Carnegie Mellon University Development Pipe Band is part of the wider Carnegie Mellon University Pipes and Drums programme in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Bagpiping has been part of CMU campus life since 1939, when Lewis W. Davidson started the Kiltie Band, giving students a route into learning and performing on the Highland pipes.

CMU became especially important in piping history through its academic bagpipe programme. James H. “Jimmy” McIntosh MBE became director of the pipe band in 1985, and the university later established what it describes as the world’s first bagpiping degree programme in 1991.

The development band sits naturally within that teaching pipeline: a place for newer and improving student players to build ensemble skills, contest discipline and performance confidence before moving into higher-level competition or university events. The main CMU Pipes and Drums is made up of current students and alumni, performs regularly for official university occasions, and has returned strongly to competition under Andrew Carlisle, winning events such as the South Maryland Celtic Festival and the Colonial Highland Gathering at Fair Hill.

In recent years, CMU Pipes and Drums has become one of the leading university pipe bands in the United States, with major American competition success and a 2025 trip to Scotland for the European and World Pipe Band Championships.