Editor’s note: Long ago, a collection of wise (or demented) random thoughts (or ravings) was discovered beneath a pile of stale chips in a remote corner of a famed Highland games site. Smelling of fish, they are believed to have been penned by one Angus Óg, self-dubbed “piping prophet.” Angus himself has been lost somewhere in the mists of time, or at least in the dust of a well trampled beer tent. They are reprinted here to touch the minds and hearts of pipers everywhere.
“The make of the badass piper takes seven years plus the consumption of raw offal. Angus Óg, piping prophet, has met many a badass piper in his day, but none as badass as himself. The piping prophet has several questions to see if other pipers can consider themselves badass.”
Everyone here in the eastern U.S. wants to hear and play in pipe bands that are as good as we hear in Scotland, don’t we? We all try very hard to make it so. Our governing pipe band association lately has also taken it upon themselves to try very hard to make it so as well, shifting the rules of the game we play in order to bring about some desired result, as if success in the game is simply a matter of playing by the rules. Changing the rules of the game to force improvement is a bit like trying to sell your house and sprucing up your flower garden when the siding is falling off. It might make it all look nice but does nothing to address the larger issues that influence success.
Anyone lamenting the poor quality or bleak future of U.S. pipe bands need look no further for blame than the game of pipe band competition itself. It is natural for us to adapt to meet whatever expectations are placed on us—whether those expectations are at your job, come from family or friends, or, in this case, from competition performance. But if those expectations are narrow and flawed, where does that leave you? When the only venue for a U.S. Highland piper is in front of the same judges on the solo boards or the pipe band circle, the expectations are not only implicit, they become the core of any preparation and education. Given this relationship, what can you expect? Poor quality piping makes a statement about the nature and demands of piping competition we have here in the east as much as anything. Simply changing the way we do things does nothing to change the things we do. The game continues to reinforce the same expectations in the same way. Nothing changes.
It is the equivalent idea of “teaching to the test,†an argument that is at the fore of modern public education. Require kids to take a test that measures their education, and the education itself adapts to teach, not what is good for the growth of the student, but what is necessary to do well on the test. Is the school really then serving the student and is the test then measuring anything other than how well kids are taught what is on the test? So the argument goes.
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