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Essay on Long Live the Bagpipe
The music enhances the grief of the family of the dead and the other mourners. It also serves to escort the fallen to the final resting place. This scenario has been played out for centuries. The tradition has been carried forth from the ancient battlefields of Ireland and Scotland to the ceremonies honoring slain peace officers and firefighters (Cheape, 10).
A great deal of uncertainty, conflict and controversy surrounds the questions of the origins, evolution and distribution of bagpipes. At risk of throwing gasoline on the fire, the following opinions and speculations (with stress on those words) are offered here. The objective is not to present a history so much as to convey a general sense of the great diversity and the antiquity of the bagpipe and its predecessors (Collinson, 22).
The "Oxford History of Music" makes mention of the first documented bagpipe being found on a Hittite slab at Eyuk. This sculptured bagpipe has been dated to 1,000 B.C. Biblical mention is made of the bagpipe in Genesis and in the third Chapter of Daniel where the "symphonia" in Nebuchadnezzar's band is believed to have been a bagpipe. These early pipes or "Pan" pipes, without the bag or reservoir, were probably the second musical instrument to evolve. Musical history dictates that pipers have to take a back seat to percussion instruments in this case. These early pipes used materials with a natural bore (hollow reeds, corn stalks, bamboos, etc.) (Manson, 40)
Contrary to popular belief, the bagpipes are not of Scottish or Irish origin. The first version of the instrument can be traced back to the Middle East several centuries before the birth of Christ. It was most likely a rather crude instrument comprised of reeds stuck into a goatskin bag. As civilization spread throughout the Middle East and into the Mediterranean lands, the people brought along their music (Gibson, 25)....
