I would prefer to play in a street band with a fair selection of the old standards for pipe music. The one and only local pipe band doesn't really ever play those old chestnuts (Highland Laddie, Brown Haired Maiden, and so on) because their repertoire is based around playing for competition, where the pipe major wants tunes nobody else will be playing. And there's a reason the classics are classics and the others are not. Even when they are the same age and from the same book.

However, individual competition is exciting to me. I can select my own tunes (my 2/4 for this season is one from my mother's first pipe band, copied from the hand-written settings by Donald MacLeod, included in the hand-bound mess of tunes from about 1966 that she still had on the bookshelf), I can play at the tempo I feel is best for the tune (as opposed to the band, which tends to play everything so fast they lose the finer expression), and I can choose whether to play on the day at all. Further, I can, if I choose, play with different chanters for different competitions so I could play my piobaireachd at a lower pitch than my march and air. Which I feel suits the music well.

In short, I am not hot on the band competitions, but I like solo. It gives me impetus to improve my piping for myself. It helps me to stay on-task about my own development as a piper. There are lots of tunes I want to learn, but until after June is over I am only focusing on learning my competition tunes very well. When it is time to take a break, I will turn to some of the old standards (there are about 50 I want to learn) and try to start filling in the gaps. But for now it is about fine-tuning my own capabilities.

-Patrick