bagpipes

A scene from the Luttrell Psalter, a 13th-century English manuscript. This scene shows a man playing bagpipes.

Any of an ancient family of double-reed folk woodwind instruments employing a bladder, filled by the player through a mouthpiece, or bellows as an air reservoir to a ‘chanter’ or fingered melody pipe, and two or three optional drone pipes providing a continuous accompanying harmony.

Examples include the old French musette, Scottish and Irish pipes, smaller Northumbrian pipes, Breton biniou, Spanish gaita, and numerous variants in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. The Highland bagpipes are the national instrument of Scotland.