The Bagpipes. Accidentally invented by Sean Connery when he combined a child's recorder and a cat.
It'll probably stop screaming if you let it go.
Now, "Johnnie Cope" is one of the most magnificent sounds ever to issue from musical instruments. It is the Highlanders' war clarion, the tune that is played before battle, the wild music that is supposed to quicken the blood of the mountain man and freeze the foe in his tracks. It commemorates the day two-and-a-quarter centuries ago when the broadswords came whirling out of the mist at Prestonpans to fall on Major-General John Cope's redcoats and cut them to ribbons in something under five minutes. I once watched the Seaforths go in behind it against a Japanese-held village, and saw for the first time that phenomenon which you really can't appreciate until you have seen it — the unbelievable speed with which Highland troops can accelerate a slow, almost leisurely advance into an all-out charge. And I've heard it at military funerals, after "Lovat's Lament" or "Flowers of the Forest", and never failed to be moved by it. Well played, it is a savage, wonderful sound, unlike any other pipe march — this, probably, because it doesn't truly belong to the Army, but to the fighting tails of the old clansmen before the government had the sense to get them into uniforms.
But whatever it does, for the Jocks or to the enemy, at the proper time and occasion, its effect at 6 a.m. on a refined and highly-strung subaltern who is dreaming of Rita Hayworth is devastating.
But whatever it does, for the Jocks or to the enemy, at the proper time and occasion, its effect at 6 a.m. on a refined and highly-strung subaltern who is dreaming of Rita Hayworth is devastating.
Ah, pity the man who hears the pipes and was nae born in Scotland.
— R.S.M. Cameron, The Red Beret
Music can soothe the savage beast... and bagpipe music can break solid rock!
— Satyr, Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!
The Irish foisted the bagpipe off on the Scots as a practical joke. The Scots took it seriously.
— Traditional Joke
When you've heard one bagpipe tune, you've heard them both.
— Jack Finney
Are you fond of cleverness when other people do it ? No. Nobody is. Cleverness is like bagpipes - a hellish screech that only sounds good to the one making it.
Monica: You can't play bagpipes at our wedding!
Ross: How did you know about that?
Chandler: We could hear you all the way from our apartment!
Ross: Were you the ones who called the cops?
Chandler: That's not really important right now.
Ross: How did you know about that?
Chandler: We could hear you all the way from our apartment!
Ross: Were you the ones who called the cops?
Chandler: That's not really important right now.
—Friends, "The One With Joey's New Brain"
