Bring on the Kids
Last weekend a number of us were in Winnipeg at their Scottish Festival. They have a good turn out of bands, a great location for a contest, and a very good team of people working on the event. It is usually the "first brush" with the season for prairie bands. Nobody is in top form in February playing indoors, but it's always fun to see who has what kilt on, etc.
I did come away from the event a little bit perplexed at the state of—for lack of a better term—juvenile pipe bands. Most of the "kids" bands are not kids bands any longer, and those that are active have small numbers, including our own Conservatory Pipe Band. An examination of the solo entries and results also shows a lack of numbers. Many of the soloists heard in all grades are adults, and the largest bands are adult bands.
Contrast that with the scene years back, when Saskatoon had two junior bands, Moose Jaw had two, Regina had one very large one with an "A" and "B" band, and Winnipeg had several. These days, the biggest bands are those Grade 4 and 3 bands full of enthusiastic adult learners or what I sometimes call "re-treads," the people who come back to piping in their 30s and 40s after years away.
Now, I'm all for people of all ages coming back to piping, or taking it up at any age, and it's great to see them out at Games and entering contests. Take a casual glance at the photos from workshops, summer schools and other events that you can see online. You'll find the majority of people to be adults. The winningest Grade 4 band at Winnipeg? An adult band.
The adults are great. They are fun to teach, buy lots of stuff from retailers, enter contests, and contribute a lot, but they aren't the future of good piping and drumming. As always, the people who start as children, have solid teaching and good experiences, will be the future of good music in our band and solo music. I have huge enthusiasm for kids working hard and raising their level, while having a lot of fun with their friends and the music, and frankly, I don't see enough of it. Bands in this part of the world need to focus on youth and building musicians with skills. We need a culture of fun and an attitude that strives for excellence.
If the trend continues, there won't be junior bands on the prairies. There will be Grade 4 bands and Grade 5 bands which have some kids in them learning, but which are mostly adults. That might be good for the retailers of piping gear, but bad news for the future of good piping and drumming in this area.
What are the solutions?
2 comments:
Iain,
What a sad reality you've pointed out. I only played in youth bands on the Prairies starting in 1996 but even then some of the numbers were very large. I remember the Fraser Pipe Band being absolutely huge and even the Transcona and District Pipe Band having something like 10 side drummers on certain occasions.
It is a fiendly reminder that us players who learned so much as young musicians need to continue to pass on the art form and ensure it is not lost. We need to "fill the funnel" now to ensure there are Scottish musicians and pipe bands for years to come.
Thanks for the note Myles. It's true that teaching is important, and all the bands named here have good people working hard. They are teaching too few kids.
Perhaps we need to be more creative and proactive in recruiting kids [families, really] into pipe bands?
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