Lessons Learned in Time
Back when this photo was taken [April 1993] this was an excellent turnout at a band practice. This was actually the band's first competition performance. We took five pipers and played four [as the rules stated we should for a mini band event], and we played all the drummers we had. In those days, we were elated to be able to field a band, and over the years, we gradually built on that, adding players, real uniforms, better instuments, etc.

The band had quite a few years of relative stability, especially in the pipe section, and we could often count on a good turnout at band. When there wasn't one, we tended to not really practice, go for beer, or just twiddle the time away.

When the band fell on hard times a couple of years ago in terms of player numbers and experience, it would have been easy to walk away from routinely dismal practices, where the numbers were low, and the energy even lower.

Last winter, I made the decision to use every practice to play hard with the people who were there, and mostly we have stuck to that. Today, we had a number of regular people away on other things: provincial volleyball, family meeting, daughter's violin recital, etc. and it's always tempting to give in to the "oh whatever," and instead we played hard. An hour of detail work on chanters [with a few jokes and stories] and then an hour or two of piping: setting chanters, working with reeds and pipes, and finally playing through all the contest music with the small number of drummers.

The cool part was: it was a really good practice, and we had some very good sound, and made progress on several fronts. Too bad that there weren't more there, but today's practice is going to make a difference. And in the end, that's why we go in the first place. Well, and for the jokes and stories too.

Part of the excitement for me are recent changes we have made to the music. Can hardly wait to get the whole team playing it at Brandon.