Roman Utriculus (Roman Bagpipes)

[guatemalan_aquilifer]

Salvate Fratres,

As a piper I have been doing some research into Roman Bagpipes or "Utriculus". I have found several links with reference to one David Marshall; however, I have found that he has passed on. Does anyone know of a historical instrument maker who makes or would make a set of Roman Bagpipes? Or where I could find more information on what tunes would be period to transcribe onto say the Great Highland Bagpipes?

http://www.ancestral.co.uk/romanmusic2003.htm

http://legvi.tripod.com/armamentarium/id61.html

Salvate et Roma Victor

[jvrjenivs]

You could ask Musica Romana from Germany. They have many contact with historical music instruments makers.

[guatemalan_aquilifer]

Thank you very much for the tip!

So what does everyone think? Romans? Bagpipes?

From a previous link:

"A ROMAN BAGPIPE FOR BRITANNIA
Literary evidence:

The Ancient Greek text strongly suggests that the bagpipe was, at the very least, not unknown to Greeks and Romans alike. Exactly what it looked like, remains a matter of speculation, since there are no known illustrations of the bagpipe from this time.

This text, generally agreed as referring to The Emperor Nero, describes his many talents - not least his ability to "...and play the Aulos in the mouth and with the leather slung under the arm..." (The relevant section starts at word eight in the fourth line and concludes with the first word in the following line). Clearly, the Aulos could ALSO be played connected up to a reservoir of air in the form of a leather bag!

From what we hear of Nero, "glowing reports" were a necessity for survival and probably contained enough invention to delight the best of storytellers! However, it seems unlikely that the writer would have been able to invent a musical instrument which was not already familiar to him to some degree. Indeed, the Roman word for bagpiper is UTRICULARIUS!

This makes it clear that the Aulos (a twin-bored reed instrument using loud, double reeds of the oboe type) could be, and was indeed, connected up to a windbag for playing (by squeezing the bag) under the arm as a BAG-AULOS or BAG-PIPE. The Aulos itself, appears with unfailing regularity on many a vase and wall painting et cetera and must have ranked amongst the most popular reed instruments of its day!

It's generally agreed that the bagpipe arose from the desire to make reed instruments easier to play, especially for lengthy spells. Connect your local reed instrument to a bag, add a blowpipe for putting in air, inflate fully and squeeze and you solve the problem! Perhaps Nero was not prepared to suffer DISFIGUREMENT (a red face and bulging eyes)? The necessary pressure to sound the reeds is now provided by ARM POWER. Just don't forget to put MORE air into the bag as you play... Failure to do so ends in disaster!"

--David Marshall

http://www.musica-romana.de/

Salvate et Roma Victor