SA bands prove that pipes and kilts are not just for Scots, writes Oliver Roberts When a bagpiper blows their bagpipe their face usually expresses (1) a kind of professorly scorn or (2) darty-eyed confusion. Sometimes, inexplicably, it's both at once. Obviously there's that puffy-cheeked thing too. Young or old, a bagpiper's cheeks are incredibly honed and possessed of a muscular nuance and memory that the average non-pipe-blowing person will never understand.It's OK, too, that a piper's face does odd things when blowing - the bagpipe is regarded as the most technical instrument of all and mastering it demands an almost transcendental concentration.So it was a grand sight and sound to behold when 20-odd of the country's best pipe bands took to the sports field of Benoni High School for the annual South African Pipe Band and Highland Dancing Championships."The first set of pipes we bought, we got them home and couldn't get a sound out of them. We thought they were broken but the guy at shop had played them so we knew they weren't," says Janet Fabian. Her son Stuart, 36, plays with the Transvaal Scottish band.story_article_left1The pipe band community in South Africa is lively but relatively small. Most pipers take an interest if they go to a school that happens to have a pipe band. There's also the visceral factor, the bagpipes awakening something in your blood because an ancestor was Scottish.However, although there are plenty of Evanses and Campbells and McGregors and even St Clairhalls in local pipe bands, there are also Afrikaans and German and African surnames. (I even spoke to a Xin Jia, who said he couldn't imagine getting any better at the pipes than he already is because his "memory capacity is full".)In numbers and size local pipe bands are puny in comparison to bands in Scotland, but this doesn't mean we're not good. Pipe bands are rated according to an international standard, Grade4 being the lowest and Grade1 the highest.We have Grade2 bands but no Grade1s, mostly because of small numbers and the enormous cost (around R1.5-million) of sending a band and its equipment to compete overseas. However, we do have some individuals who are at Grade1 level.What makes a band good? That's determined by four judges with clipboards. Judge1 looks at the ensemble - integration of the pipes and drums, whether they tonally match et cetera. Judge2 listens for tone, execution, phrasing and unison. Judge3 focuses on the snare drummers. Judge4, the bass judge, looks at the swings and flourishes of the tenor drummers (the twirly things they do with their sticks).Competing, for most, is a nerve-racking experience. Anthony Evans, 36, is a drummer in the Transvaal Scottish band. He's been at this since he was 14 and is now bandmaster at St Benedict's College in Johannesburg. "The slightest little change throws the whole lot," Evans says. "A tempo change of one beat per minute would change execution of a lot of movements."Evans refers to "white line fever", which is when a band might start playing too fast because of adrenaline. The best bands/players are able to block out the spectators and judges and focus completely on the other players. "It's a very mindful exercise," says Kgabe Molepo, 25. "You're solely focused on what's going on in the circle and it's almost like nothing exists outside of it."block_quotes_start Playing is a break from everything else; away from school, away from other stresses. You come here to express yourself through the music block_quotes_endMolepo is a piper for Grade2 band Benoni MacTalla. He's training as a clinical psychologist and says being in a band at school (he started playing when he was 14) had a significant influence on his career path. "The band leader is a graphic designer, another player is an anesthetist, so you get a whole lot of different people and it's a nice warm space when you play together," he says. "Being around these people influenced my school work; I was exposed to professionals and wanted to live up to that."Molepo used to be asthmatic but since taking up the bagpipes he has stopped having attacks. Playing the bagpipes is a cardiovascular exercise. You have to have highly conditioned lungs and stomach muscles (and cheeks) to produce the air required to inflate the bag and have it all come out through the pipes without it sounding like a dying dog."It's a bit like running," says Thomas Fuller, 36, president of the Pipe Band Association of South Africa and piper for Durban-based 1Medical Battalion (Grade2). "It's not necessarily about lung capacity but lung efficiency.With running, to get better you need to run further and longer. It's the same with bagpipes: you need to practise in order to blow harder and more steadily, to be in complete control."mini_story_image_hright1Drumming, too, is an exceptionally difficult discipline. Ross Campbell, 18, has been drumming since he was eight. He plays the snare drum for the African Skye band and is the lead tip, which means he's the leader of the drummers.His role is to listen to the bass and tenor drums and keep it all in time. Hideous pressure. The Wednesday after the competition in Benoni he left for Scotland to compete in the world championships."It [being the lead tip] is really cool because you'll be playing and hearing everything that's going on in the band," says Campbell. "Playing is a break from everything else; away from school, away from other stresses. You come here to express yourself through the music."One of my many gaffes during the day was calling a female drum major a "drum majorette.""Drum majorettes are the ones with very short skirts," says Jessica Mels, 17, drum major for the Benoni Novice Juvenile Pipe Band. Drum majors are the people you see leading their band, holding a mace.Mels is sporting a ripped nail today and once broke her little finger when she caught the mace awkwardly. She points to a young man tossing his mace about: "That guy over there once broke a tooth because he caught the mace with his mouth. Another guy ended up in the ER with stitches in his head."Massive lungs, ultra co-ordinated hands and the danger of losing your teeth/breaking your finger/splitting your head open - don't let anyone tell you that playing in a pipe band isn't a sport. Wearing a kilt on a winter afternoon in Benoni requires considerable grit too...