PARTS OF ARAGONESE BAGPIPE

PARTS OF ARAGONESE BAGPIPE

Aragonese Bagpipe, like almost all bagpipes from this franc-occitan family and others from the peninsula, formed by:

• A bag or boto (the reason of its name) to keep air, composed of a whole goat skin, tanned and with the hair turned towards inside part, which capacity is of about 25 liters, very similar to those used for carrying wine, waterproofed with animal or synthetic fats. In the neck of the goat a stock with two holes is tied where the chanter and the tenor drone are disposed in parallel (it is the only bagpipe in the peninsula where it happens). Bass drone stock and blow pipe stock are tied to the front extremities.
• a blow pipe to fill the bag with air, provided with an anti-return valve and tied to the bag right front leg.
• a chanter, main tube that has 7 holes in the front face and one in back face to articulate the melody, plus two resonance holes close to the bell. It uses double-tongue canes. Chanter accepts open and close positions, although most part of aragonese bagpipers use open positions, to obtain a scale. The most common tonalities are Do major (La minor), Fa Major (Re minor, not common) and Do minor.
• a bass drone that produces a continuous bass. It uses simple cane. Bass drone and tenor drone are tuned in DO, in two and one lower eighth, respectively, than the chanter tonic. The position of the bass drone is also particular, since it is placed under the right arm of the bagpiper against the well-known gallego-asturian aesthetics to localte it over the shoulder.
• a tenor drone, with similar constitution to the bass drone but producing a note one eighth acuter than that. It also uses simple cane.