musette

1. 1. A small French bagpipe operated with a bellows and having a soft sound.
   2. A soft pastoral air that imitates bagpipe music.
2. A small canvas or leather bag with a shoulder strap, as one used by soldiers or travelers. Also called musette bag.

[Middle English, from Old French, diminutive of muse, from muser, to play the musette, muse. See muse.]

Term used for several instruments. The ‘musette de Poitou’ of the 17th century was a simple bagpipe, accompanied by an ‘hautbois de Poitou’ (a bagless chanter) or by a consort of such instruments. It was used by musicians of the Grande Ecurie du Roi at Versailles. In 17th- and early 18th-century France, the musette was a small bagpipe, of aristocratic design; many works for it as a solo, ensemble or accompanying instrument were written in the 1720s and 1730s by Boismortier, Rameau and others. In the 1830s, the name was given to a small oboe, without reed-cap, pitched a 5th above the normal instrument, used for rural colour and domestic amusement (it was sometimes called ‘hautbois pastorale’). The basse du musette is a basset oboe, probably of Swiss 18th-century origin.

The term is also used for a gavotte-like piece of pastoral character whose style suggests the sound of the musette or bagpipe, generally with a drone bass. Musettes appeared in 18th-century French ballets and as keyboard pieces.

musette (Fr., bagpipe). Dance performed in 2/4, 3/4, or even 6/8 time and related to the gavotte. So named because it is danced to a bass drone like a bagpipe, it was popular at the courts of Louis XIV and XV.

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Musette may refer to:

• Musette de cour, a musical instrument in the bagpipe family
• Oboe musette, a musical instrument in the woodwind family
• Bal-musette, a style of popular French music and dance
• Buttbag, a type of haversack
• A type of small bag used to pass meals to cyclists during a bicycle race

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