Advertising for Pipers and Drummers

[Robbie.Crow]

The topic was brought up in this thread

It has been discussed between the Mod's and Admin on the forum and was decided you are free to advertise for pipers and drummers to join your band, but we ask that if your band has a website, then there be a link on it linking back to this forum!

If you have a link on your band website, feel free to advertise for more members! You can either do it in one of these three rooms

• General Piping Room for Pipers
• General Drumming Room for drummers
• The Band Hall just to advertise for members in general!

As said above, all we ask in return is a link back to this forum!

Thanks

[Tom Haldane]

Hi
I am a pipe band enthusiast based in the southeast of England.I'd like to advertise for pipers and drummers,to establish a new band within my area.I don't as yet have a website for the band,so would like to know if there would be any problem in me using pbf to advertise in meantime,you see,I dont want to go to the expense of setting up a website and find that I get no reponse to the website for players.
Furthermore,any band I do set up is for players over the age of 18.
Any advice you can give would be much appreciated.

[Scottish piper]

Hi Tom.

I'm from a band which started only two years ago, so I can offer some suggestions on recruitment, if you like. :)

The most important thing we have found, is that it is vital to have a great web presence. Create a band Facebook page, YouTube channel and a website. Most importantly, keep them updated!

You can check out the sort of videos we have here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/CCPipeBand?feature=watch

We have 2'000 views from around the world from YouTube alone, in about 8 or 9 months. I don't think you could achieve that number of views with an advert in the local paper. :)


I curious as to why you restrict teh age to over 18s. Have you had an trouble with younger students in the past? My experience as both a 17 year old and pipe major is that younger members bring a lot to a band. All I've met are quite mature and well behaved, but that might just be around here. ;-)


To recap, I reccomend working on your web presence and to reconsider the age restriction.


Any other questions, I don't mind helping at all.

SP

[Tom Haldane]

Hi SP
You ask why I intend to restrict the band to over 18s...it is because I primarily want the band to be for Ex-servicemen/women.Plus I've not got the patience to put up with kids.

[piper_dancer]

I agree completely with what SP says.

It's nice that we now have the luxuries and simplicity to promote our groups through social networking, video streaming and websites. That's probably the best thing to do to get your name out there.

It's fine for a band to be aimed to a certain group of people (such as ex-servicemen/women), however, it's kind of ignorant and discriminatory to put an age restriction on your band because you simply can't be bothered with kids. In many existing bands, the under 18 talent is a major factor in the quality of playing. The drive of the young ones striving to improve is greatly motivating to the rest of the band, too.

Your future members might also have kids or grandkids that they want to play in a band with and the age restriction might put them off.

I understand that you would primarily like it to be ex-service people, but there's only so many of them in your area that you will need to open the doors to others. Look how many police, fire service and legion bands there are out there, and how they've expanded to having non-service members and minors.

You've said you are a pipe band enthusiast, so am I to assume you don't play? In that case, you probably don't understand the importance of youth in a band from both a player's perspective and an instructor's perspective. Also, you won't be the one dealing with them directly if you're not actually playing in this band so you won't need the "patience to put up with kids".

Anyway, to reiterate what Scottish piper said, get a page going on Facebook, a channel on Youtube and invest in a website. I'm not sure if you have anything like this in the UK but here we have a couple of classifieds websites where people can advertise things (Kijiji or craigslist), which is a quick and easy way to get the word out there. Maybe look into some of those and the local paper's classified's.

Again, I STRONGLY suggest you rethink the ageism thing. Best of luck.

[baxdrum]

Youth in the band? The kids have those limber, useful hands all of us older guys used to have. If they have the right instructors, kids in bands aren't really a very problematic issue.

[Heed]

Tom, its a great idea just to have ex service people, but I don't know ANY reg.association or ex service bands where they don't have people who have never served playing. Police bands are worse, frequently there are little or no cops at all there.

As far as ex service goes, I think its a good thing to have a mix. Firstly, where you are, you'll be pushed to populate a band from ex servicemen (excuse the assumption) Secondly, your community will support you better if you teach learners, especially kids. You don't have to speak to the little buggers, get someone else to do it. Get the parents involved, essential for funds.

As an example, I'm in the Scots Guards pipers association. We have 3 bands, one not too far from you, one in Manchester and one in Scotland. I don't know if there are ANY ex Guards in the Manc band, , and Dixie Ingrams band must be 50% at best.

It's about 75% in Scotland, but as a result, at 47, I'm one of the youngsters.

Get young people in, you'll need them to help you on to the bus!

[Vikki]

I agree with what some of the others have already mentioned there about kids in the band. They bring a LOT of enthusiasm. Granted they are saints all the time, but then again I doubt all the adults would be either. And you don't have to personally deal with teaching any of them if you've no patience for it - with any luck you'll have at least a few people join who are capable of teaching and maybe even want to work with young players or learners.

[blootoon]

Scottish Piper you are spot on, our band was formed with my wife and some people she knew through a Facebook group chatting one night, next thing I knew we had a band, we did use the local paper and put up posters but social networking is what kicked it off.

https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Pe...25491084188885