The bagpipe, specifically, the Great Highland Bagpipe, or “a’ phìob mhòr”, is an instrument of great cultural significance with a long tradition of playing, native to the Scottish Highlands, but renowned around the world. The GHB’s unique sound is instantly recognizable, and evokes images of rolling green hills, men in kilts, expansive lochs, and the creatures that may or may not dwell in their depths.

Traditional materials used in bagpipe construction are often of animal origin, but fortunately, at least in the case of the GHB, there are vegan alternatives available, and it is possible to play a set of pipes which is not made from animal parts. As a proud vegan piper, and as somebody who always likes to think that if there’s something that I want to do, that there’s somebody else somewhere who wants to do the same thing (it makes me feel a little less crazy), I hope that some vegan out there who has always wanted to play the pipes, but never knew how easy they are to veganize, will find this information useful.

Great Highland Bagpipes, and bagpipes in general, are somewhat unwieldy contraptions which may appear quite complicated to the untrained eye, but in reality, once broken down into their chief component parts, are fairly simple to understand. As the name suggests, bagpipes consist of a bag and some pipes, and while the bag is usually the most obviously non-vegan part of a set of “traditional” pipes, there are a couple of things to look out for elsewhere on the instrument. Let’s take a quick tour of bagpipe construction, and explore some of the vegan options for each part.

Continue reading for Bagpipe Anatomy 101