Bagpipe chanter for a set of Highland pipes or 'Lovat Reel Pipes'

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Bagpipe chanter for a set of Highland pipes or 'Lovat Reel Pipes', Scottish, 19th century. Cocus wood. Two sound holes. This piece comes from the Glen and Ross Collection of musical instruments which were preserved in the shop of 'J & R Glen, Highland Bagpipe Makers' until it closed about 1978.

The Highland bagpipe may have been made from native hardwoods such as laburnum or elder, either in the Highlands or in the Lowland burghs. We know little of this trade until the 18th century; from the 1760s we learn about one or two professional makers in Edinburgh and Glasgow such as Hugh Robertson. Their businesses were well situated to obtain raw materials coming off ships trading into the Clyde and Forth, and tropical hardwoods from the Caribbean and African Continent, suitable for turning into musical instruments, came to be preferred for bagpipe making. The number of makers grew significantly in the second half of the 19th century, supplying particularly a demand from pipers in the army and pipe bands.

The use of the Great Highland Bagpipe in the army, the development of civilian pipe bands and the growing significance of competition meant that the instrument began to take on a fixed and standard form and proportions, for example with its wide bored chanter and bass and two tenor drones. Skilled craftsmen, often wood turners by profession, began to make the instrument more or less to a fixed pattern and added their decoration of 'beading' and 'combing' which was adopted probably by the late 18th century and has remained unchanged since then.

Record details

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• Online ID: 000-000-579-975-C
• Image Rights Holder: National Museums Scotland
• Project: The Bagpipe Collection
  Project description   View all records in project
• Ref: National Museums Scotland  K.2003.768
• Date: 19th century (date of manufacture)
  
• Material: Cocus wood
  
• Dimensions: 266 mm L
  
• What:
• Subject:
• Who: Glen and Ross Collection (musical instrument collection)
  John and Robert Glen, Highland Bagpipe Makers
  Reid School of Music, University of Edinburgh (place of display)
  
• Where: Scotland (place of manufacture)
  
• Event:
• Description: Cocus wood bagpipe chanter for a set of Highland pipes or 'Lovat Reel Pipes'.
  
• References:
  • Baines, Anthony,. Bagpipes. Occaisonal Paper on Technology 9, Oxford University Press, 1973. 
  • Cheape, Hugh,. A Checklist of Bagpipes in the Edinburgh University Collection of Historic Musical Instruments. Edinburgh: Reid School of Music, 1983, p. 25.
• Translations:
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