A look at the traditional Bagpipes

A bagpipe minimally consists of an air supply, a bag, a chanter, and usually a drone. Some bagpipes also have additional drones (and sometimes chanters) in various combinations, held in place in stocks—connectors with which the various pipes are attached to the bag.

Air supply
The most common method of supplying air to the bag is by blowing into a blowpipe, or blowstick. In some pipes the player must cover the tip of the blowpipe with his tongue while inhaling, but modern blowpipes are usually fitted with a non-return valve which eliminates this need.
An innovation, dating from the 16th or 17th centuries, is the use of a bellows to supply air. This air is not heated or moistened by the player's breathing, so bellows-driven bagpipes can use more refined and/or delicate reeds.
The possibility of using an artificial air supply, such as an air compressor, is occasionally discussed by pipers, and although experiments have been made in this direction, widespread adoption seems unlikely.

Bag
The bag is simply an airtight (or nearly airtight) reservoir which can hold air and regulate its flow while the player breathes or pumps with a bellows, enabling the player to maintain continuous sound for some time. Materials used for bags vary widely, but the most common are the skins of local animals such as goats, sheep, cows, and pigs. More recently, pipers have experimented with materials such as rubber, Gore-Tex, and other airtight fabrics.
Bags cut from larger materials are usually saddle-stitched with an extra strip folded over the seam and stitched (for skin bags) or glued (for synthetic bags) to reduce leaks. Holes are cut to accommodate the stocks. In the case of bags made from largely-intact animal skins the stocks are typically tied into the points where limbs and the head joined the body of the living animal, a construction technique common in Central and Eastern Europe.
A major innovation in bag design since the 1990s is the addition of moisture control systems to bags for mouth-blown pipes that keep moisture from the piper’s breath from condensing on the pipes, drones, and reeds, a situation that can lead to decay and other problems. Bags with zippers can be fitted with moisture control cartridge systems attached to the drone stocks to remove moisture as air passes through bentonite clay particles. Corrugated tube traps attached to blowpipe stocks also aid in moisture control. These types of systems require bags with zippers.
Chanter
The chanter is the melody pipe, played by one or both hands. A chanter can be bored internally so that the inside walls are parallel for its full length, or it can be bored in the shape of a cone. Additionally, the reed can be a single or a double reed. Single-reeded chanters must be parallel-bored; however, both conical- and parallel-bored chanters operate with double reeds, and double reeds are by far the more common.
The chanter is usually open-ended; thus, there is no easy way for the player to stop the pipe from sounding. This means that most bagpipes share a legato sound where there are no rests in the music. Primarily because of this inability to stop playing, embellishments or grace notes (which vary between types of bagpipe) are used to break up notes and to create the illusion of articulation and accents. Because of their importance, these embellishments (or ornaments) are often highly technical systems specific to each bagpipe, and take much study to master.
A few bagpipes (the musette de cour, the uilleann pipes, and the Northumbrian smallpipe) have closed ends or stop the end on the player's leg, so that when the player covers all the holes (known as closing the chanter) it becomes silent. This allows for staccato playing on these instruments, although even where the chanter can be silenced, complex embellishment systems often exist.
Although the majority of chanters are unkeyed, some make extensive use of keys to extend the range and/or the number of accidentals the chanter can play. It is possible to produce chanters with two bores and two holes for each note. The double chanters have a full loud sound comparable to the "wet" sound produced by an accordion.
An unusual kind of chanter is the regulator of the uilleann pipes. This chanter is in addition to the main melody chanter and plays a limited number of notes, operated by keys. It is fitted in the stock for the drones and is played with the wrist, allowing the player to produce a limited but effective chordal accompaniment.
A final variant of the chanter is the two-piped chanter (confusingly also usually called a double chanter). Two separate chanters are designed to be played, one with each hand. When they are played, one chanter may provide a drone accompaniment to the other, or the two chanters may play in a harmony of thirds and sixths (as in the southern Italian zampogna), or the two chanters may be played in unison (as in most Arabic bagpipes).
Because of the accompanying drone, the lack of modulation in bagpipe melody, and stable timbre of the reed sound, in many bagpipe traditions the tones of the chanter are appropriately tuned using just intonation.
Drone
Most bagpipes have at least one drone. A drone is most commonly a cylindrical tube with a single reed, although drones with double reeds do exist. The drone is generally designed in two or more parts, with a sliding joint so that the pitch of the drone can be manipulated. Drones are traditionally made of wood, often a local hardwood, but also (particularly nowadays) from tropical hardwoods, such as rosewood, ebony, or African Blackwood. Some drones have a tuning bead, which effectively alters the length of the drone by opening a hole, allowing the drone to be tuned to two or more distinct pitches. The tuning bead may also shut off the drone altogether. In general, where there is one drone it is pitched two octaves below the tonic of the chanter, and further additions often add the octave below and then a drone consonant with the fifth of the chanter. This is, however, a very approximate rule of thumb

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