GOODBYE TO HOGWARTS AND WELCOME TO GLASGOW

The Grandma inside The Hogwarts Express

This morning, The Jones have left Hogwarts after spending some unforgettable days in this fantastic School of Witchcraft and Wizardry enjoying the company of wizards and students and discovering hundreds of spells and potions.

They haven't got any photos because, as you know, Hogwarts is a fantastic place and what happens there can't be seen in the Muggles' world. The family has gone to Glasgow to spend some days in this incredible city and the first activity has been revising some English Grammar: Present Continuous and So/Such. Later, The Jones have been talking about what to do in Paris, their next trip, where to stay and how much to spend before talking about some of the most spectacular works of The MNAC, the most important world museum of Romanic Art, located in Barcelona.

This evening, the family is visiting to The National Theatre of Scotland in Glasgow to learn the history of the bagpipe and its importance in the Scottish culture. They have been invited to assist to a bagpipes concert, too.

More information: Present Continuous

Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. Though the Scottish Great Highland bagpipes are the best known in the Anglophone world, bagpipes have been played for a millennium or more throughout large parts of Europe, northern Africa, and western Asia, including Turkey, the Caucasus, and around the Persian Gulf. The term bagpipe is equally correct in the singular or plural, though pipers usually refer to the bagpipes as the pipes, a set of pipes or a stand of pipes.

More information: So-Such

A set of bagpipes minimally consists of an air supply, a bag, a chanter, and usually at least one drone. Many bagpipes have more than one drone and, sometimes, more than one chanter in various combinations, held in place in stocks -sockets that fasten the various pipes to the bag.

Three Scottish Bagpipers

The evidence for pre-Roman era bagpipes is still uncertain but several textual and visual clues have been suggested. The Oxford History of Music says that a sculpture of bagpipes has been found on a Hittite slab at Euyuk in the Middle East, dated to 1000 BC.

Several authors identify the ancient Greek askaulos, ἀσκός askos -wine-skin, αὐλός aulos-  reed pipe, with the bagpipe. In the 2nd century AD, Suetonius described the Roman emperor Nero as a player of the tibia utricularis. Dio Chrysostom wrote in the 1st century of a contemporary sovereign, possibly Nero, who could play a pipe, tibia, Roman reedpipes similar to Greek and Etruscan instruments, with his mouth as well as by tucking a bladder beneath his armpit.

The first clear reference to the use of the Scottish Highland bagpipes is from a French history, which mentions their use at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh in 1547. George Buchanan (1506–82) claimed that they had replaced the trumpet on the battlefield. This period saw the creation of the ceòl mór, great music, of the bagpipe, which reflected its martial origins, with battle-tunes, marches, gatherings, salutes and laments. The Highlands of the early seventeenth century saw the development of piping families including the MacCrimmonds, MacArthurs, MacGregors and the Mackays of Gairloch.

More information: Compare Bagpipes

During the expansion of the British Empire, spearheaded by British military forces that included Highland regiments, the Scottish Great Highland bagpipe became well-known worldwide. This surge in popularity was boosted by large numbers of pipers trained for military service in World War I and World War II. The surge coincided with a decline in the popularity of many traditional forms of bagpipe throughout Europe, which began to be displaced by instruments from the classical tradition and later by gramophone and radio.

In the United Kingdom and Commonwealth Nations such as Canada, New Zealand and Australia the Great Highland bagpipe is commonly used in the military and is often played in formal ceremonies. Foreign militaries patterned after the British Army have also taken the Highland bagpipe into use including Uganda, Sudan, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Jordan, and Oman. Many police and fire services in Scotland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and the United States have also adopted the tradition of fielding pipe bands.

More information: Historic UK

  
O Fhlùir na h-Alba, cuin a chì sinn an seòrsa laoich a sheas gu bàs 'son.

O Flower of Scotland, when will we see your like again, 

that fought and died for.

Flùr na h-Alba / Flower of Scotland