Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive
Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive
Union Pipes - Irish Traditional Music Archive
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COURTNEY’S ‘UNION PIPES’ AND THE TERMINOLOGY OF IRISH BELLOWS-BLOWN BAGPIPES 2<br />
history of the term. Other terms for the uilleann pipes are also traced.<br />
As well as core questions of terminology, consideration of ‘union<br />
pipes’ also necessarily touches on the whole history and<br />
historiography of <strong>Irish</strong> bagpiping, and involves other dimensions of<br />
<strong>Irish</strong> musical culture: artistic processes and allegiances; national<br />
identity and self-representation, especially in relation to the <strong>Irish</strong><br />
language; and the ongoing globalisation of <strong>Irish</strong> traditional music.<br />
It must be emphasised that only the history of the term is being<br />
centrally addressed, not the history of the instrument itself. Although<br />
the two are of course related, they have led somewhat independent<br />
lives. Changes in terminology did not necessarily reflect<br />
developments in the physical nature of the instrument; such<br />
developments did not necessarily lead to the introduction of new<br />
terminology.<br />
But to provide a context for the discussion of piping terminology,<br />
some brief consideration of the history of the instrument itself is<br />
unavoidable. Bagpipes are musical wind instruments consisting of a<br />
reeded melody-pipe or chanter with finger-holes by which the player<br />
produces melody, an attached skin bag acting as an air-reservoir, a<br />
blow-pipe attached to the bag by which the player inflates it, and,<br />
normally, reeded fixed-pitch melody-pipes attached to the bag which<br />
provide a droning accompaniment to the chanter. Known in classical<br />
times, they are immemorially old and of uncertain origins. By the<br />
Middle Ages they were a common instrument, existing in many<br />
different forms across Europe, and in Asia and north Africa. Played<br />
mainly out of doors, and usually by professional players of low<br />
status, they are thought to have reached the limits of their popularity<br />
in western Europe from the fourteenth century to the seventeenth. 4<br />
4<br />
Baines 1995: 100.