NWJPBlog » NWJPB’s first trip to Sons of Scotland Games in Delta, BC a success

Insider Information for the Northwest Junior Pipe Band

June 14th, 2009 at 11:27 pm

NWJPB’s first trip to Sons of Scotland Games in Delta, BC a success

Posted by Todd Schiele in Competitions

Northwest Junior Pipe Band’s Grade 4 team attended the Sons of Scotland Highland Games in Delta, BC for the first time in the band’s history on Saturday, June 13th. The band was missing several pipers due to Graduation ceremonies and other important conflicting events, but the band fielded 9 pipers, 3 tenor drummers, 3 side drummers and a bass drummer in the competition. The heat of the beautiful day was a challenge for the band to overcome, and stamina seemed to suffer a bit, but the band managed its third 1st place of the season, and the second at an outdoor Highland games event.

With Steven filling in for the second time this season as lead stroke because of Joseph’s shoulder injury, the band won best drum corps and very helpful comments from the judges. The midsection with instructor Marcie MacRae filling in because 2 of our 4 tenor drummers were unavailable also received excellent comments. Both the ensemble judge and the drumming judge put NWJPB in 1st place. In piping, NWJPB received a 1st and a 2nd. Band Director Kevin Auld asked the band what they thought about the performance and there was a lot of feedback about things that could be done to improve in the future. Each time the band competes, they get constructive feedback about how to improve from judges with a wide variety of competition experiences, as well as learning to be more aware of their own performance and the band’s overall performance, and many band members are getting pretty good at predicting some of the judges’ feedback.

This was a unique Highland Games, apparently attended by Scottish Dancers, their families, solo piping & drumming competitors and Pipe Bands. There seemed to be a lack of general public at the event for entertainment. When the time came for massed bands after watching the final pipe band events with Simon Fraser University, Dowco Triumph Street Pipe Band (Grade 1) and the New Westminster Police Pipe Band (Grade 2), we looked around the field to see the crowd we would perform for in massed bands and noticed that there wasn’t one. The BC Pipers’ Association announced there would be no massed bands, and the band results were brought to the beer tent, and our band members were joined by other juvenile band members around the outside of the tent to hear the results.

Solo competitions also went very well for NWJPB members:

Piping: