Summer Retrospective

Blog? What blog? Yes, it's been a while since our last entry. A pipe band summer affords little spare time. The most you can do is wash your socks, detox and prepare for the next gig. But the Schenectady Pipe Band season has finally come to a close (or so we THOUGHT, freakin' band manager and his Halloween parade . . . grumble, grumble). So it seems that now is a good time to pause, take a deep breath and remember Summer 2008.

When last we spoke, dear Reader, it was early July, the band's performance season was wrapping and we were about to launch out on the pipe band competition circuit. One might sum up the 2008 competition season in three words: QUICK MARCH MEDLEY. For those unfamiliar with the pipe band competition format, pipe bands in our class, Grade 4, are asked to prepare 2 separate selections of music with which to compete. These selections are classified as a quick march medley (QMM) and a medley. One might understandably be confused by the nomenclature with its overlapping use of the term "medley". It confuses us too.

"OK guys, let's play the medley!"

"The Quick March Medley?"

"No! The MEDLEY Medley!!"

And so it goes. In any case, the QMM is a more regimented (a.k.a boring) format, wherein all the tunes must be of a single type (you guessed it, quick marches). This format is meant to force the less experienced pipe bands to focus on the fundamentals of the discipline without getting caught up in the more complex types of pipe band music. Performing the QMM is like trying to paint a picture with only one color. On the other hand, the Medley allows pipe bands to put together a program of all sorts of tunes, including jigs, reels, and some of the other more upbeat music from the piping repertoire. Generally speaking, the medley has more variety and thus it is more fun to play. Whether a band will perform its medley or QMM at a particular contest is dictated by the date of the event. On even days, Grade 4 plays medley; on odd days, QMM.

As it turns out, EVERY contest we entered for July and August was QMM. A QMM summer presented two problems: first, it was somewhat monotonous; second, pipe bandspeople being the hard-nosed pragmatists that we are, if we don't HAVE to practice something, we don't. And so it was that the medley became the red-headed step child of the summer, languishing on the back burner, awaiting an even day contest that would never come . . . until Capital District. More on that later.

So the stage was set.

- JSS