FAQs about Bagpipes

What is a Gaita?

There are a variety of musical instruments called “gaitas” in the Spanish, Asturian, or Galician-Portuguese which are spoken in the Spanish state. Despite the fact that these instruments have the same name, they are all very different. Not every instrument called a “gaita” is a bagpipe. Moreover, there are bagpipes which are not called “gaitas.”

Instruments that are called “gaitas” but are not bagpipes

Gaita Charra


A “gaita charra” beside a drumstick,
both resting on a drum

The “gaita charra” is a flute or whistle with three holes used in the province of Salamanca. It is similar to what is called a “tabor pipe” in English. It has neither a cane reed nor a bag. It is not a real bagpipe but a “fipple flute,” similar to the recorder or penny whistle, but with fewer holes since it is played using only the left hand. The musician also carries a drum, which hangs on a strap worn over the left shoulder. While he plays the flute with his left hand, he beats the drumhead with a drumstick carried in his right hand.


A gaita charra, similar to the three-hole tabor pipe

The gaita charra is related to other similar instruments, such as Asturian xipla, the Andalusian rociera flute, the Basque txistu, the Catalan flaviol, or the galoubet of southern France, all of which are played with only one hand.

Gaita Zamorana


A gaita zamorana is a hurdy-gurdy

The Zamoran gaita receives that name in encyclopedias and treatises on musical instruments, but nobody uses this term currently anywhere in the Spanish State. It is a scholarly term and thus inappropriate.

A Zamoran gaita is a hurdy-gurdy or zanfoña. Therefore it is not a bagpipe. Moreover, it is not specifically Zamoran. “Zamorano or zamorana” means to be from the province of Zamora, which is in the northwest corner of the Spanish state. The hurdy-gurdy is an old instrument that is played from Portugal to Russia, in different versions. The one which is played on the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal) is a single design without local variants. This means that the same hurdy-gurdy is played in Galicia, Asturias, Castile, etc.

The sound the Zamoran gaita produces is reminiscent of the bagpipes because it has some strings called “singers” which produce the notes of the melody and other strings which produce continuous bass notes, much like the bagpipe’s drones.
This is why in Asturies the zanfoña is sometimes given the name “gaita de rabil,” referring to the Asturian word “rabil” which in Spanish is called “manivela” (“crank” in English).

Gaita


A group playing the gaita navarra and a drum


A gaita navarra, or dulzaina, has a double reed but no bag

Folk versions of the schawm are played in most of the Iberian Peninsula, with the exception of Portugal and Andalusia. These instruments have different names, depending on the regions and languages. The most common is the Spanish “dulzaina.” In Navarre and Aragón, however, these oboes are called “gaitas.” They have a double reed, like the chanter of a Galician or Asturian bagpipe, but they are played directly with the mouth. They don’t have either a bag or drones, so neither are true bagpipes.

Noise-making Toys


Examples of the gaita zamploña, made from straw

In Asturies and elsewhere, there are a number of objects which are more noise-making toys than real instruments. There is an whistle-like instrument in Asturies that is sometimes called a “gaita.” It is made from the straw of a cereal, such as rye, barley, oats or wheat. The straw is cut to create a tab which vibrates when one blows on the straw. Other times this same object is called a “zamploña” (shepherd’s pipes or rustic flute). In the Següenco region of Asturies, there is also a kind of clarinet made from a willow branch into which finger holes are cut. The sound is produced by a single reed, which is similar to the reeds used in the drone of a bagpipe. This instrument is called a “gaita de Següenco,” but it is not a true bagpipe, either.

Well, up until this point in this section we’ve talked about instruments that are not true bagpipes. We now turn to the pipes that have bags: bagpipes!

Instruments that are Bagpipes

Cornamusa (Bagpipes)

The word “cornamusa” is used hardly anywhere in the Iberian Peninsula. It is an academic term derived from the French “cornemuse,” which means “bagpipe” in general, with its skin bag and one or more drone pipes. Here we will use this word solely in the taxonomic sense, as it is used by those specialists who have continued the work of Sachs and Hornbostel in classifying musical instruments according to their physical structure:

Cornamusas: wind instruments with multiple reeds and a flexible air resevoir.

Thus, cornamusa is a technical term which includes the instruments that we know in Asturian or Galician by the term “gaita,” in French by “cornemuse,” or in English by “bagpipe.” There are six different types of cornamusa on the Iberian Peninsula, although not all of them include the word “gaita” in their name.

Xeremía


A xeremía from Mallorca
Toni Roig (xeremies) & Pep Rotger (fubiol & tamboril)
Courtesy of Anuario de la Gaita

The “xeremía” is a bagpipe characteristic of Majorca, which is the largest of the Balearic Islands. It belongs to the Mediterranean family of the bagpipes, and is closely related to the Italian “zampogna” and the Catalan “sac of gemecs.”

Sac de Gemecs


A sac de gemecs from Cataluña

The “sac de gemecs” is the bagpipe that was used traditionally in Catalonia. It is related to the Majorcan “xeremía” and Italian “zampogna.” In recent years there have been intensive efforts to recover the sac de gemecs, but its use is much less widespread compared to the situation in Galicia and Asturies.

Gaita de Boto


A gaita de boto from Aragón

“Gaita de boto” is the name traditionally given to the cornamusa typical of Aragón. In Aragón the word “gaita” is used for a oboe-like folk instrument. In order to differentiate between these two instruments, they add “de boto” to the name of the bagpipe. “De boto” in Aragonese means “with a skin bag”. This one really is an authentic bagpipe. So we have in Aragón “gaita” = schawm, “gaita de boto” = Aragonese bagpipe.

As in the case of Catalonia, efforts have been under way to recover the gaita de boto for some years, but also it is an instrument used much less extensively than the gaita in Asturies or Galicia.

Gaita de Fole


A gaita de fole, a Portuguese bagpipe

“Gaita de fole” is the name given to a type of bagpipe used in the north of Portugal and the neighboring Spanish province of Zamora. “Fole” (“fuelle” in Spanish) refers the bag. It is frequently called “gaita de foles” in the plural as if it had not one but several skin bags. The Portuguese and Zamoran gaitas are essentially the same instrument, although the Portuguese usually talk about theirs as the “gaita trasmontana” (named after the region of Tras Os Montes) and the Spanish refer to theirs as the “gaita sanabresa” (named after the Zamoran region of Sanabria, although also the instrument is also used in other areas, such as Sayago and Aliste).

This gaita belongs to the same family as the Galician and Asturian, which is called the “Atlantic family” or the “Celtic family.” Its sturcture is similar to the Asturian gaita, but the fingering is open like the Galician. Nevertheless, its most peculiar characteristic is a unique scale, with the third degree (mediant), sixth degree (submediant), and seventh degree (subtonic) being neutral, halfway between the flat and natural. Basically, this scale contains the same irregularities as the scale of the Scottish bagpipe. Therefore, this is not an appropriate instrument for playing with other instruments with standard tuning of its intervals.

Gaita Gallega


A gaita gallega from Galicia

The Galician gaita has enough differences from the Asturian that we can speak of them as being two different instruments. For the same tonality or key, the Galician bagpipe has shorter sound-producing tubes, and the reed for the chanter is significantly longer. The Galician gaita has a sharper or more piercing timbre and less sound volume. Its fingering is open as with the recorder, and its range has traditionally been one octave. The chanter is chromatic, the accidentals being played with crossed fingerings (covering some of the holes located below the last open hole). Some Galician gaitas are configured with just one bass drone; others also have a tenor drone.

The Galician gaita is used in Galicia as well as in a few other areas of influence, such as in Portugal and the Bierzo region of Leon. It was also used after the end of the Spanish Civil War by the Spanish army, although only in accompanied by other instruments in the military bands.

Gaita Asturiana


A gaita asturiana
José Remis Vega (gaita) & Jose Manuel Junco (drum)

The Asturian gaita is characteristic of Asturies, although in recent years it has also seen increasing use in Cantabria, where some people began calling it the “Astur-Cantabrian gaita” and nowadays, the “Cantabrian gaita.” It should noted that the bagpipe in both places is exactly the same instrument and that it is usually made in Asturies. The motivations for giving the instrument this inappropriate name are political. It makes no more sense than it would to call the Scottish bagpipe the “Scottish bagpipe, Irish bagpipe, Canadian bagpipe, American bagpipe, Indian bagpipe, Pakistani bagpipe,” etc., which is to say, naming it not by the name of the place where is originated, in this case Scotland, but by the places where is used.

Said this, the Asturian gaita differs from its closest relative, the Galician gaita, in its greater dimensions of the sound tubes for the same tonality, in its shorter reeds for chanter, in its characteristic timbre. It’s fingering is partially closed, similar to the fingering of the Irish uilleann pipes and other bagpipes. The Asturian gaita also has a longer scale of an octave and a half. The semi-closed fingering, along with other peculiarities of the playing technique makes the style sound more “baroque,” with a noticeable use of staccato, created by constantly inserting lower notes in between the others. The contemporary Asturian gaita permits the execution of accidentals. The intervals of its scale reflect a tempered tuning, so that it is compatible with any other instrument.