In a way, the band’s formation reflects the sprawling challenge that confronted Chinese officials in hosting the Winter Olympics in a nation with little background or familiarity in the events that would play out.

“We just like bagpipes,” the leader of the pipers, Zhang A Li, said after one of their pregame performances - a staple of curling tournaments whether in China or Chicago, “and we all just came together.” And the band needed that help since their teacher, the only one they could find in China, had recently left the country. But the anthem is also sort of a default tune for the instrument tutorial videos on how to play it were easy to find online. The steady squeal of “Scotland the Brave” held its own against the din of the arena - the selection a nod, no doubt, to curling’s Scottish roots. But they were dressed as though they had just arrived from the Highlands: red plaid kilts adorned with the little pouches with long tufts of horsehair known as sporrans, all part of the uniform they had ordered from abroad. The musicians are self-described amateurs mostly from Beijing. A band of bagpipers marched in almost like a vision from another time, or at the very least, another continent. BEIJING - The curling arena darkened and strobe lights blotted the ice.

Scotland the brave youtube bagpipes