Pipe Band Saved By Daring Strategy

Ashburton has been rocked this week by the announcement of a last ditch effort to save the town’s pipe band. The band has been reduced by age and shifting musical tastes to just five members – four pipers and a solitary drummer.

Band chairman Dougal Claymore has called a meeting on May 7 to pull the band from the brink of oblivion. Mr Claymore, speaking with the obligatory Scots accent of his office, described the band’s plight. “We cannae go on. If the people will nae rally to us ye’ll no hear the skirl o’ th’ pipes in this wee toon nae more.”

Treasurer Agnes McFinger revealed that the club’s assets have been reduced to 2 sets of pipes, a puncture repair kit and one ear plug. “To think we used to send out 600 pipers first footing on New Year’s Eve and now it’s come to this,” wept Mrs McFinger.

In response to the crisis the Guardian has set up a McThinktank. This group, whose members are anonymous for reasons that will become obvious, has prepared a report, with the nifty title Bagging the Band, to restore the club to its former glory.

At the heart of the package is a marketing campaign to freshen the band’s look and to bolster a recruitment drive. The McThinktank will replace the “hairy knees and tartan” image with the Paul Kelly dancers. It recommends a series of street concerts featuring the girls in hot pants and halter tops working out to a pipe band routine. These will be supported by a billboard campaign featuring scantily clad young women with pipes and drums and the slogans “Come and Play with Me” and “Beat my Drum you Big Scots Laddie.”

The report aims to improve all aspects of the pipe band. Marching is out, replaced by line dancing and Latin routines. “There is no entertainment in simply walking down a street,” the report’s authors claim. “We want our pipe band to become the Riverdance of Scottish performance. Imagine 30 pipers hip-hopping at the ANZAC Day parade backed by a dozen disco dancing drummers.”

But it is the band’s music that attracts most criticism in the report. “Pipe bands have been restricted for years by a limited and lacklustre repertoire, which is dictated by the limited and lacklustre instrument.”

In a bold move the report’s authors recommend the replacement of the traditional bagpipe with a modern digital version. The ‘digipipe’ replaces bag and chanter with a small laptop computer worn on a harness around the piper’s neck (the laptops are produced in various clan tartans). Small speakers are mounted on the laptops.

“The sight and sound of these machines is awesome,” claims the McThinktank. “Imagine 30 big strapping lads dancing down East Street with laptops round their necks playing anything from a Brahms concerto to techno-funk. Throw in the Paul Kelly dancers and you’ve started a craze.”

The report acknowledges the difficulties of commercialising the pipe band. “The bagpipe has limited revenue-generating potential owing to the essentially anti-social nature of its sound. The alarming quality of pipe music could however hold the key to commercial success. As most people are compelled to flee from the sound of bagpipes the music may be recorded for use in smoke detectors and fire alarms, and pipers may be hired to clear public bars at closing time.”

Bagging the Band reveals that the first bagpipes were made as duck calls for 18th century Scottish duck shooters. Their musical qualities were only developed during long, slow mornings in highland maimais, fuelled by large amounts of Scotch whisky. The report’s authors suggest an immediate and practical way the band could revive its fortunes is to hire itself out to duck shooters this weekend.

If all these strategies fail there is still hope for the pipe band’s remaining members. After all, five is still one more than the average rock band and as a last resort Mr Claymore and his companions should throw away their pipes and take up the guitar.