Irish Traditional Music Archive

Taisce Cheol Dúchais Éireann

The Uilleann Pipes in Irish Traditional Music

Uilleann pipes, also known as union pipes or Irish pipes, are the specifically Irish form of bellows-blown or elbow-blown bagpipes.

The term ‘uilleann pipes’ is pronounced ‘ill-un pipes’ with the stress on the first syllable. Deriving from the Irish uille/uillinn ‘elbow’ and variously spelt, it is a modern coinage introduced only at the turn of this century, but now universally used. The older terms, ‘union (bag)pipes’ and ‘Irish (bag)pipes’, have been in use since the eighteenth century. The modern name has been translated into Irish as pib uilleann and the instrument is also referred to in Irish by the older píobaí, a generic term for pipes.

Bagpipes in General
Bagpipes, classified as wind instruments and reed instruments, essentially consist of a reeded chanter or melody-pipe, with finger-holes, which is sounded with air from an attached bag held under the player’s arm.

In the older form the bag is inflated through a blowpipe held in the mouth. Almost all bagpipes also have reeded pipes of fixed pitch called drones which sound continuously with the chanter melody. Bagpipe reeds, made of cane or other materials, are fixed in the various pipes of the instrument and produced sound as they vibrate under air pressure;. They can be single reeds (one piece of the material) or double (two pieces bound together). Mouth-blown bagpipes are thought to have originated in eh prehistoric period in the Near or Middle East from which they have spread throughout Europe, to India and to North Africa. In recent times the Scottish Highland form has spread throughout the world.

A bellows attached to the player’s elbow has been used in Europe for inflating the bag since at least the sixteenth century, and bellows-blown forms include the Czech dudy, the French musette, the English Northumbrian small-pipes and the Scottish Lowland pipes.

The Irish Uilleann Pipes
Uilleann pipes differ uniquely from other bellows-blown bagpipes in having a main chanter range of two octaves and a number of closed chanters called regulators which can be used in combination for harmonic and rhythmic accompaniment, and they are almost unique in having the main chanter closed for almost its entire range, a feature which allows a silence between notes.

All parts of the instrument, including the reeds, are custom-made, and the material snow used in its construction are close-grained woods such as ebony and boxwood for chanter, drones, regulators, etc.; animal skin, rubber or plastic for the bag, connectors and valves; brass or silver for metal fittings; and plastic (formerly ivory) for decorative or supporting components.

A full modern set of uilleann pipes (see drawing) consists of

an open-ended fixed-pitch wooden chanter of conical bore, fitted with a double reed, with seven finger holes in its front and one thumb-hole in its back. Its diatonic scale is produced by cross-fingering.

The bottom note of the chanter is conventionally called D, whatever its actual pitch. The commonest chanter, a 'concert pitch' chanter is 36 cm in length and has as bottom note the D above middle C. 'Flat sets' are pipes with bottom chanter notes lower than D: from C sharp to B flat. Bottom chanter notes higher than D are sometimes found: E flat or E.

Different numbers of metal keys can be fitted to chanters to provide chromatic semitones, but the only one required by the music normally played on the instrument is that which produces C natural in the second octave.

Except for the production of its bottom note, the chanter is normally closed off at its end by being rested on a piece of leather called the popping strap tied on the knee of the player. This sealing of the chanter is necessary for the playing of the higher octave which is partly achieved by 'overblowing' or the exerting of extra pressure by the elbow on the bag, and it allows an instant of silence to occur between notes.

the bag, which is fed with air from the bellows and, which supplies air to the sounding parts
the main stock, a hollow wooden cylinder onto or into which are fixed the bag, drones and regulators, and which is fed with air from the bag.
the three wooden drones, pipes of cylindrical bore, which sound continuously and are fitted with single reeds: the small or tenor drone (tuned in unison with the bottom note of the chanter), the middle or baritone drone (an octave below the tenor), the big or bass drone (an octave below the baritone). The drones may be silenced by the use of a switch on the main stock.
the three wooden regulators, tenor, baritone and bass, which are closed fixed-pitch chanters of conical bore fitted with double reeds and four or five metal keys each of which sounds a note when pressed. The regulators lie beside each other so as to allow the playing of simple tonic or dominant chords, or individual notes, when the keys are activated by the heel of the lower hand or the fingers of a temporarily free hand. The regulators are only sometimes used.

(Illustration courtesy Wilbert Garvin)

The uilleann pipes are a relatively quiet indoor instrument, almost always played in a sitting position with the bag under one arm and the bellows under the other; with the left hand, usually covering the thumb-hole and upper three finger-holes and right the remaining holes. and with the drones and regulators lying across the thigh of the player. They are played by professionals and amateurs, of all social classes, and most players have been men. They are not very widely played in comparison with the fiddle and other instruments, probably because they are relatively expensive to acquire and difficult to play, tune and maintain, but they have a high status and are played solo more than other instruments. Learners can begin with bag, bellows and chanter, and add drones and regulators by degrees. Most music performed on the pipes is dance music, but played more nowadays for recreational listening than for dancing, and most pipers also have a repertory of 'slow airs', song airs played instrumentally.

Style
There are now no regional piping styles, and pipers develop their own personal styles or imitate the styles of virtuoso players. The melody may be played with a lesser or greater degree of articulation. The former style, 'open', 'loose', or legato playing, uses the minimum number of fingers needed to produce a note, while the latter style, 'tight' or non-legato playing, uses the maximum. Most players use a mixture of the two styles. The normal melodic ornaments of Irish traditional music - grace notes, rolls and triplets etc. - are used on the pipes, and in addition special ornaments such as crans, tight triplets, popping, etc. Style also includes the uses to which the drones and regulators are put.

History
The uilleann pipes are thought to have developed in Ireland in the early eighteenth century, possibly in the southern half of the country and probably under the influence of foreign forms, and they gradually replaced the earlier mouth-blown bagpipes played here since medieval times. The oboe and German flute, introduced to Ireland in the decades around 1700, may have had an influence on their development. The instrument was being referred to as the 'Irish pipes' by the early 1770s, suggesting that a distinctly national form had evolved by the mid-eighteenth century, and by the 1790s it was being called the 'union pipes', seemingly in reference to the addition of a regulator in the previous decade, or to the union of drones and regulator in the main stock. It reached its developed form in the early nineteenth century, when it replaced the harp as the classical instrument of Irish music, and by the mind-century it was being widely played throughout the country (less widely in the northern counties where the fiddle was dominant) and even in Britain and the United States.

The social consequences of the Great Famine of the 1840s and the introduction of mass-produced concertinas and melodeons from Britain and Germany in the second half of the century almost brought the instrument to extinction, but it was boosted by the Gaelic Revival movement of the 1890s and early twentieth century, and clubs were founded in Cork and Dublin for its promotion. Its fortunes waned again from the War of Independence until the revival of interest in Irish traditional music which began in the 1950s and still continues. There are now hundreds of good pipers in Ireland and abroad, and the uilleann pipes are at their strongest since before the Famine. Detailed studies of piping have been made, makers of pipes are unable to keep up with demand, and the instrument is being used in the playing of music other than traditional music. A specialist international society exists for the promotion of the pipes: Na Píobairí Uilleann (the Society of Uilleann Pipers) 15 Henrietta Street, Dublin 1 (tel. +353-1-8730093).

No 6 of a series of information leaflets. These leaflets were published in 1996 and therefore have some information which is no longer current. Updated versions of these leaflets will be made available on the website in due course.