Below is a video of the Islay Pipe Band while playing their "MSR" at the Cowal Championships in August 2011. This last competition of the season saw the band finishing 5th at the Cowal Championships and a highly creditable 3rd place in the Band Champion of Champions Table. Earlier the Islay Pipe Band became European champions in their grade, 3A and 4th at the worlds.

I must admit that I know only little about pipe bands and their performances. In the paragraph above I wrote about their "MSR", a phrase I found in the description of the Youtube Video. After some online research I found the following on this website:

The march, strathspey and reel is a cornerstone of pipe band competition the world over - it is something of a common denominator. Observation would indicate that, aside from execution and expression, an area where an MSR performance can be dramatically affected is tempo, and more specifically, changes in tempo between tunes. A problem that often exists for bands with less experience, is achieving a complementary progression in playing tempos between each of the tunes. A tempo change that is too fast or too slow when compared with the preceding tune, can spoil the entire performance. More often than not the playing tempos will be limited by the combined ability of the band - pipers and drummers - to execute the tune clearly and with good expression.

I hope this was of any help to you, it sure was for me. Congratulations to the Islay Pipe Band and lots of success for next season! Below is the video which was also very much enjoyed by our two year old daughter :-)

More videos of the Islay Pipe Band are available via this link

Tag: pipe band video