FERGUS – At the Fergus Scottish Festival and Highland Games, there’s pretty much nowhere on the grounds you won’t hear the banging of drums or the drones of bagpipes.
That’s because pipe bands are one of the four pillars of the festival which will see both competition playing and collaborative playing as different bands come together to play in the mass band each day.
Members of the media were invited to learn a little bit about pipe bands from the Fergus Pipe Band before their weekly practice and a pipe major from the Guelph Pipe Band, a little more than two weeks ahead of festival weekend.
A typical pipe band is made up of bagpipers playing the Great Highland Bagpipes — the most prominent version of the bagpipes — snare drummers, tenor drummers and bass drummers.
Tyler Bridge, pipe major with Guelph Pipe Band, explained pipe bands have their origins in British armed forces and the British influence on Canada led to a number of pipe bands being formed in Canada.
Now, Bridge said a majority of pipe bands are civilian meaning they’re not associated with the armed forces.
“That’s kind of still part of the history of the marching and formations and the discipline involved,” he said.
Both Guelph and Fergus pipe bands have had a long history in the community, being formed in 1922 and 1927 respectively.
“The Fergus Pipe Band has certainly been involved in every single Fergus Highland Games that has ever existed, which is quite a feat in itself,” Bridge said. “It’s like any other community organization where it’s really bringing people together through music.”
Some pipe bands are focused on competition while others, like the Fergus Pipe Band, are “street bands” where they are focused more on performance.
The Fergus Pipe Band has a range of experience levels but it does take some work to get to competition level.
Teghan Ellis, Fergus Pipe Band drummer of three years, said it helps to have a music background and to know some basic music theory.
“There’s a lot that you can learn from other members in the band,” Ellis said. “One of the things that I love about being in a pipe band is that everyone is very zealous about pipes and drums. It makes it easy to learn because everyone wants you to succeed.”
Robert Saunders went from playing trumpet in a marching band to playing drums in the Fergus Pipe Band which he said was an incredible experience.
“It’s completely different as in just the atmosphere and it’s kind of more intimate because in marching bands you could have 100 or 300 (people in the marching band),” Saunders said. “The people in pipe bands are just incredible, they’re always helpful. It’s been the best experience of my life and I’ve only been doing it for 10 months.”
They were unsure of the exact number of pipe bands coming this year but Bridge figured there would be at least 15 bands expected at this year’s Fergus Scottish Festival.
The festival weekend will also include heavy events, Highland dancing, clans, special guests and around 150 vendors.
The Fergus Scottish Festival runs from Aug. 9 to Aug. 11.
