Charting a Way Forward

Thursday's band practice was interesting in several ways, not least in that it settled in my mind that it's going to be up to me to set a plan going forward - nobody else is going to do it, so that's that.

My view is that the band is not, in the near future, going to recruit a new drum corps or many more pipers, and as a consequence we won't be taking on events. Additionally, the pipe major has other commitments that mean he's frequently absent, and when he is present he has a learner who takes up a fair chunk of his time.

All of which means that whatever we do for our practices we're really doing for us - what do we find gives the most benefit to the most people.

And that means that, when possible, I think I want to get the practices into something like the current structure:

• We should probably spend some time working on fundamentals - there are a couple of sets of tunes that everyone plays and that we collectively know very well, and if we spend some time on those we can work on things like timing, expression, and so on. Hopefully, that will help improve the general standard of play.
• We should likewise probably spend some time on our "known" tunes - the ones that we would play at gala days and other events if we were to ever take one on again. These have become very rusty, so we should correct that. I'll need to dig out the list, and we'll put them on rotation.
• I also want to spend some time on some new tunes. We've learned a few recently, and what's been happening is that we practice them for a bit, kind-of learn them, and then let them fall by the wayside. Which is just a waste. So we'll pick a few and get them moved from the "new" to "known" buckets.
• Finally, we really should commit to getting the pipes out for a while at every practice.

And that's that. I'll try to make a start on it from Thursday, just in time to miss the following week.