A bit of an accomplishment!

[OC Richard]

I'm on the pipes myself, competing in Grade 4, and part of the local band!

Congratulations!

I'm a bit fuzzy on it now, but as I recall, portions of Florida have a separate Pipe Band Association (not part of EUSPBA).

In EUSPBA territory there's a Grade 5 (which doesn't exist in most PBAs around the world) and Grade 4 is quite competitive. Oftentimes the winning G4 bands play very well and might be middle-of-the-pack bands in G3. So if you're in a competitive G4 band you're doing things right!

I was looking back over the old thread and was astonished at the number of tunes that were unfamiliar to me then, that I can play quite creditably now!

Congratulations again! Building repertoire takes time. It was overwhelming, back when I joined my first band, how many tunes they played. Nowadays many competition bands have very small repertoires: their 2 or 3 competition sets, the Massed Bands tunes, and little else, maybe Amazing Grace etc.

In the first band I joined (I was a teenager and a newbie) it was a load of tunes to memorise, because they played three sets of three 4/4s each, three sets of three 6/8s each, sets of retreats, sets which were slow air>3 jigs or slow air>3 hornpipes... a literal pile of sheet music.

This has served me well over the years! And I can usually play along with those old tunes, even though the last time I actually played them was 35 years ago.

One thing I used to do, as a kid, was (on a rainy day) sightread through the entire Queens Own Highlanders book and Scots Guards book. It's great to do this, because so many tunes you hear bands play will then be 'under your fingers' to some extent.

Moral of the story is: If you've ever considered learning the pipes, then go find a teacher and learn them! It's a wonderful journey!

Amen, brother!

BTW here's the original thread

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...ertoire-51772/