Bacbib

The Llaneilian carving.

There are four historic representations of instruments of this type that I know of in Wales; two illuminated capitals in the `Borough Ordinances of Cowbridge’, circa 1610, one very badly drawn one in the John Jones sketch, also circa 1610, and one of the Llaneilien church carvings, They clearly show a conical bore chanter with a single bass drone, though the Llaneilian example is droneless. This type of bagpipe was of course common all across western Europe, surviving to modern times in the Spanish gaita, Breton veuze and biniou koz, and the French craba.

The conical bore chanter makes it quite a loud instrument, suitable for playing both indoors or out, playing for dances, processions etc.

I currently make them in D with a C# leading note giving its full range:

C# D E F# G A B C C# D

The bass drone is in D, tunable to E by closing up the slides, two octaves below the chanters’ six and five finger-notes respectively. The bag is good quality tanned leather and the chanter is fitted with an easy to maintain plastic reed, the cane reeds are also possible for the more experienced player. It plays with open fingering, rather like a tin whistle but with a thumb hole for top D.

Bacbib as illustrated, native hardwoods…………………£380

Bacbib using exotic hardwoods……………...……………£420

I currently have a 3 to 4 months waiting list, and require a deposit of £50 before I start work on an instrument. Delivery is £5. Customers should note that being handmade no two sets of pipes I make are exactly alike.

Bacbib, cherry pipes, holly stocks with brass ferrules.