Jaymee McCarthy

I have been surrounded by pipe bands at a very young age with my uncle being a piper and my dad a drummer. After pestering my parents for bagpipe lessons, they compromised, and put me in piano lessons at the age of 7. Once I was able to read music my uncle started teaching me bagpipes. Long story short, bagpipes were not for me but it was not enough to kill my love of music and continued with studying the piano through to 2014. Once in high school, I was assigned to my school's percussion section, which eventually lead me to complete my studies at the University of Ottawa in percussion with a concentration in music education in 2017.

My pipe band journey began in earnest in 2015 when I started playing bass drum in the 78th Highlanders Glengarry Garrison. At this point, there was no turning back. I quickly fell in love with the colours, textures and artistry that comes with being in the midsection. In 2017, I switched my focus to tenor drumming and I quickly flourished in my new roll (hehe) and I quickly found success, including being named Eastern Ontario Champion Supreme in both grade 3 tenor drumming and the amateur bass drum categories for the 2018 competition season. In the summer of 2018, I started taking lessons from Taylor Page and Kyle Heaney. That same year, I was upgraded to grade 2 solo tenor drumming for the 2019 competition season.