The müsa, or müsa appenninica, is a

bagpipe Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, No ...

from the Apennines of north-west

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

which was commonly used to accompany the

piffero The ''piffero'' () or ''piffaro'' is a double-reed musical instrument of the oboe family with a conical bore ( Sachs-Hornbostel category 422.112). It is used to play music in the tradition of the ', an area of mountains and valleys in the north- ...

in the folk music of the

Quattro Province Quattro is Italian for the 4, number four. Quattro may also refer to: People * "Quattro", a nickname of A. J. Foyt IV * Jacqueline de Quattro (born 1960), Swiss politician Fictional characters * Quattro Vageena or Quattro Bageena, an alias of C ...

: the ‘Four Provinces’ of (

Pavia Pavia ( , ; ; ; ; ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, in Northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino (river), Ticino near its confluence with the Po (river), Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was a major polit ...

Alessandria Alessandria (; ) is a city and commune in Piedmont, Italy, and the capital of the Province of Alessandria. It is also the largest municipality of the region. The city is sited on the alluvial plain between the Tanaro and the Bormida rivers, ...

Genoa Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...

and

Piacenza Piacenza (; ; ) is a city and (municipality) in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Piacenza, eponymous province. As of 2022, Piacenza is the ninth largest city in the region by population, with more ...

). In the 1930s, however, the instrument fell into disfavour and was generally displaced by the

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...

Discografia

*1986: I Suonatori delle quattro province - ''Musica trdizionale dell'Appennino'' - Robi Droli *1987: Baraban - ''I canti rituali, i balli, il piffero'' - ACB *1993: I Suonatori delle quattro province - ''Racconti a colori'' - Robi Droli *2001: I Müsetta - ''La vulp la vâ 'ntla vigna'' - Folkclub-Ethnosuoni *2003: Enerbia - ''Così lontano l’azzurro'' - EDT *2004: Musicisti Vari - ''Tilion'' - Folkclub-Ethnosuoni *2006: Musicisti Vari - ''Le tradizioni musicali delle quattro province'' - SOPRIP

External links

Descrizione, storia e costruttoriMuseo etnografico GuatelliSito Epinfrai
{{DEFAULTSORT:Musa Italian musical instruments Bagpipes