The Bagpipe and Its History

You may have heard that bagpipes are a Scottish invention; you may have heard that they are an Irish invention. The truth (of course) is neither one. The bagpipe was invented in the middle east.The Old Testament mentions the instrument in the book of Daniel chapter 3, where it is listed as one of the instruments that was used to call the people to worship a golden statue that king Nebuchadnezzar had set up. (Anyone who disobeyed had to be thrown into a blazing fire --yaiks!!) This event took place in ancient Iraq, which was then part of the Babylonian empire.

From the middle east migrating tribes of peoples took the instruments to different parts of Europe, Asia and northern Africa.
Some 200 years ago the instrument was very popular throughout Europe.
It was around that time that the ruling class started to forbid the instrument.
It was decided that this instrument, with it's droning sound was a "poor man's instrument" and should have no part in modern music.

As a result, the instrument was forbidden in almost all of Europe, except for a few outposts such as Scotland and Bulgaria.
The bagpipe in its many forms, as of today still has retained its natural tuning.

The Bagpipe and Its History

The melody pipe or chanter has to tune in with the drone, therefore, it is hard to play together with other "tempered tuned" instruments. The key cannot be changed, also on account of this droning.

However, modern music, even though more sophisticated, has lost a very important ingredient of music, namely the rich overtones.

Those rich tones that you can hear in a well-tuned bagpipe can only be heard when the notes are exactly tuned. This is only the case in bagpipes, hurdy-gurdies (a similar instrument that operates with strings instead of pipes) and in voice.

However recently the bagpipe has been revived in modern music and there are now world wide many people who play the instrument.
This is primarily due to the fact that the (scottish highland)bagpipe has been used as a military instruments.

Today the instrument is being used in many different types of music, there are not only players of many different kinds of bagpipes again, there are also modern bagpipe builders.

This modern revival of the instrument has been inspired by painters such as Pieter Brueghel, who painted the instrument as it was played in the 1600's.

The Bagpipe and Its History
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History of Percussion Instruments

Anthropologists and historians repeatedly speculate that percussion instruments were the first musical apparatus ever came into being. But with the utmost certainty, the human voice was the first musical instrument, and surely, percussion tools such as feet, hands, rocks, sticks and logs came in second to the on-going evolution of music. When humans developed tools for hunting and agriculture, their knowledge along side with skill, enabled them to produce more complex tools. They use slit drum, made from a hollowed-out tree trunk. For instance, a simple log may have been shaped to generate louder tones (log drum) and may have been pooled to create numerous tones (set of log drums).

As time moved on, so is the evolution of percussion instruments. In the early 10th century, it was known that most tribes in Africa use sorts of percussions such as djembe, macaras used in Latin America, karimbas in Asia and seed rattles in Australia for their recreational and worship rituals and sometimes used in sending signals.

Percussion instruments that are displayed in orchestra first came from Asia Minor. In the 15th century, people began migrating east and brought with them numerous instruments. Our percussion instruments got their initial stages there, when the Crusades took back the drums that they found in the Middle East. From then on, evolution of percussion and drums kicked up a notch and assortments of percussion instruments came into being.

History of Percussion Instruments

Percussion is categorized by a variety of criteria at times depending on their cultural origin, construction and function within musical orchestration. It is generally referred as ?the hearbeat? of a musical ensemble, often functioning close collaboration with bass instruments if present.

Drums and percussions as well as bass are known as the rhythm section of the most popular music genres. Most classical pieces written for an orchestra since the time of Mozart and Haydn are schemed to put emphasis on strings, brass and woodwinds. However, time and again they include a pair of timpani (kettle drums) although not played continuously. But moderately, they serve to offer additional accents when needed.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, more percussion instruments (like the cymbals or triangles) came to being and frequently, again moderately and cautiously played in general. The massive uses of percussion instruments become more recurrent in the 20th century, on classical music.

In almost all types of music, percussion plays a fundamental role. In a military parade, it is the strike of the bass drum that holds the soldiers in step and at a normal speed, and it is the snare that endows that crisp, vital air to the tune of a troop. In traditional jazz, one almost instantly thinks of the distinguishing rhythm of the hi-hats or the ride cymbal when the word "swing" is uttered. In more current popular music genres, it is almost impossible to name at least three or four rock, hip-hop, rap, funk, punk, techno, grunge, alternative and blues songs that don?t have some kind of percussive beat maintaining the tune in time.

Because of the mixture and wide assortments of percussive instruments, it is not unusual to find large musical gathering composed wholly of percussion. Rhythm, harmony and melody are all evident and alive in these musical factions, and in live performances they are quite a spectacle to see.

History of Percussion Instruments
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Feel free to check out the UK's number one website of Percussion Instruments [http://www.percussion-instruments.co.uk].

We are proud to offer our customers high quality ethnic percussion instruments that are sourced ethically from around the globe.

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