Building Simple Bagpipes — A Reed, a Bag and a Drone

A bagpipe is a reed instrument with a bag of air between your breath and the reeds. Blow the bag full, squeeze it, and the reeds sound on and on: a chanter pipe for the melody and a drone pipe for the harmony.

Sew or fold hide into an airtight pouch with three openings — for the blowpipe, the chanter and the drone. Rub every seam with wax so no air can leak out.

Cut a bamboo or cane pipe and bore a row of finger holes in it. This is the chanter — the melody pipe.

Near the top of the chanter, cut a thin tongue in the cane wall that springs slightly open — a single beating reed. Rushing air slaps it against its slot to make a buzzing tone.

Cut a longer pipe with its own reed but NO finger holes — the drone. It sounds one fixed, unchanging note the whole time you play.

Cut a short blowpipe to fill the bag, and fit a small flap of leather inside it as a one-way valve so air can go into the bag but not blow back out.

Push each pipe into its opening in the bag and bind it tight with waxed twine, airtight, so air escapes only through the reeds.

Blow steadily through the blowpipe to fill the bag with air, then tuck it firmly under your arm.

Squeeze the bag with your arm to drive air through the reeds. Because the bag stores air, you can snatch a breath through the blowpipe while your arm keeps the sound going.

Finger the chanter holes for the melody while the drone hums its fixed note underneath. Keep the bag pressure even and steady for a clean, unwavering tone.

A bagpipe is a reed instrument with a clever addition: a bag of air between your breath and the reeds. Each pipe is voiced by a reed — here a single 'beating' reed, a thin tongue cut in the cane that springs almost shut and then slaps rapidly against its own slot as air rushes past, chopping the airflow into a buzzing tone that the pipe's air column shapes into a note. A clarinet works the very same way; oboes and many real bagpipes use a double reed, two tongues beating against each other. Note that this is different from the FREE reed of the sheng and khaen, whose tongue swings cleanly THROUGH its slot; a beating reed slaps the slot shut. On its own a reed pipe stops the instant you pause to breathe — so the bag fixes that: you blow it full through a one-way blowpipe, then squeeze it with your arm to push a steady stream of air through all the reeds at once, and you can breathe in without the music ever stopping. That is also why bagpipes always have DRONES: extra pipes with reeds but no finger holes, each locked to one endless note, humming under the chanter's melody — the same constant-drone idea as the hurdy-gurdy's turning wheel. The chanter is the melody pipe, its finger holes shortening the air column to change the note like any flute or recorder. Bagpipes are ancient and worldwide: the Scottish Great Highland pipes, the bellows-blown Irish uilleann pipes, the Spanish gaita, the French musette, and pipes across the Middle East and India — everywhere, the same union of a reed, a bag and a drone.