Try to explain Massed Bands

[OC Richard]

In my opinion, the Massed Bands at the end of every Highland Games is the best part. Being surrounded by 800 pipers, followed by 300 drummers...the sound is indescribable.

Notch it up to 8,000 pipers and drummers, around 225 pipe bands:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oRE9IKJUHs

This is the 2008 Worlds. I couldn't find YouTube video of the 2007 Worlds, which our band participated in.

In 2007 it rained all day there at Glasgow Green and by the time for the March Past (which is what they call it in Scotland, not Massed Bands) we had been standing in the rain for eight hours and were all soaked and our ghillies and hose were all splattered with mud. There are still bits of mud, I'm sure, somewhere in the recesses of my rain cape.

There, the Grade One bands play 6/8 Marches over and over and all 225 pipe bands march out one at a time past the grandstand.

It's simply awsome to participate in such a thing.

One thing that will stay with my always is the fantastic tune the Grade One bands played that day: Bruce Gandy's Farewell To The Iron Horse.

Though participating in the March Past at the Worlds is great, all experienced pipers hate playing in Massed Bands at the Games around here. Usually it's very hot and we all have to stand baking in the sun while eejits bloviate endlessly up on the grandstand. At one Games the Massed Bands was absurdly long: first a guy sang the National Anthems of the US, Canada, and Britain plus Flower of Scotland, then there were random speeches and numerous awards given out, then a display of Scottish Country Dancing, all while 25 pipe bands were standing cooking in the sun. Stuff like that is why there are so few sober pipers and drummers at the Massed Bands.

One thing about Massed Bands that's got much better over the years: the tuning of the pipes. Back in the late 70's when I started playing in bands, through much of the 80's, the pitch of pipe bands was rising steadily and no two bands were tuned at exactly the same pitch which had horrid results at Massed Bands.
Nowadays, and for the last decade or so, most all pipe bands have settled on 480 so that Massed Bands are fairly well in tune.