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Andrew's Bagpipes Tips: Bagpipes PartsBy Andrew T. Lenz, Jr., Santa Cruz, California, ©2004-2008 The Bagpipes. What are those bagpipe parts called? And where are they? Since I keep getting asked how these things go together—you really should wait for your instructor before starting to play your pipes—I've put together breakdown of the various parts of bagpipes.
The above is my set of African Blackwood bagpipes (without a bag cover) and the diagram should be self-explanatory, though a few comments follow. The blowpipe valve shown is a "Lil' Mac" plastic and rubber valve, traditionally this would be piece of circular leather with a "leg" that is tied into place at the base of the blowpipe. There are other valves on the market which are less restrictive to airflow than the Lil' Mac. The drone reed shown is a Kinnaird Carbon Fiber Drone Reed—which I happened to be using at the time of the photo. Traditionally the reed would be made of natural cane which would resemble bamboo. (For more on types drone reeds, see Identifying Drone Reeds.) The bag shown is an L&M brand (cow) hide bag. Sheepskin bags are also used (good for those pipers needing excessive moisture to escape the bag quickly), as well as Gortex bags and hybrid bags (hide outside with synthetic inside). The white material on the joints—shown in the circle images—is Teflon tape and is used by many pipers (certainly not all or perhaps not even most) for fine tuning the seals of the various joints on the bagpipes. Here is a list of terms that you will hear to describe physical characteristics of the bagpipes: That should just about cover everything! For some history about my set of bagpipes and detailed pictures with descriptions see More about Andrew's Pipes.
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