In Scotland, the bagpipe was and still is a feature of many, if not most public events – from battles to funerals to weddings, ceremonies, and festivals. The piper would provide merry-making, celebrate solemn moments, inspire troops, and even play to mark the main times and events of the day. Some of these roles are still an active part of Scottish culture to this day.

The bagpipe was present in daily life thanks to the role of the town piper – an important institution in Scotland, particularly but not exclusively Lowland. Town minstrels (or, in the case of England, town waits) were public figures maintained by public funds who served towns or burghs from at least the 15th century. Their role was to mark the main moments of the day and commemorate notable events: from wake-up time to leading processions and honouring festivities. They are celebrated in a substantial corpus of literature, the most famous example of which is probably Robert Sempill’s Epitaph of Habbie Simpson – the 17th-century poem which gave the name to the famous “standard Habbie” stanza. The tradition of the town pipers declined as town clocks were introduced into the industrializing cities. The last town piper of the old succession was appointed in Haddington in 1824.

The bagpipe’s martial role, still visible in parades, royal funerals, military tattoos, and other official public events and ceremonies, is documented as early as the mid-16th century. Much Jacobite literature, both Anglophone and Gaelic, and both on the Jacobite and on the Hanoverian side, portrays the bagpipe as a Scottish icon. Poets such as Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair extolled its martial sound and established a literary genderization, which meant that the bagpipe eclipsed the less masculine harp (which for centuries Scotland had shared with Ireland as a national instrument). Bagpipes were strongly associated with the Jacobite side of the conflict, so that the Hanoverian government came to view the instrument, like tartan, as a seditious political-cultural symbol, conflating notions of Jacobitism, Highlandism, Gaeldom, and Scottishness.

1781 saw the birth of what was to become a recurring event, which today has global scale: the Highland piping competitions. These were organized by the Highland Societies, and also involved a Gaelic poetry contest on the theme “Poems in praise of Gaelic and the Great Pipe”. These competitions soon took on a tone of national assertiveness, which ended up becoming more predominant than the actual piping skills. Most of the judges at the competitions were aficionados with little musical skill or technical insight; only in the 1820s were rules set to select qualified arbitrators. With the competitions, much emphasis was put on the preservation of pìobaireachd – or, more appropriately, ceòl mòr, the “classical” bagpipe repertoire. This repertoire underwent changes: as the tunes needed to be the same for everyone (so as to establish a competitive basis), a trans-local cumulation process took hold and notations of tunes became general and standardized. This process affected the festivities among emigrant communities in North America and Canada less than in Scotland.

The nationally Scottish iconicity of the bagpipe was strong: the Highlands were seen as the shrine of Scottish identity, of which bagpipes and tartan were amongst the most colourful representatives. Sir Walter Scott, who took advantage of certain colourful aspects of Scottish culture in his literary works,  famously showcased a heavily “Highlandized” Scotland to King George IV in his memorable visit in 1822 – the first visit to Scotland by a British monarch since King Charles II’s in 1650. The event was filled with tartan and bagpipes, almost to the point of a masquerade. The bagpipe was also given a symbolic function in the literary cult around Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns. Convivial “Burns Suppers” have been celebrated yearly since 1801; today, 25 January constitutes a worldwide appointment celebrating Scottish culture. Apart from haggis, the Immortal Memory speech, and Robert Burns’ poem “To a haggis”, the bagpipe is an iconic feature of the event: the height of the evening begins with the haggis being “piped in” (escorted into the dining room by a piper).