Scottish smallpipes

The Scottish smallpipe is a bellows-blown bagpipe re-developed by Colin Ross and many others, adapted from an earlier design of the instrument. There are surviving bellows-blown examples of similar historical instruments as well as the mouth-blown Montgomery smallpipes, dated 1757, which are held in the National Museum of Scotland.^[1] Some instruments are being built as direct copies of historical examples,^[2] but few modern instruments are directly modelled on older examples; the modern instrument is typically larger and lower-pitched. The innovations leading to the modern instrument, in particular the design of the reeds, were largely taken from the Northumbrian smallpipes.

Although there is evidence of small pipes dating back to 15th century, in its current form it is perhaps the youngest bagpipe with widespread popularity, having only existed in this form since the early 1980s.