Doedelzak: Belgium musical instrument

Doedelzak is the common name that is used for bagpipes and the also the Flemish speaking northern parts of Belgium that is the region where Breugel resided and worked. Formally, ‘pijpzak’ and ‘moezelzak’ were the most common. The two name latter survive in Piposa from Picardy and Muchosa in the real Belgian province of Hainaut. According to some sources, muse was once the earliest general name for this family of instruments in a large part of Europe and survives itself in the real French general name of ‘Cornemuse’ for all bagpipes.

source of picture: www.keithmusic.com

The term pijpzak is used to describe a type of two-droned Flemish bagpipe, as shown in the artwork of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and so many others. The musical instrument is held rather in front of the player more that under the arm. The musical instruments which have single reeds are usually a fifth apart and are in the same stock and face up or a little bit forward. This will depend on the individual position of the player. The chanter possesses a conical pierce and a double reed. At first sight, the pijpzak is very similar in design to the cornemuse du centre of Central France. Meanwhile, the cornemuse du centre has much more specific types in the number of drones whether they have a common stock or not and their arrangement. The drones can lean backwards over the shoulder or even sideways over the arms or both and the small drone can sit next to the person that chants the slogan.

A very distinct difference between the pijpzak and the cornemuse du centre is the chanter. Modern musical instrument adopted the regularized chanter of the cornemuse du centre but the main instrument in Breugel’s paintings had a different chanter altogether. It possessed no thumb hole and has some particularities in the finger holes and the kind of reed that is needed. Only one instrument of the period was incompletely preserved and it is now in the Kunt Historisches Museum in Vienna ad further investigations on the instrument was restricted. Meanwhile, many years ago, a very exact measurement has been executed and all further developments depend on the information.