The Caledonian Pipe Band Of Southland , formerly known as the Southland Pipe Band, has a strength of twenty playing members. In 1897, Mr. Kenneth Cameron, then secretary of the Highland Society of Southland, with some other compatriots, set on foot the movement which ended in the establishment of the Pipe Band. Mr. Cameron's proposal was so well received that, in twelve months after it had been made, the Pipe Band was a fully-equipped musical body, with twenty-three members. Its outfit cost £650; namely, uniforms, £370, bagpipes £240, and drums, £40. The bagpipes—sixteen sets—were specially made by the famous pipemaker, Duncan Macdougall, of Aberfeldy, Scotland, and cost £16 each. The tartan worn by the band is the famous Royal Stewart; it was manufactured by the Mosgiel Woollen Company, and made up into plaids and kilts at the New Zealand Clothing Factory, which also made up the band's sporrans, belts hose, spats, claymores, dirks, skeansdhu, glengarries and feathers, brooches, crests, and tunics. The most conspicuous of the silver mountings is the specially designed crest, which is a St. Andrew's Cross surmounted by the Scottish lion rampant, the whole encircled by a wreath of New Zealand ferns. Mr. J. McGregor is drum-major, and Mr. G. Anderson, sergeant and acting pipe-major.

The Invercargill Municipal Band was formed in 1904, as the outcome of a wish on the part of citizens to have in the town a hand which could be looked upon as more purely a citizens' band than the Garrison Band, controlled as the latter was by the military authorities.