FMM to wear new Drumalig kilts at Dumbarton
The 2006 World Pipe Band Champions, Field Marshal Montgomery, will wear brand new kilts at the Scottish Pipe Band Championships in Dumbarton, Scotland, on May 19 with a tartan designed especially for the band.
The new “Drumalig” tartan was designed for the band by R.G. Hardie & Co. and is based on the Royal Stewart tartan that the band has worn for decades. The company used Tartan Designer software to create a computer-generated image of the new tartan.
“Through consultations with the FMM business team, parameters were set to establish how the new tartan would look,” said R.G. Hardie Managing Director Alastair Dunn, who is also FMM pipe-sergeant.
The name of the tartan comes from the town of Drumalig in Northern Ireland where the band started in 1945, under its first pipe-major, Billy Maxwell, who now serves as the band’s president.
R.G. Hardie is part of the St. Kilda Group, which sponsors FMM. Several members of the band will also be playing new Peter Henderson bagpipes made by R.G. Hardie. Dunn added that the St. Kilda Group “prides itself on innovation and has developed the Piper Range which is worn by the band.”
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I think it would have been better news last week: ScottishPower and FMM Get New Uniforms Soaked in Malahide Massed Bands.” Seriously though
One of the rules of thumb about investing is that, if a company builds a marble palace for a head office, or if more than one lifestyle” article is written about the CEO
Oh dear god. How much time do we spend complaining about piping’s shortbread and whisky image, just for one of piping’s foremost media publications to breathlessly headline the news that a band has changed tartan? This is not news, or even close to being news. It borders on advertising, to be quite frank.
Let me catch my breath. Um, slow news day?! Seriously, I like the story. Bands at FMM’s level have a brand identity (see PR article), and changing a brand image after 60 years is rare and a little risky. Besides, no paper was wasted producing the story! What do others think? Interesting or boring fodder?
I found it interesting… It really is all about branding and organizational identity. Having their own unique tartan is another way FMM is positioning themselves as a distinct group (though quality has already done that…). I don’t see what this has to do with stereotyping. Maybe it’s just me and Andrew, but if, for example, SFU or Shotts were going to change from their traditional orange and go green, I’d be curious to hear about it.
Well, the article has made me pack my camera! Got to get up at 4.30am to get the band to Dumbarton for 8am so I’m off to bed.
An article, and a picture! What more could you ask for. I guess it’s better then no news at all.
Shotts has new jackets. They’ll be unveiled today. They are Navy with a lighter pin stripe, which is a modification of our last jackets which were Navy.
It’s not strictly piping or drumming, but our new band is piecing together our kit, and a lot of the effort feels like re-inventing the wheel. I have to chase a lot of these details, so anything upfront and center, like new kilts, is really useful information!
Lets face it – sometimes you can’t get near the ringside to get a good listen for the ‘tartan spotters’. No interest in the technical side of it – they just love to see a nice kilt – and there are fewer and fewer of those with so many garish efforts going around and in MEDIUM WEIGHT CLOTH! – Morag! pass me the vapours!
I got a new bag cover last week at practice and will be using it at Alma…..But seriously this is good news about FMM because it gives us Red Gordon wearing Windsor guys hope for change.
Strathclyde have a new trophy….
All of these PR rustlings over brand image and brand identity is art imitating life. Society is awash with such topics in the USA, the UK and the Commonwealth and so it has come to the fore in pipe bands. But in a lot of ways haven’t pipe bands always been somewhat of a two-way mirror between piping and popular culture?