Tuesday, August 04, 2009

A Week to Remember
This past week the City of Regina Pipe Band travelled to ON and QC for the Glengarry Highland Games at Maxville, ON and the Montreal Highland Games. We have been there many times in the past, and most recently last year. Despite bringing up the rear of both contests last year--soundly whooped by every other band there--it was a success of sorts. We avoided the bullet of extinction, and [barely] learned enough music to put us back at playing in Grade 2, if not really competing.

If you've been reading this, or following the results elsewhere this season, you'll be aware that we seem to have been making some strides, and all of this the result of a lot of hard work by members. Since June, the band has been meeting three times a week as often as possible, and we have worked on every element in our control.

So, it was with some excitement that we practiced in Cornwall, and Friday night we had perhaps the smoothest, best runs we've had in some time. On Saturday at Maxville, all that seemed to disappear on the field, as we had tonal and other issues in both sets, and finished 8th/9th in a 9-band contest. Some of it was player error, and in the MSR, it was clearly P-M error. I was so disturbed/disappointed at the medley, that I didn't keep a close enough eye on the time for the MSR, and we ended up being too late to really get the sound as nailed down as we needed.

We still heard lots of positive noises from people: "The band sounded great marching up to play," "200% improvement over last year" etc., but it was all very disheartening given what we'd experienced Friday at practice.

So, we set off for Montreal Games on a rainy day, and about noon it was bucketing down even worse that last year. Add to this that the PPBSO called a pipe majors' meeting at 1:00pm to announce that there might not be prize of travel money b/c the games was broke, and we took the decision that we might not play in the rain. Last year, we ruined 10 sheepskin bags playing in miserable conditions, and so we sat on the bus and talked about a) going back to the hotel and then downtown, b) just playing our tunes in the beer tent and then going home early without competing and c) maybe having a beer and a sandwich in the tent, see if the rain cleared off, and postponing any decision until we had to decide.

We elected option c. We took our instruments to the beer tent, stacked them on tables and had a beer and a Montreal smoked meat sandwich. In the time, the sun came out, and 30 minutes before our play time, we went out to the track, tuned up, and competed. It turned out to be a good performance: still not our best, but a solid, rich sound and a good MSR.

When we heard that massed bands were going to be postponed for 30 minutes, we decided to play in the beer tent after all, and played our medley and a couple of other selections to huge applause, and for a string of free beer tickets!

At the end of the day, we were 3rd in the Grade 2 event, and Best Pipe Section in Grade 2 with two firsts in piping. Not bad, given that we almost didn't play.

This was perhaps the best prize the band has ever had outside the prairies, except for maybe a third at Maxville one year. We have never clearly won the piping in a big Grade 2 contest. This was clear.

There is still a lot to do, and we are looking at ways to improve on what we are doing in all sections, but the piping wins in Montreal were a nice benchmark of the progress that has been made since early 2007, when the band seemed to almost disappear. The progress is due to the outstanding determination of the band members to be a Grade 2 band, and to do what it takes to get there.