the crusades come along, and all of a sudden they discover that you don't need to stick two chanters into the stock, one will do. And then the whole thing takes off.
(To refine the theory, it can be postulated that before the introduction of the bag from the East the Italian Zampognas were also played from the mouth, and it was this technological breakthrough from the mysterious East that gave it the bag. While Sardinia, being more traditionalist, has yet to discover the glories of the uninterrupted airflow without busting your gut.)(just kidding there.)