This video of the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo Pipes and Drums lifts the curtain a bit on what it's like to play in a pipe band.
People with electronic tuners are going around "touching up" everyone's drones while the drummers wait...and wait...and wait...
The Public, watching the Tattoo or a Parade, generally only sees the end product, a well-tuned band.
After the tuning is done Pipe Major McLaren calls off the tunes, singing the first bars of the first tune to get everybody on the same page.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_Qk1vFzQFs
Unfortunately the camera is nearly always on the pipers standing around NOT getting tuned rather than the pipers getting tuned.
As best I can tell there's PM McLaren, a guy in mufti, and one or two other pipers doing the tuning. They have a big pipe corps which would take forever for just one person to tune. It takes long enough with three or four people doing it! (Just ask the drummers.)
Last edited by OC Richard; 4th April 25 at 07:31 AM.
Proud Mountaineer from the Highlands of West Virginia; son of the Revolution and Civil War; first Europeans on the Guyandotte
Bookmarks