The Scottish Championships

In the competition season for pipe bands, there are five so-called 'Majors'. These are the Scottish Chapionships, the British Championships, the European Championships, the World Championships, and the Cowal Games. As far as I can tell, three of these always take place in Scotland, and it is unusual for both of the other two to be elsewhere in any given year.

Still, never mind such oddities.

Yesterday was the first of the Majors, being the Scottish Championships, held in Dumbarton. It was a day of mixed weather, starting off rather dull, then featuring a very heavy shower, then a dry spell, then a very light drizzle, and then glorious sunshine. Somehow, my band avoided the rain when we had to play.

Due to the number of bands involved in the Major competitions, the contest is split into two parts. The first is a qualifying round, during which bands must play a selection from a preset choice of tunes. There are about a dozen such tunes, all of roughly the same complexity, and bands are required to play a medley of three.

There are typically two qualifying groups, and six progress from each group to the final (I guess that if there were a huge number of bands, they would have three groups, each of which would provide four finalists, and so on). Yesterday, each qualifying group consisted of thirteen bands.

This week, having learned a lesson from last week, the band spent a bit less time preparing. Start up, tune the pipes, play a couple of sets to ensure everything's in readiness, and then wait. Then to the final tuning area, run through the qualifying set a couple of times, and then wait. Hope that the nerves don't get you, and then on we go.

So, we played. And immediately there was a problem - one of the younger members of the band hit the wrong note at the start. This, sadly, is about as disasterous as you can get; a bad start means a bad first impression, and then... The rest of the performance was generally very good. There were a few errors, where there should have been none, but otherwise it was fine. The stop was very good.

And so off we went, and thus began more waiting.

As I said a couple of months ago, the target I have set for this year is for the band to qualify for the final at three of the four Majors we are attending. It would be terrible to miss it at the first outing, and thus lose out on any slack going forward. Also, it makes for a very unpleasant and long day having to wait for the end if you haven't qualified - it isn't even practical to leave early, since the police won't let buses out.

Fortunately, that was a moot concern, because we qualified. In fact, we came fourth in our qualifying group, which suggested we should be in with a shout of actually winning something. (The Majors have six prizes at each grade; the Minors have four. The level of competitions at the Majors is also much higher, so the chances of winning something aren't generally much different... except at Dunbar which, although a Minor, is also a very big competition, being the first of the season.)

So, we waited again, then made ready again, and played again. For the final, bands are allowed to play pretty much any tunes of sufficient duration and complexity. At our grade, that essentially means four 2/4 marches, which isn't particularly tough. That said, playing them well... that's another matter.

The final performance was better than qualifying. The start was very good, the end was very good, and there were fewer mistakes. It was also much, much better than last week.

Or so I thought, anyway. The judges, it seems, felt differently. The band came tenth out of the twelve finalists. The pipers were eleventh, and the drummers sixth. (The drummers result was actually very good news, though - a few heads had gone down after last week, and this restores some confidence.)

It really must be noted that this actually represents a fairly significant step forward. Last year, we played one Major (Cowal), and failed to qualify... and failed badly. The year before, we played one Major (Cowal), qualified, and then came last in the final. So, although it doesn't seem like too much, tenth is still an improvement.

It was a good day.