Zampogna

The zampogna is a bagpipe found in mountainous regions across Central and Southern Italy, including Sicily. It varies in size, tuning style, and local repertoire but always features two unequal divergent melodic pipes (Baines 1963:95) tuned in either octaves or thirds, and depending on region, anywhere from zero to three drones, most commonly having two drones playing octaves of the dominant (fifth) note of the scale. Melodic pipes are conical and drones consist of two cylindrical parts, the lower of which is wider than the higher section. The melodic pipes and drones are traditionally fitted with double reeds. The surdulina, found in northern Calabria and southern Basilicata, has a slightly different sent up with cylindrical bores and the use of single reeds. Each chanter is played by one hand, with the bass chanter creating a rhythmic/bass accompaniment to the more melodic fingering of the melody chanter. The name ‘zampogna’ most likely derives from the Latin ‘symphonia’ and became a standard name for the bagpipes in Italy from the 15th century onward (Vereno 2022:74).


This instrument is a zampogna "a chiave" (keyed bagpipe) from Lucania, an ethno-geographic region encompassing parts of modern-day Campania and Basilicata. It is in the Trimarco style, named after Carmine Trimarco, a pipe-maker who was active from the end of the 19th century until his death in 1954. Trimarco defined pipe-making in the Lucanian region and he was considered one of the great zampogna makers (Scaldaferri 2020:158) of Lucanian regional style. His refined designs were influential and copied by makers across Lucania. This bagpipe, however, might have been made by Antonio Forastiero (1929-2022), a bagpipe maker based in Basilicata who followed the design of Trimarco’s instruments, and is considered by many to be the spiritual successor of Trimarco. Zampogna experts have also suggested that this instrument might have been made by Giuseppe Russo from Colliano in Southern Campania.


This instrument is varnished, which could suggest that it is more modern. It is very similar to another bagpipe in the collection, donated along with this one in 1963 (#63.221.3). Both instruments are most likely made by the same person. The size of the pipes is a ‘tre palmi’, meaning three palms. Palms are an old Bourbon unit of measurement typically used to designate the size and pitch of Lucanian bagpipes. A ‘tre palmi’ would typically be tuned to the key of G, and is a more modern pitch, as older instruments would have typically been in A flat and an octave below. These were ‘sei palmi’, twice the length of a ‘tre palmi’. A higher-pitched zampogna in G would have been standardized to match the tuning of the accordion, a shift that took place in the 1950s and 1960s which helps us date the pipe to sometime during or after that era.


The internal cavity of the bell of the left melodic pipe has a residue of wax, indicating that this was an instrument in use; Italian zampogna players sometimes store excess wax in this location, and have it on hand for any necessary tuning adjustments. The small picks attached to the instrument are used to add or retrieve wax in the fingerholes, tuning the instrument. These tuning picks are typically made by the musicians, as was most likely this case for this instrument.


The instrument is made of both maple and olive wood. Maple, a softer wood, was used for the bells and the headstock, while olive was used for ‘i fusi’, the bore of the melodic pipe. Olive wood is hard, and therefore more desirable for the bore and stable tuning, while maple wood is more malleable and thicker: it can be used for wider pieces such as the bell and the stock.


The bag and mouthpiece are both unusual. The bag, made from oilcloth with a textile exterior, is not traditional and might have been added after the instrument was made. Zampogna scholar David Marker notes that it is probably not original to the instrument. The mouthpiece, made from synthetic resin, is also after-market, and was most likely not made by the bagpipe maker, as it departs from the traditional style found in the rest of the instrument. The fact that this instrument was donated with six spare oilcloth bags, all with attached mouthpieces made from bone, suggests that these were made by another maker and bought separately to the instrument. The bagpipe might have been assembled by another person, creating a composite instrument. The unusual material of the bag coincides with trials that were carried out across Europe by instrument makers in the second half of the 20th century, in the search for alternative materials to the more traditional hide (Balosso-Bardin 2023:44). Many of these attempts, however, were unsuccessful. In this case, it seems that the traditional goat hide remained the preferred material, as this type of bag is unheard of for the zampogna today.


The zampogna was traditionally played by shepherds and is still used for a variety of cultural practices, devotional and secular. In the Lucania region and parts of Calabria and the Abbruzzi they are often played in a duo formation with a ciaramella/piffero, a double reeded shawm. This duo has become emblematic of the Christmas season, where traditionally dressed pipers walk from village to village playing the ‘novena’, a form of devotional music (Scaldaferri 2022). Zampogna players have secular and religious repertoires. The former is used for the novena and devotional processions, while the latter are used to accompany dancing and singing.


(David Marker and Cassandre Balosso-Bardin, 2023)


Technical description

Two, separate wooden semi-melodic pipes (bass and melody) with flared, wide semi-closed bells, conical bores: M: 42.8 cm, 5/1 holes; B. 71.5 cm, 3/0 with 1 key;
Reeds missing (typically 2 double cane reeds on long metal staples);
2 drones both in two sections, aesthetically flared, but internally cylindrical bells, cylindrical bores – the top section has a narrower cylindrical bore than the lower section; 15.6 cm, 35.3 cm long cane double reed extant in small drone;
Plastic/synthetic resin blowpipe 12 cm, chipped, no evidence of valve;
Oilcloth bag with textile cover;
1 short cylindrical stock, 1 large conical wooden stock with 4 holes for sounding pipes;
Sounding pipes and chanter stock with turned grooving, blowpipe stock hand-carved;
Pipes hung with green cords and tassels.


References

Baines, Anthony, 1960. Bagpipes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.


Balosso-Bardin, Cassandre, 2023. ‘The Social Production of a Mallorcan Bagpipe: Collaboration, Technology, Ecology, and Internationalization’. In Shaping Sound and Society: The Cultural Study of Musical Instruments. Routledge. pp. 35-53.


Scaldaferri, Nicola, 2020. ‘Doing research in sound: Music-making as creative intervention’. In　Sonic ethnography. Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp. 153-168.


Scaldaferri, Nicola, 2022. ‘The Bagpipes in the Mount Pollino Area (Southern Italy): Morphology and Musical Repertoires.’ In　Playing Multipart Music: Solo and Ensemble Traditions in Europe: European Voices IV. Vienna: Böhlau Verlag. pp. 71-93.


Vereno, Michael Peter, 2021. The Voice of the Wind: A Linguistic History of Bagpipes. Lincoln: International Bagpipe Organisation.