Maxville/Montreal - The End of a Great Season

This weekend the band competed at the North American Pipe Band Championships in Maxville, and then at the Montreal Highland Games the next day. There were quite a few highlights, and it was a great week with the band in Ontario and Quebec.

The good news is that the band finished into the prizes at Maxville, being 5th overall and including two 3rds in piping in the medley. The good AND bad news was that our Maxville performances in no way represented our best performances. Good in that we still made the prizes on relatively weak performances, and bad in that we did not meet out own expectations for the weekend.

The positive news out of this is that the band is developing in the right direction. We had plenty of feedback about that from judges, spectators and fellow competitors, and we are eagerly looking forward to next season. Part of the equation is how many new players we incorporated in the season, and the inability to prepare as a complete team as much as we would like/need.

Among the positive aspects of the Maxville games were solo results logged by CRPB soloists in the Grade 1 solos. All four CRPB players took prizes in one of the three Grade 1 heats. Eilidh MacDonald won the piobaireachd and marches, and was 3rd in 6/8 marches, narrowly missing the overall prize. Raphael Mercier won the strathspey/reel in his section, and was 3rd in piobaireachd. Eva Rennie was third in her piobaireach heat, and Alex Rasmussen took 4th and 5th in marches and strathspey and reels in his heat. Sadly, both Alex and Raphael missed events due to erratic scheduling of events at the same time. The band is extremely proud of the efforts of the soloists, and the results they obtained.

At Montreal Games, the band was able to pull together an excellent medley performance, and on the strength of it's 2nd place in ensemble, finished ahead of former CRPB member Gord Perry's Fredericton Society of St. Andrews Pipe Band. This was a very good performance for the band, and a well-deserved result. We followed this with a prolonged and happy celebration in the Montreal beer tent, visiting friends from across the continent, hearing and playing tunes, and also celebrating the success of friends in the New Westminster Police Pipe Band from British Columbia, who were deserving winners at both Maxville and Montreal. The NWPPB includes former CRPB members: Bryde Whelan, Aaron Malcolm, Cam Dodson [our first L-D in fall 1992], and Ann Gray, and many other friends.

So ends another season, and a great one for the band. We pulled together a whole new competition repertoire, incorporated a number of new members, made some very smooth changes in leadership and roles, continued to develop our events and programs, supported a number of worthwhile local and national events, and managed to have a lot of memorable times playing the music we love with friends we cherish.

Can't wait for the start of band in September.

2009: A Great Year to Be in the CRPB
The end of the calendar year is upon us, and 'tis the time for reflection on the year just past. I usually venture down this blogging path alone, and this time I asked the current band "What about 2009?" I have my own thoughts, of course, and I was happy hear that band members agreed: it was a great year to be in the band.

I have been pipe major of the band since the fall of 1992, and in that time, I have played with some amazing people in this band, had a wide range of great people come and go as members, and had many happy and successful times with the band. I would have to say, however, that 2009 stands out as the most satisfying year so far, from my perspective. In part, that likely has to do with the seasons just before—not competing in 2007 due to a lack of members, and just barely competing—with no success—in 2008. In large measure, though, this is due to the great mix of people we have in the band at this moment, and how much they are willing to do to make the band fun and successful.

2009 saw the band steadily develop, starting with some fun music at the Mid-Winter Celtic Festival, and then a performance at Winnipeg that held some promise, but was far short of what we needed to get past another Grade 2 band. Throughout the early part of the season, the band was not able to deliver the sound that was there, and we paid in the results. The first time that turned around for us was at Selkirk, Manitoba in June, We had two pretty solid plays, and it was no longer "straight 2nds." The coolest part of that was that the band members understood immediately that we came close, and rather than saying "cool, let's keep doing this" they said "can we add another night of practice?"

The days of practice in Maxville ahead of the big day were the best I have experienced with the CRPB. We had good sound every day, and it got better, and the playing was getting tighter, and then...something came loose at Maxville, and we gassed the medley. Badly blown, mistakes, etc., and the band's "big day" inexperience showed. We were so downhearted after the medley, that we dropped the ball getting ready for the MSR, and showed up at the line not in tune, and not really excited to play.

Montreal, as the record shows, turned out to be a pretty good play for the band, and hearing the band announced "Best Pipe Section" was many band members' favourite moment of 2009. For others, the beer tent and the bus ride back to the hotel was a key memory. One of the best moments for me was that we decided play some tunes in the beer tent before massed bands, just to have fun and blow off steam. Ot turned out to be THE medley performance of the season, and we heard nothing but positives afterward.

September long weekend, a smaller band went to Calgary/Canmore games weekend, where we played well both days, delivering the sound we had set-up, and finishing the season with a performance in the Canmore Beer Tent, and then hours of fun to follow.

We've been working hard all fall, and have learned new music, worked in some new members, and are planning some big things for 2010. But before we get there, good to look back on a superb year for the band. Here's what some others thought:

Karen's Highlights:
- Getting lost in Minot following the Google map to the lodge
- The Pouring rain in Montreal - deciding not to leave and have fun playing in the beer tent then a good performance
- Then Ruaridh missing the bus
- Racing to catch the plane in Montreal with Pat and Stacy (lesson learned)
- Getting new tenor drums and the Bass drum just at competition (after the head mishap)
- and just working hard, getting out there to competitions and the improvement we made throughout the year.

Scott:
Best pipe section in Montreal was the highlight of the year for me

Richard:
being a "part time member" seeing the tremendous improvement from Winnipeg in February to Canmore in September

John LL:
This piping thing, like this life, takes hard work. And just like this life, giving up is simply not an option. For me, it's one of the wonderful things about Regina and CRPB. It's great to be in a place with a really good organisation of really nice people who genuinely enjoy the hard work, and a beer afterward. I remember Barb mumbling some crap about the pursuit of excellence (I'm just kidding, it's not crap), at Maxville 1 1/2 years ago, and that's how I felt about this year. I am still in the pursuit of excellence in piping, and I enjoy it, even with it's setbacks. I feel that the nicest thing about this year for me in the band has been the feeling that we are all in this pursuit together, and it's good to feel that you're good at something that you enjoy (or at least improving, growing, learning), and a part of something bigger, the competitive piping world. I guess I've always been in the world of piping, although on the peripheral edge in a sense as a non competitor. That said, playing the solo at police funerals is still a great honour, and to me central to what the piping world is, or should be, but I wanted at this point in my life tro get closer to the other world of piping and improve my playing for the uniform world, too: To pursue excellence. As Pipe Major Sam Scott said, "Practice has it's own reward - Find it!". This year has helped me find that reward.

Graham:
2009 was definitely a highlight just to be able to play back in the ranks again.
- First Selkirk performance, gave that instant feeling that we're definitely competitive and can produce a good sound. Plus everyone was a solid performer
- Maxville practices...producing consistently solid sound
- Montreal result...winning best piping was probably the best result I've ever contributed to while in the band.
- Montreal bus ride/hotel after party...can never go wrong making up new song verses to the tune of booze!
Overall, was a great experience to come back to the band after an absence playing in Scotland.

Stacy:
High: Hanging out with the band in the Canmore Beer Tent
Why: The people - the realization that the entire band enjoys playing together as well as hanging together at the end of the day.

Meg:
I really loved the band practises leading up to events-those were the biggest laughs throughout the year and where the best ideas came from. I hope for even better times in 2010!

Aaron:
One of the best moments was hearing the results in Montreal. It wasn't first place, but it was exciting nonetheless to be in the top three of a bigger competition. The even more exciting moment of course was getting first in piping. Another great time was in the Canmore beer tent. An awesome end to an awesome season.

Sienna:
I'll start with one downer so I can end with the positives:
1. Playing the medley in Maxville: marching off the field with a general sense of "what the hell" because our practices leading up to that moment were great, especially the one the night before the big day. The dissappointment of knowing we blew it (or more specifically under-blew it) during and after that set. : (
2. Our split decision on whether or not to play in Montreal: go back to the hotel, play for a bit in the beer tent, or just go for it? After most of the band threw back a pint in the beer tent, the sun made its first appearance of the day and before we knew it we were tuning up for what would become a great win of the season.
3. Standing in massed bands in Montreal and hearing our name come in 3rd out of how many? And then months down the road finding out not only did we place 3rd, but 2nd due to a disqualification. Again another ironic twist of fate that inspires our members to believe we are competitive.

Jordan:
... getting straight firsts in drumming at Calgary/Canmore

A Post-Season Bonus!

This week the band received a nice post-season bonus from the Pipers and Pipe Band Society of Ontario when we found out that they have adjusted the final prize list from the Montreal Highland Games. On the day, the PPBSO disqualified the Glengarry Pipe Band after they performed because an official thought that bands had to have two tenor drummers [that rule had already been changed]. After the fact, Glengarry's points were counted back into the mix, but they forgot to adjust all the points. Glengarry's 2nd and 3rd in piping [behind our two 1sts] pushed a couple of bands down, giving us 2nd prize overall, rather than 3rd.

The final result was:

1. Fredericton Society of Saint Andrew Pipe Band [Best Drum Corps]
2. City of Regina Pipe Band [Best Pipe Section]
3. St. Andrew's Society of Winnipeg Pipe Band
4. Glengarry Pipe Band
5. St. Thomas Episcopal Alumni Pipe Band
6. Niagara Regional Police Pipe Band

Judges -
Piping1: Colin MacLellan
Piping2: James Troy
Drumming: Harvey Dawson
Ensemble: Reay MacKay

Special thanks to former CRPB member Gregor Burton for being on top of the numbers, and pointing out the error. Thanks to the PPBSO for making the adjustment. And thanks to the band members for making a great season possible.

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.