Scottish Pipe and Drum Bands Overview

As some of you might know I am planning on doing my musical ethnography on the music culture that exists in and around Scottish pipe and drum bands. Like many marching bands the pipe and drum bands first were first noted by the military officials who employed them. However as time passed and interest grew civilian groups (such as local fire fighters and police) began forming their own pipe and drum bands. This in turn led to more organized competitions between local groups eventually culminating in the creation of the World Pipe Band Championships in the 1930’s.

Now win a world championship (or almost any competition) a pipe must be made of at least eight pipers, two snare drummers, and one base drummer (it should be noted only 6 pipers and 2 snares are needed for Juvenile, Grade 4 and Novice Juvenile competitions). Also depending on the competition the band may be required to play a MSR (march, strathspey, and reel) along with their medley or vice versa.

While the music that pipe and drum bands use each have their own features one can usually classify them under one of five names: marches, jigs, slow airs, strathpeys, and reels. This music (with the exception of the march) is usually performed in a circle with the pipers making up one half and snare drummers making up the other half. The inside of the circle houses the base and tenor drummers.

So now I could go on and talk about scores set up and how judging works or what the different roles in the pipe band are (pipe sergeant, head drummer, role of the tenor section opposed to the snare section, ect.) or even give a sense of the atmosphere I believe doing so would go beyond the sense of an overview. Thus if my topic interested you I would ask for you to look back later (because I’ve heard some fiendish story about having to post my entire musical ethnography on my blog).