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Set of Scottish small pipes

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belonged to a Sutherland family, late 18th century

Set of Scottish small pipes
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Set of small-pipes, Scottish, late 18th century, mouth blown with three drones set in a common stock. The set comprises a chanter, bass drone, baritone drone, tenor drone, and a blowstick with a black horn mouthpiece. Each drone has two joints and is decorated with a band of combing of five rings.

The pipes are made of laburnum, which is variegated and nicely figured, and fruitwood mounted with 'sea ivory'. The chanter stock is a later addition with a bone mount. The bag is made of sheepskin with a fringed green wool cover. This set of pipes was formerly owned by an old Sutherland family. The sweet toned small pipes were ideal for playing indoors. The three drones tuning to the tonic and dominant or fifth are similar to the Northumbrian bagpipes. This set may have been originally bellows-blown.

Small pipes are a small version of the bagpipe which has been made and played in Scotland but which has been most familiar in Britain in the form of the Northumbrian Pipes, a small, bellows-blown instrument with a keyed chanter and variable drone accompaniment. Both Northumbrian Pipes and the Scottish small pipes probably derive from a Continental bellows-blown bagpipe developed by wind-instrument makers in European cities in the 17th century for chamber music and operatic performance by professional musicians. Known as the musette in France, it became a fashionable instrument in the late 17th and 18th centuries for court and drawing room recital.

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