Royal Marines Band and Scots Guard Pipes and Drums Band

[OC Richard]

I read you post with especial interest due to you being a military man and thus having a somewhat "insider" view of things. (Though I come from a very old Army family, whose service goes back to the Revolution, I have been a lifelong civilian.)

I had expected a larger pipe band

Yep only ten pipers. For, I think, a century at least the standard Army pipe band was 16 pipers, but recent budget cuts have done their damage.

Another thing, in the old days pipers were fulltime musicians. Those days are gone. In the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards the pipers are tank crewmen. In the Queens Own Highlanders the pipers were the Heavy Weapons unit.

the performance of the drum majors was a let down

Do you mean twirling the mace? I've not seen British military Drum Majors do that. I think all the twirling started with American High Schools, I could be wrong.

they played The American Military Salute, but as usual out of proper order. Correctly, the suite begins with the song of the junior service, the Coast Guard, next junior the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and ends with the song of the senior service, the Army.

Thanks, I didn't know that. I arranged a suite of the American military tunes for our pipe band, but I put them in the order that made the most sense as a musical arrangement, not knowing that there was a proper order.