State of the Band

For the moment, I'm actually reasonably happy with the way things are at band. I suspect that will change as the competition season gets going and things get a bit more fraught, but we'll see.

Of course, that's assuming that we actually will be competing this year at all, which is looking increasingly doubtful. The issue is that we may not have a drum corps with which to compete; or, rather, that while we will have a drum corps, we may not have a lead drummer for the band. The problem being that we have two people who can do the job, but one has work commitments and so cannot get to many of the competitions, while the other may or may not be about the leave the band. Realistically, if he goes then so too goes our season.

But then, given that I don't actually enjoy competing particularly, I can't say I'm too gutted about that prospect. Really, it's the uncertainty that's the worst of it.

On other fronts, the band is actually progressing extremely well. We've had an influx of learners both for the pipes and the drums, to the extent that all of our tutors are now maxed out and we'll have to turn away any further learners. That's a shame, but it's a nice problem to have.

We're also starting to see the benefits of all that hard work with our learners. Last night we had 18 pipers playing at one point... and that wasn't even all the pipers on our books! We also had a decent-sized drum corps, although there were more absences from there. If we ever have a practice attended by everyone, we're going to need a bigger hall!

Finally, I'm coming to the end of teaching one of my students. He now knows everything that the band plays, plus some tunes that the band doesn't play (yet?), and so to get the most benefit going forward he should really 'graduate' to the main practice hall to polish what he already knows. That said, he's entered into a solo piping competition in mid-May, so I'll work with him until then to make sure he's ready for that.

And that, as they say, is that.

This Week's Mug: This week's mug has a Gaudi-inspired design. I picked this one up on my first trip to Barcelona, and have barely used it since. It's very nice.