Set of Northumbrian small pipes

Set of Northumbrian small pipes with a leather, stitched bag inside a red baize bag trimmed with red braid. The drones, chanter and stocks are made of ivory and the drones have metal mounts. The chanter is of the plain open type. Attached to the blowpipe is a small keyhole shaped bellows with possibly mahogany boards inlaid with satinwood and a skin body covered in plum velvet. The instrument is of 18th century date when there was a vogue for the use of ivory in musical instrument making. Although they were never tonally successful in comparison with hardwoods, such instruments were treasured for their visual qualities. The keyed chanter may be of early 19th century date.

The Northumbrian pipes are a small bellows-blown instrument with drones in a single stock and a chanter stopped at the lower end and played with 'closed' fingering, that is producing he desired note by lifting a single finger. This gives a staccato style of playing and the melodic range was extended by adding keys to the chanter.

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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