Music
Each battalion had a number of pipers and these musicians participated in a centralised pipe band formally called the Pipes & Drums of the Ulster Defence Regiment. Its uniform followed the traditional military dress for Irish pipers, consisting of a saffron kilt, bottle-green "Prince Charlie" jacket, bottle-green cape and bottle-green caubeen adorned with a double-size cap badge. Unlike other Irish regiments in the British Army, UDR pipers did not wear a hackle and the lining colour of the cloaks was unique to the regiment.
In June 1986, the regiment held its only tattoo for two days in good weather at Ravenhill rugby ground, Belfast. Some of the attractions for the 12,000 people who attended were:
- the Red Devils parachute team;
- Greenfinches abseiling from the top of one of the grandstands;
- UDR dogs;
- a mock ambush;
- beating the retreat with the Pipes & Drums of the UDR plus the bands of the Duke of Edinburgh's Royal Regiment and the RUC.
The crowd is reported to have created a "deeply moving" moment by humming the evening hymn "The Day Thou Givest".
Only one UDR Pipes & Drums recording was publicly released: the 5 UDR Pipes & Drums "Irish & Scottish Pipe Music", which includes recordings of the regimental and battalions marches as well as other popular tunes.
Read more about this topic: Ulster Defence Regiment
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—Loretta Lynn (b. 1930)
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The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear!
That only I remember, that only you admire,
Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
“The basic difference between classical music and jazz is that in the former the music is always greater than its performance—Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, for instance, is always greater than its performance—whereas the way jazz is performed is always more important than what is being performed.”
—André Previn (b. 1929)