Geographical distribution Greece is not a country normally associated with the bagpipes, but in fact bagpipes have a long and ancient history in the Balkan region going back many hundreds of [...]

The presence of the gaida within the geographical boundaries of Greece Introduction The gaida is a type of musical instrument which belongs to the askaulos familly. Askaulos literary means [...]

Northern Evros region The most known is in the geographical department of Thrace. Especially the northern Evros region where the instrument survived and some gaida players managed to [...]

Drama Traveling to the west we come across the gaida players from the geographical department of Makedonia. In Northern Drama region (villages of Volakas, Kali Vrisi and Prosotsani). Their [...]

Perfecture of Serres In the perfecture of Serres in Central Makedonia region the village of Alistrati and Agriani are well known for its gaida players.

Perfecture of Katerini and Larissa Further in the west we have the Pierian gaida west of mount Olympus. The villages of Elatochori, Katafigio, Daskio and Rizomata in the Thessaly region are [...]

Perfecture of Pella in the geographical department of Central Makedonia In the perfecture of Pella there is only some sporadic presence of gaida, although it was quite common in the past. [...]

Geographical department of Epirus Unfortunately for Epirus there is no information about gaidas available. The gaida vanished from this region in the beginning of the 19th century, as new [...]

Aegean Islands A variant of the askaulos is played also the southern parts of Greece, especially on the Aegean islands it is called tsambouna. The tsambouna has two canes which produce the [...]

Pontiac region And last we have to mention the pontiac aggeio or tulum which came to Greece with the refugees in 1923 from the Pontus region (now modern Turkey). It is found all over Greece [...]

The gaida in modern Greek music The greek gaida, and the other types of askaulos almost vanished to be lost forever. 1971 Dionisos Savvopoulos published his 3rd record called Ballos [...]