He has played with other bands and stays with Delmar because he wants to play for a good band. He knows what he wants and he says, 'This is the way we're going to win, this is the way we're going to be,' and he doesn't care who he has to tell that to. He knows what he wants to do and how to go about doing it. He expects the best. And, typically, he delivers it.
Every band knows how to set up a pipe and all.
But my dad just has the ear for it. He knows how to make a sweet tone out of the drones and chanter and how to get it all to match and blend together. He picked them up again about 12 years ago, and started to play for Roddy MacDonald, whom Johnstone considers one of the finest pipers ever in the United States. A few years after MacDonald left, the band needed rebuilding. The better a band gets, the greater its repertoire of marches, strathspeys, reels, medleys.