OK, Mr. Highlander - I've always wanted to ask questions about you guys. And I will ask indulgence from the other Iowa fans, but hey - this topic has gotten so far off-subject anyway.
Understand that, while on the one hand, I sat next to an uncle at the Iowa games in the '70's who absolutely detested you guys (why I do not know), now I am married to the daughter of a full-blown Scot who plays the bagpipes every time we are at his house. And the songs he plays and the pipe bands he is a part of never - I repeat NEVER play any of the songs I remember you guys playing.
My only recollection of the Highlanders was a series of folk songs the Highlander dancers could dance to. But you don't see those at famous piper gatherings such as the Edinburgh tattoo. They play a number of songs, including "Edinburgh Castle" and by far the most powerful song played on the pipes, "Amazing Grace."
I only went to one or two games a year so I can't comment on ALL you did. But my whole take on the pipes changed after hearing that song, and watching the Scottish grave rite performed by a single piper. Tough to duplicate on the football field perhaps, but still it let me see what the pipers do best - something I repeat I never EVER heard or saw you guys do.
Did I miss something? Or was your focus more of the folk-type songs to keep the dancers busy (which I think would have been a monumental mistake)? Summary - I learned next to nothing about Scottish culture and music listening to you guys, but a TON from watching and listening to him. Again, tell me what I missed?
So much in here.
I was a member much later...long after it had stopped involvement with football... when it was a shell of it's former self and had become more like any contemporary pipe band. Meaning, it was just a group of people who enjoyed playing the music and trying to get better at it. Pipe bands of today fall into two basic groups. Service bands (police/fire), generally who's mission is to provide services and goodwill. The other's are generally geared towards improving as musicians...often through competitions scattered around the US. As an out of stater, I selected UI because I did not want to go 4 years only playing "occasionally". I've been playing since I was 10. There's several colleges with fairly good bands, but the schools themselves did not appeal to me. While the Highlanders of my era weren't the "greatest", there were some very talented and dedicated players. That's all I wanted. Good people to play with and not take my foot off the gas. Some I later played with in other bands, eventually at a fairly high level.
In the early days, The Highlanders were quite a thing. Frankly, the guy who made it really grow was the son of a guy who played a pretty key role in bringing piping to the US, in general as a pipe maker with a 'license' to make copies of someone who's now considered to have made some of the best bagpipes ever. Even the copies are worth $5-$10k. And the early days, many of the things they did on the field were quite revolutionary, by nature of their limitations and uniqueness. A fair bit of this influenced traditional marching bands. I saw a lot of old archival stuff from the 40s and 50s... magazines/books/journals dedicated to marching bands. And they were featured quite a bit as innovators. My favorite is a series of newspaper articles from Aberdeen, Scotland. The Highlanders would frequently go on these large tours. And one stop was in Aberdeen in the earlyish 60s.. There's 3 or 4 columns by an editor leading up to their appearance who took a rather "How dare they?" approach "They know nothing of our culture". And the final clipping was his review of the performance. It was rather glowing. He does note that their playing wasn't the best....but wasn't the worst. But that he and the crowd of several thousand (Aberdeen is not a HUGE city) were definitely wowed by the performance. He seemed particular enamored by the tall, attractive American women in their decidedly shorter than usual kilts. Ahahahahahaaha
Not sure the music they played in the early days and middle periods. I assume they played a fair amount of traditional pipe tunes. There's only 9 notes, in an odd key. Very few 'popular' tunes actually work on a bagpipe. I know in the later period while they were still significant in size they played a lot of the traditional pipe music. In today's era, we call them "standards". The entire construct of the "pipe band" comes from the military. Pipe bands didn't really exist until right around the 1920s when military regiments formed bands. The Highlanders were started in 1936 by the ROTC Colonel at Iowa. So a lot of the "standards" were written by military dudes. Hence titles like "Battle of the Somme", "The 94ths Farewell to Gibralter", etc. We still play a lot of that. Some are quite entertaining to play. But, there's been quite a bit of evolution in our music.
What they were playing back then? I think, probably what a lot of other bands would have been playing. Probably not quite as well as most bands. But, most likely not the worst. Not sure how they ever came about anyway. The guy who started it, got a wild hair and made it happen. Another guy with serious passion made it grow and had the ear of the University. In the 40s when the women came along...they were able to keep it going and had a viable band to put onto the field during the war when sooo many men were overseas and the ones at home were not spending their time being distracted by a marching band. A lot of schools suspended their marching band programs at the time.
And we totally "get" that people hate bagpipes. We don't know if it's because their first exposure to it is just a total hack....or if they just hate them. Fair enough either way. Any which way, the Highlanders history is pretty significant to "marching band" and widely respected by the piping community....even if they weren't the most top notch pipe band out there.
For reference....here's what it can sound like.....the winning performance from this year's pipe band Super Bowl...
Flippin' amazing to my ears. Likely intolerable after about 45 seconds to all but a handful of non players....
