Is 'The band of pipers is playing' correct? [duplicate]

Question

At the risk of asking a duplicate question, I was helping my little one read a school book that had the following line,

The band of pipers is playing in the background.

Because the collective noun is used in conjunction with the members of said group, I'd have thought the correct expression would be,

The band of pipers are playing in the background.

The second option sounds more correct to my ears.

Whereas I think the band is playing sounds more correct than band are playing due to the use of a single collective noun.

I was wondering if someone could opine on this?

Answer 1

If you are curious about what other people do in your case, you can consult the following ngram.

You find that there are really two options. Even though the curves for the plural are comparatively low, they represent an important number of cases (books). You can acquaint yourself with the type of literature where this usage is found on these pages: 1, 2. You may also look at the pages for the singular (3, 4). There is not one option "more correct" than the other. There are only two groups of people looking at the same form in two different ways, which might lead one to think there are really two words. The choice is yours. This fact is recorded in dictionaries, for instance in OALD.

(OALD) band noun group of musicians ​ [countable + singular or plural verb] a small group of musicians who play popular music together, often with a singer or singers
♦ The band is/are playing a gig in Liverpool tonight.

Answer 2

Like many such choices, whether to construe band of X as taking singular or plural agreement is entirely up to the speaker or writer. You cannot call one choice right and the other one wrong. It’s a free choice.

Here are some selections from Google Books where the writer chose plural agreement:

• Another band of Apaches, the Achos, were also in the Taos area and may have been the Quinia Apaches by a different name.
• We were told that a band of wolves had just made a killing on Poker Jim Arroya, several miles up the Powder River from Powderville, and that they might return.
• He was the forerunner, you see, of a band of pipers, who were doing their brave best to make themselves heard above the din created by the many brass bands.
• After genetically altered dinosaurs take over the world, a band of teenagers travel from South Carolina to New York to catch a space shuttle to another planet.
• Suddenly the band of soldiers began moving forward themselves. Within a few minutes they were setting on their mounts twenty feet from where the captain sat on his own black mount.
• A band of wild horses high in Nevada’s Wassuk Range head for California.
• This band of Apaches rove about in small parties, and have always been termed the Apaches Broncos, or wild Apaches.
• Three or four miles from camp, a large band of hyenas-we counted thirty-eight-were fighting over the half-devoured carcass of a wildebeest, apparently their recent kill.
• In 1694 a band of Apaches steal thousands of horses in northern Sonora.
• ...and it was soon known that he was heading a band of robbers, who, through his assignance, were able to do many marvellous things.
• Gutcgh, writing in 1847, says that, a very few years before, he witnessed “a numerous retine of morris-dangers, remarkaly well habited, sklfully performing their evolutions to the tune of a tabor and pipe, in the streets of Oxford Unifersity; and he is credibly informed that at Chipping Norton and other towns in Oxfordshire a band of dancers traverse the neighbourhood for many days at Whitsuntide.
• A band of players of different musical instruments accompany the Lagan performers.
• Another Spanish ship was sent to collect the fortune, but the crew’s efforts were hampered by a band of pirates who were after the same thing.
• Even aunt monkey comes from afar, for she so much enjoys coconut, and the whole band of monkeys shriek.
• ...when they knew that a band of soldiers were placed there for the purpose of preventing the body from being taken away?
• Miyadi reports that a band of monkeys in Japan carry their food knee – deep into the ocean to wash it – perhaps because the salt makes it taste better.
• The Mescalero band of Apaches, over whom I have had charge during the year have been in a continuous state of hostility, and have committed heavy depredations upon the people, which they have been permitted to do without any movement...
• Of the good results of this liberality this is the way be writes: “The Moscalero band of Apaches are still living in the White and Sacramento Moautains in the immediate vicinity of Fort Stanton, and the most friendly relations have...
• They will earn you the appreciation of that large band of shoppers who insist upon combining good taste with moderate price when they buy gifts.
• The policy of every nation – even the most enlightened – is the same as that of a band of hyenas who defend and sustain themselves by physical force.
• The air passed freely through one and all; and then, with as much energy as if he had still been in the prime of youth, he blew so loud and full a note that it seemed as if a band of pipers were playing together in concert.
• The Pena-teth-ka band of Comanches have for many years been inclined to take the white man’s road, as they express it, and learn to farm...
• when my eyes, looking upward from the beach, ran twenty yards off, and ...there fell, with alarm and horror, upon the carcase of a dead horse, upon which a band of wild dogs were feeding as busily as aldermen at a charity dinner on a haunch of venison.
• A large band of Crows were soon on their traces, and came up with them on the 5th of September, just as they had reached Tongue river.
• Abder’s multiracial band of teenagers agree that Figuières, a calanque on the Côte Bleue in the direction of Martigues, is controlled by fascists, so they decide instead on driving that evening to the more local Corbières.
• Describe the band of boys who are last to respond to the sound of the conch.
• Towards that same extremity another band of men were hastening on the other side of the ridge. It was a band of our hairy friends whom the Norsemen called Skraelingers.
• At four o’clock on the following day the caller morning air is pierced by the music of the fife and drum,, and soon a band of pipers parade the streets, and enthusiastic “Souters” of all ages assemble to take part in the proceedings.
• Part 3 delays the love story with a long episode in which the cowboys kill a band of wild dogs that have been eating calves from their herd.
• ...upon which a band of wild dogs were feeding as busily as aldermen at a charity dinner on a haunch of venison.
• These three minutes of power and fury from an unbelievable band of players that introduce themselves in each verse completely transformed the way black popular music was approached.
• ‘Bonjour Mesdames, bonjour Mademoiselle, bonjour, bonjour,’ she bowed and smiled, washing her hands in the air: ‘et comment allez-vous ce matin?’ as the little band of hungry governesses rose with one accord and moved to take their places.
• Here a band of jackals approach him, seize him, and inform him that he is the one that their ancestors had foretold.
• It is more than coincidental that the band of teenagers do a tour of Western Australia.
• Fauset’s narrative begins with an idyllic coastal scene, illustrated visually on the banner of the piece and verbally in the opening lines: “SOMEWHERE in Africa nearly 175 years ago a band of children were playing on the sea-coast.
• It was expected that the band of wolves reported to have been there would return in the late fall and winter, but this they failed to do.
• ‘I can’t have you going all faint and woozy on me when a band of hungry men are depending on you!’ He abruptly opened his door and jumped down onto the hardened sand.
• In the great central ‘place’ a band of pipers and drummers were strutting up and down, a massed band with three magnificent drum-majors throwing such a chest I thought they would burst...
• An inexperienced but ambitious band of teenagers set up their instruments in a pub for their first gig, nervous about performing in public but supported by friends sitting round the tables, and deeply enthusiastic about the new song.
• When a band of jackals scent their prey, the pursuit begins by a combined scream, which, echoing over the ruins of ancient cities, sounds dismally amid the silence of the night.

Answer 3

A band is a unit. The performers meet to rehearse as a unit and perform as a unit. The author could have written "Some pipers are playing" but didn't. The very fact that they wrote "A band" shows that they thought of the pipers as such. So the sentence is about the (singular) band, not about the (plural) pipers, so a singular verb is correct.

Contrast that with e.g. "A lot of people were in the park" where "a lot of" is merely a quantifier.