Some pipe majors are guilty of getting fledgling pipers playing in the band far too early, pipers, let alone good pipers are hard to come by, young people dont seem as interested, its very tempting to get pipers playing with the band too early the crushed doublings etc dont stand out as much, many bands sometimes lets learners march with the band "dummying" ie dromes and chanter corked (mimeing if you want to put it that way) this gets learners used to marching out and feeling "part" of the band. and make the band turnout much better, its better doing it that way than having a learner piper blundering through the tunes.