Tunes, Joseph MacDonald's Jig and Stumpie, played on a late 20th century Scottish smallpipe by Iain MacInnes (audio clip)

A modern Scottish smallpipe pitched in D, bellows-blown, designed to be played with a half-open fingering system of the type used on the Highland bagpipe. These pipes can be played with ease by Highland pipers, and combine features of 18th Century smallpipes (such as the use of three drones of different length mounted in a common stock), with modern features such as long chanters, wide finger-spacings, and more robust tone. Modern chanters are characteristically pitched in A or D, although alternative tunings are available.

The tunes are from Patrick MacDonald's Collection of Highland Vocal Airs, published in 1784, and were collected from a piper in MacDonald's native district of Strathnaver in Sutherland. Although unnamed in the original, they are widely known by the titles Joseph MacDonald's Jig and Stumpie, the latter being the model for the pipe march The Highland Wedding.

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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