The Bulgarian Bagpipe or gaida is a surprisingly flexible instrument due to the tradition of harmonic changes in the folk music it is associated with. Unlike most bagpipes, which are played exclusively against drones and can only play in one mode, the gaida is often heard in ensembles with kaval (an end blown flute, gadulka (a folk fiddle) and drums. And even when played solo it will often change key against its own drone. This is possible due to an ingenious device known as the flea hole; the top hole of the chanter which has a tiny diameter just wide enough to insert the quill of a feather, or nowadays, a narrow plastic tube, which extends inside the chanter about 5 mm. When fingering most notes normally, if you then lift the flea hole finger you get the semitone above. This gives you the relative pitches of C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B, C, D and finally D# by giving the bag an extra squeeze, making it the only chromatic bagpipe I know of without keys, and this lack of keys is important since it enables you to slide between notes, further encouraged by particularly large finger holes.

The bag is a whole goat, carefully skinned in one piece (more peeled than skinned) with the chanter tied into the neck hole, the blow-pipe and drone tied into the foreleg holes and the back end tied off. It is known as a dry bag, meaning the leather isn’t tanned, but simply turned inside out with the fur on the inside handling the moisture, and only seasoned occasionally on the outside with lanolin.
Another interesting feature it shares with other East European bagpipes is the single reed chanter. All Western bagpipes have a double reed, much like a primitive oboe reed, but Eastern bagpipes tend to have a single reed tied to a wooden stock, a little like a mini clarinet or saxophone mouthpiece. This gives it a more plaintive wailing tone, compared to the courser Western bagpipes. It also makes the high notes the strong notes, unlike the Highland pipes which are notoriously weak when they reach up to their top note.

The drone is usually related to the G fingering of the chanter meaning the tune can reach up a fifth and down a fifth from the tonic pitch. Although I have added a drone extension giving me an octave range up from my drone note, fingered D.

Some people believe the bagpipe originated in India and then slowly moved first North into Europe, then both East and West spreading as far afield as Russia and Tunisia, Scotland and Spain, evolving as it went; first with a single reed chanter and then, later, a double reed chanter. If this is the case then the gaida is one of the most subtlety sophisticated of the older, more primitive single reed pipes, still associated with a goatskin rather than the more elegant stitched leather bags of Western Europe.
It is the ideal shepherd’s pipe as it packs up surprisingly small and is made entirely from wood, goatskin and goat-horn. Its volume is suitable for campfire entertainment and it is very weather resistant.

To hear examples of Rohan Kriwaczek's gaida playing click the links below:

The Keening - from The Wandering Jew

The Chieftain on the Hill - from Rohan Kriwaczek Sampler CD

The Hall of the Piper's Warning - from Ritual Dark Music

A Woodland Tale - from The Wandering Jew

click here to find out about CDs by Rohan Kriwaczek featuring the Gaida