PIPE

also called Tobacco Pipe, hollow bowl used for smoking tobacco; it is equipped with a hollow stem through which smoke is drawn into the mouth. The bowl can be made of such materials as clay, corncob, meerschaum (a mineral composed of magnesia, silica, and water), and most importantly, briar-wood, the root of a species of heather. The smoking of tobacco through a pipe is indigenous to the Americas and derives from the religious ceremonies of ancient priests in Mexico. Farther north, American Indians developed ceremonial pipes, the chief of these being the calumet, or pipe of peace. Such pipes had marble or red steatite (or pipestone) bowls and ash stems about 30 to 40 inches (75100 cm) long and were decorated with hair and feathers. The practice of pipe smoking reached Europe through sailors who had encountered it in the New World. in music, specifically, the three-holed flute played with a tabor drum (see pipe and tabor); generically, any aerophonic (wind) instruments consisting of pipes, either flutes or reed pipes (as a clarinet), and also the reed and flue pipes of organs. A pipe's pitch depends on its length, a long pipe having a low pitch. Pipes stopped at one end sound an octave lower than open pipes of equal length. Additional notes are obtained by using fingerholes to alter the length of the air column enclosed by the pipe or by vigorously overblowing, forcing the air column to vibrate in segments and sound overtones (harmonics) of the fundamental pitch. In reed pipes and organ reed pipes a vibrating reed causes the column of air in the pipe to vibrate. In flutes and organ flue pipes a stream of air passing a sharp edge sets up vibrations in the pipe's air column. See also flute; fipple flute; reed instrument.