Talk:Pipe band

message: I deleted the erroneous qualification "in English-speaking and certain celtic-speaking countries."  I don't know why this has been allowed to remain so prominently in the article for over a year.  What of Germany and Oman, just to name two?  Rosedaddy (talk) 17:49, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: My Edits

message: "a cornemuse is essentially a French made Great Highland Bagpipe which has a characteristically Breton tone"
There are many french "cornemuses" (actually, a generic term just as "bagpipe") which are orignally from those regions since their ancestral roots. 
The passage above gives the impression that the cornemuses are all based upon the pìob-mhòr, and in fact most of them are even older than the GHB.
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a cornemuse is essentially a French made Great Highland Bagpipe which has a characteristically Breton tone'
This sentence is wrong. Let me explain:
Cornemuse is the French word for bagpipe. As there is many kind of bagpipes there is also many kind of cornemuses. In a badgad (plural is bagadoù) the bagpipe used IS the Great Highland Bagpipe ! 
The Bagadoù tradition exists only in Britanny (West part of France), therefore the breton language is used to name bagpipes (cornemuse). In the breton language a bagpipe is called a biniou. The Great Higland Bagpipe is named Biniou Braz, Braz in breton means great. There is also an other bagpipe in britanny called biniou coz, coz  means old, but that's not the one used in the bagadoù, or if it is, there is only one playing with the bombardes.
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I changed 'snare drum' to the proper term of 'side drum'. Same difference (apart from the top snare and all!), but proper terminology. Khiradtalk 11:47, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: The "history of the pipe band" paragraphs are definitely the weakest part of this article. I think the whole section should be overhauled. Any takers? I'd volunteer but I don't feel that I'm knowledgeable enough about military history to do it myself. Dorosh, perhaps? You seem well-versed. Taylordonaldson 20:44, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't have the resources to do it right now; bit of a conflict of interest also as I'm just getting around to military pipe bands on my own website. I think the section reads ok here; it just needs some references. As it indicates, actual sources are a bit scarce, and the ones that exist are usually written by pipers who are somewhat biased. I just got a copy of a book about Regular Force pipers in the Canadian Army; there is an entire page devoted to the idea that the Army lives or dies by the quality of its bagpipe bands - a proposition I don't necessarily agree with. ;-)  But I'll certainly continue to watch the page with interest and edit where I can.Michael Dorosh 23:52, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't know, it isn't inaccurate or unrepresentative as it stands.  It could be longer, and more citations would be good (I think the introduction to the Scots Guards collection (Vol I) covers most of it).  Most of the work that has been done on the history of pipe bands is locked up in back issues of The Piping Times and Piper and Drummer. Calum 14:50, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: History of the Pipe Band

message: This mistake is made often, so I thought I'd post it here to potentially save editing again:
The Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association (formed 1930) was not the first such entity in the world. The Victorian Highland Pipe Band Association (formed 1924) predates it by 6 years. --gummAY 00:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I was trying to correct the previous editors' odd use of a generic wikilink using the name of a specific society...will happily see his, and my, errors corrected. :-) Michael Dorosh 01:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your work Michael ;) --gummAY 02:26, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  First Pipe Band Association 

message: In this article in the paragraph "The Bagad" it is written:
A popular bagad, Bagad Brieg, recently performed with the Shotts & Dykehead Caledonia Pipe Band
I do not think that statement like recently performed are valid in an encyclopedia article. I think the author of these lines should put a date. If not I am in favour to remove this sentence. --OC 12:24, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Bagad 

message: Now that we have the table of winners, it would be good to create a separate article for World Pipe Band Championships.  We should merge most of the information from this article and leave only a description on this page. Musaabdulrashid 23:04, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: yes, I agree. --OC 08:52, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I also concur. JFPerry 14:57, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Article 

message: I'm not sure why this term has been reverted to in reference to snare drumming. Counterpoint, as I understand it, refers primarily (if not exclusively) to melody instruments and is an harmonic function, particularly relevant in baroque music. As the snare line is incapable of producing more than one (indefinite) pitch, this is surely inappropriate nomenclature.
Also, in my experience, the snare section are not attempting to provide a counter-'melody', but rather are trying to provide rhythmic support and emphasis to the pipe melody. To do this, synchopated rhythmic phrases are played around the natural rhythmic structure of the tune. Mark Glasgow Tuesday, 17th October 2006. 11.32 (GMT)
Mark, you're correct, the term "counterpoint" tends to be used to refer to a melodic construction - two lines occuring simultaneously (usually outlining the underlying harmonic progression present in the musical phrase). However, pipe band music is somewhat unique in the sense that the drum corps is not simply relegated to the role of timekeeping and rhythmic support. In many pipe bands, the line played by the drum corps weaves into the pipe score in such a way that it becomes just as important as the "principal" melodic line generated by the pipe corps. In this sense, the relationship that exists is closer to counterpoint then to a foreground-background relationship.
I certainly see that the term "counterpoint" is not strictly accurate in this instance, however I don't think "synchopated" is an adequate term to replace it, since synchopation simply refers to the displacement of the beat, using accent, designed to add musical emphasis. While it is true that there is plenty of synchopation in drum scores, I don't think its an adequate term to describe the relationship between pipe and drum in the modern pipe band. Taylordonaldson 03:37, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the above paragraph gummAY 04:03, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

text: A good band should be playing in such a way that the various sections rely on each other to produce the complete effect.  Of course, in practice, the pipe section can usually stand alone to some extent, and the drum line cannot.  This depends on how well the sections are working together. Calum 16:37, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Counterpoint? 

message: The article states "Since the bagpipe is the only pipe band instrument capable of producing distinct, varying pitches, the pipers are responsible for providing all of the melodic and harmonic material in the music." I'm a little uncomfortable with this wording, since I believe (I'm a piper, and we don't know much) that tenor drums are sometimes tuned to distinct pitches and used at points in the tune where their pitches reinforce the harmony. Is this true? If so, I don't think it's fair to say that pipers contribute all the harmonic material. I'd love to hear other opinions before I change it, though. --MatthewLiberal 14:35, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm a tenor drummer, and yes it is true that tenor drums are tuned to different pitches to add a bit to the melody. It's a relatively 'new' thing, and probably a lot of bands out there don't bother. In my last band, we had Baritone, Tenor and Alto-tuned drums (as well as a bass, of course). --gummAY 01:57, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Should we change the wording, then, to something like "the pipers are responsible for providing all of the melodic material in the music" instead? --MatthewLiberal 18:49, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Harmony and tenor drums

message: I haven't heard of the concept of counter-melodies in competition band playing, so I'd love to see a strong citation for this practice. Also, it would be good to have a definition which is distinct from harmony (as is, the article doesn't address how counter-melody differs from harmony except that it can 'take a drastically thematic approach' [my paraphrase]). Is it fair to say that a counter-melody is a second melody given equal importance as the first and played simultaneously? I don't know if that is the definition - it's only my guess, and again, I'd love to see a citation. --MatthewLiberal 18:56, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not too common as the limited compass gives little scope for it.  A counter melody is a harmony line that has a melodic line of its own.  One example is the Vale's Balandran Air (possibly on a Worlds CD, definitely on the MIllenium Concert). Calum 11:22, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! I integrated your wording ("a harmony line that has a melodic line of its own") into the article. By the way, does/can a counter-melody like the one in Vale of Atholl's air differ rhythmically from the melody? --MatthewLiberal 17:38, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In that specific example, it does indeed (sustained Fs and As with a moving counter-melody.  These terms are all a little bit wishy-washy and quite difficult to pin down, but useful nonetheless. Calum 15:43, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! --MatthewLiberal 19:55, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Counter-melody?

message: There is no such thing, at least as a widespread phenomenon.  The top Google link is Wikipedia.  Every other link is a page that refers to "honor guards and pipe bands" or "such and such pipe band was honored to play for xyz".  The last link is linkspam harvested from WP.  I'm not going to accuse the editor of being a member of the band featured in the photo, but a comparison of the website and article text is instructive.  If you want to restore any of the text, please cite.  Calum (talk) 20:46, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Honor pipe bands 

message: "Pipe bands have also been established in countries with few Scottish or Celtic connections such as the United States, Thailand, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina."
The United States has "few Scottish or Celtic connections"? Really? I'm betting the U.S.'s Scottish connections are at least on par with Sri Lanka, Brunei, Pakistan, or any of those other former British colonies listed in the preceding sentence. Tad Lincoln (talk) 09:15, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Countries with "few connections" 

message: :Bands can compete in nine grades, and then there is a list of them. 
:Somebody involved in editting his page must have some idea how bands are graded, surely. 
:This is an encyclopedia. That is the sort of inside information that the reader needs to be told.
Amandajm (talk) 16:34, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grades 

message: This material:
conflicts with the article World Pipe Band Championships, which says it was first held in 1947.  It appears that someone has confused with founding of the RSPBA with the founding of the WPBC.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:21, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contradiction