![]() It's more fun, more challenging, and more rewarding. It's a shame that the good bands don't get out more for people to hear good Highland piping but being a member of a pretty good pipe band I can say I prefer doing competitions and concerts over parades and ceremonies. Good bands spend all of their time practicing and travelling to compete against the other good bands or doing concerts to raise the money for travelling. Most people don't hear the good bands because those bands hardly ever do parades or memorial ceremonies, etc. So when most people hear a pipe band it is more likely to be a band that plays Scotland the Brave and Amazing Grace ad nauseum and that really don't sound all that good. Those are the bands of which there are the most. Then there are the lower level bands made up of less skilled players who aren't able to play in tight unison and whose repertoires leave much to be desired. Those are the bands of which there are the fewest. At the top of the pyramid are the high level pipe bands that have large repertoires of tunes and are made up of highly skilled players that play in tight unison. The problem with pipe bands is they exist in a pyramid. My band's repertoire can fill a good 90-120 minute concert. It depends on what day and how my memory is working. I've personally lost count of the number of tunes I know on Highland pipes. I guess I'm spoiled by having been exposed to Canadian bands. I'd rather listen to kittens being drowned than that stuff, but to each there own. It's about the whole shabang, the get-up, the friendships/brotherhood, not just the music. In the US most HP-bands are made up of fireman or police, the pipe band is more of sybol (or a club) than a musical group. They know "Scotland the Brave" & "Amazing Grace" & it's enough to get them through a parade. I thought it was funny, but it was the only time I ever heard crickets at a muster. One of the fifers said "Those only know 5 tunes!" It's just as Irish as it is Jewish in my eyes but some think differently.Īs far as pipe bands & their limited number of tunes I was at a Fife & drum muster & the topic of HP bands came up. Yes, Pipe Bands and kilts belong with St Patrick's Day celebrations and fit well if they wear Irish Uniforms and play Irish Tunes.īrad maloney wrote:For a lot of the same reasons that Americans associate Corned Beef with the Irish. I don't know, but I get the feeling that some are seemingly ashamed of their own culture and adopting a Scottish uniform rather than a uniform which would fit with their own traditions and culture. Today we have a lot of Irish bands and one band I know of in Belfast, The Irish Republican Fellons Pipe Band which amazes!!! me are wearing Scottish uniforms. A lot of bands in Ireland from those days would have also been formed through the Republican movement. All leaders of the Republican movement during 1916 up-rising. Sean O'Casey, Patrick Pearse, Tom Clarke and Plunket Donaghy. ![]() Some of its members are stepped in history and would be familar to many of us. Laurence O'Toole Pipe Band out of Dublin is a band of big interest, as it was formed through the Irish Republican moment in the very early years of the last century. Saffron was very comon as shawls in Ireland, hence the saffron kilts. ![]() The Irish kilts were of many different shades of colour, different shades of green, red etc, etc. Kilts however are as Irish as they are Scottish, although the tartan belongs to Scotland. ![]() ![]() Some had 1 drone, some 2 drones and some had 3 or 4 drones. But the pipes in their warpipe (highland) form have been in Ireland throughout the centuries. Pipes bands first came from the British Army, as we see them today as Roger O'Keeffe has said. ![]()
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