(Opinion) Rethinking Ensemble: it’s time to rebalance pipe band judging
Editor’s note: pipes|drums welcomes all fair perspectives and opinions. Sharing information and constructive dialogue is at the heart of the publication. As in all fair democracies, free speech and the free exchange of ideas are central to progress. Our competitive art can move forward only by asking questions, listening to answers, respecting opinions, and trading ideas.
Please let us know if you have an opinion that you would like to express fairly in an editorial. We are always pleased to hear from our readers.
For those who prefer watching to reading, here’s a video of our opinion piece. There’s a slightly longer text version below.
Rethinking Ensemble: it’s time to rebalance pipe band judging
“Ensemble” has recently become the watchword of pipe band judging.
That fact alone signals how much the art form has shifted. For decades, the competitive structure placed disproportionate weight on piping precision. Two piping judges, one drumming judge, and one ensemble judge reflected the era of technical precision defining excellence.
Today, performance practice has evolved more quickly than the judging model that governs it.
“Ensemble” has always been interpretive. One judge’s vision of ensemble excellence will never perfectly align with another’s.
That’s not a flaw. It’s the unavoidable reality of evaluating music. As pipe band performance grows more sophisticated in orchestration, harmonic design, and musical architecture, the importance of informed and balanced ensemble evaluation only increases.
The Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association has clearly recognized this shift. Its Adjudicator Panel Management Board is moving to accredit more Ensemble judges, and rightly so. Ensemble judging does not require mystical credentials. Like piping and drumming adjudication, it demands many years of competitive experience, disciplined listening, and a fair and an open mind.
In many ways, Ensemble judging requires a broader musical perspective than either piping or drumming alone.
Piping and Drumming judges assess objective criteria: tuning stability and accuracy, tonal quality, rhythmic unison, execution, tempo control, phrasing consistency. These are measurable standards.
Ensemble judges evaluate integration, assessing how the sections function as a musical whole. Ensemble judges interpret the emotional effect of the music – what moves us musically.
“While piping and drumming critiques come from the brain, ensemble assessment comes from the heart.”
While piping and drumming critiques come from the brain, ensemble assessment comes from the heart.
The Ensemble mark is the tie breaker. It is often decisive. So, if that makes sense, why does the Ensemble critique remain structurally underweighted?
The 2026 World Championship performance of Inveraray & District’s “Dream Valley” medley illustrated the direction towards the musical. For certain, the band was technically formidable, but what captured the most attention was the orchestration, the texture, and the dynamic architecture of the performance. It felt like a watershed moment for competitive pipe band music.
Judging structures must evolve with what pipe bands have become over the last hundred years.
Rather than maintaining the traditional format of two Piping judges, one Drumming judge, and one Ensemble judge, and understanding regular judging panels of eight, ten, or more aren’t yet feasible, here’s a more balanced regular format that’s in tune with the times:
- Two Ensemble judges, one with a piping background and one with a drumming background, both assess the band as a whole with emphasis on integrated musical performance.
- One Piping judge who’s focused primarily on objective execution, such as tone, tuning, unison, and technical accuracy.
- One Drumming judge focused primarily on objective execution within the drum corps.
Each judge’s score would carry equal weight in the final result. (In a single-event competition, the combined Ensemble mark would be the first tie-breaker, and combined Piping and Drumming scores next. In multi-event contests, the overall Medley placing [light years more difficult than an MSR] would break the tie.
“This new approach recalibrates the system toward music while preserving the rigorous assessment of accuracy. It also removes the implicit structural hierarchy that unduly weights the pipe section over the drum corps, and focuses more on the band as musical whole.”
This new approach recalibrates the system toward music while preserving the rigorous assessment of accuracy. But it also removes the implicit structural hierarchy that unduly weights the pipe section over the drum corps, and focuses more on the band as musical whole.
Following the RSPBA’s lead, associations worldwide should reduce outdated barriers to Ensemble accreditation. Experienced piping and drumming judges can and should be trained to assess full band musical performance rather than being confined to sectional silos for a decade or more before being permitted by wizened veterans from another era to be an Ensemble judge.
The same thinking applies to MSRs. If the MSR remains, treat it for what it is: a structured mini-medley of three interrelated compositions. Encourage orchestration, internal balance, and harmonic imagination. There is no rule requiring MSRs to be musically predictable.
A revised structure would also improve the listener experience. Bands would be encouraged not merely to avoid errors but to create compelling musical narratives. Competitive pipe banding thrives when it balances athletic precision with artistic creativity.
The art form has moved forward. Judging must follow.
What are your thoughts? We welcome your opinions and observations via our Comments feature below.
Fully agree, I think that should be a “just do it” for the RSPBA
Well stated, Andrew, even to the comments regarding MSRs (there is no rule requiring MSRs to be musically predictable). That last is both thrilling and terrifying, but think what doors it could open musically! I know some will shudder when thinking that MSRs could have harmonies and even breaks that are not the standard. Let’s continue to push the boundaries of our art forward!
Soem great points, Andrew, many of which have been debated before here and elsewhere. Like never before, the time is now. The RSPBA itself is shifting significantly. As much as anything I feel, because the musical innovators of recent decades who were pushing the limits, and sometimes paid the price in contests, are now in positions to drive change. They are repositioning themselves (in some aspects at least) to openly admit and lead the ‘affiliate associations’ (their words even if it isn’t formalised) in the rest of the world. They are also working hard to get the right people into adjudication earlier. Your point about the the advance of music, musicianship and sound more quickly than the adjudication methods are well made. Ensemble is the key, and it should follow in adjudication. Yes, the training of adjudicators in ensemble listening and critique is critical.
To my mind the missing piece remains the fact band leaders and players out there at all grades, are not good at teaching and perparing towards cohesive ensemble performance. It’s never been done or organised by those vested with authority and in the pipe band world. “Good ensemble” happens more by accident (including which band you’re associated with) than planning. It’s not enough to simply to define ensemble and know what adjudicators are looking for.
The next evolution of our tradition will not come from tighter unisons, more layered and complex harmonies, or faster fingers, but from how we teach people to listen and learn towards ensemble. Making ensemble fluency a deliberate learning outcome of being in a band, not a random by-product, would change the sound of pipe bands at every grade more than any new chanter or drum design ever could.
Making this happen will be the trick. Getting people to buy into the fact there is a better way will take time. As I said earlier, the time is now; the time is right for change on many levels. If not now, when… in another century?
Hi Andrew
Thanks for another excellent and thought-provoking editorial.
I’m not sure that I agree with you however that: ‘ensemble (judging) has always been interpretive’ or that ‘ensemble assessment comes from the heart,’ although I believe that a large number of people from the pipe band community who (through no fault of their own) still struggle with understanding what ensemble is, and what an ensemble judge actually does, would probably agree that it seems that way.
And now, there are those, in positions of power, advocating to introduce something which is ‘unmeasurable’ – a person’s emotional response to a performance??
I too thought that Inveraray’s medley was outstanding and had ground-breaking elements in it, but let’s keep things real!
Perhaps we should concentrate firstly on nailing-down what ensemble really is, so that everyone can understand it, and then getting people with the right skill-set in place to judge it.
Cheers,
Alan Jones (owner|editor: pipebandensemble.com)
The MSR is not merely a technical requirement; it is the bedrock expression of our idiom. To argue that it is holding back progress feels convenient. If anything constrains progress, it is the competitive framework itself — and the belief that the medley is the true artistic arena while the MSR is something to survive.
Many medleys have become predictable. A “follow the leader” mentality prevails: wait for an established band to take a risk, then replicate it and call it innovation. The palette has narrowed. Round, even-noted tunes dominate. Hornpipes and reels blur together. Slow airs — often anthem-like — have been homogenised, stripped of Gaelic voicing, cadence and resolution. Jigs are played almost entirely round. A token strathspey may provide the only real dot-cut contrast.
The heavy reliance on harmonies, bridges and reprises often feels less like expansion and more like compensation for a shrinking idiomatic range. We’ve reached the point where pointed reels are considered “naff,” and composers’ dot-cuts in jigs are quietly ironed out. Why? Convenience? Fashion? Competitive caution?
If progress means anything, it should deepen the idiom — not smooth it flat.
On ensemble, there also needs to be greater clarity about what the term actually means. Leaning too heavily on “how did it make you feel?” risks replacing musical governance with sentiment. It is worth asking whether ensemble’s rise was less an artistic awakening and more a corrective — after years in which drummers were incentivised to pursue their own trophies under systems rewarding execution over integration.
The unintended consequence may be a widening gulf between destination bands — led by full-time professionals — and the rest of the field. One can’t help but wonder whether the system now subtly favours Scottish dominance in Grade 1 and Juvenile at the Worlds, with other grades functioning largely as ballast.