Comments ~ 2004: February

Comments from February 2004

Masters omissions

So its 20 bands at the (Masters) contest instead of the twenty three invited. Why are the bands who declined the invitation not replaced? There are bands who are higher ranked than some who are in the contest who have not been invited. What sort of message does that send out to those bands? All they ask is a level playing field. The contest could start to de value itsself. There are many people in the movement suprised by the omission of one or two bands.

D. Tinker

A Pontins Masters?

The Masters get it wrong again and again don't they? Why is it that the best bands in England are not invited? I know this is the age of the politically correct, but we on earth must the organisers try and please everyone by having at least one band from each English Area? Come on Mr Biggs and Mr Franklin - get the best bands to Cambridge before it becomes a "Pontins".

Jean Kelway
Brentford

Norway thanks

Thank you! - for coming to Bergen and taking part in our Nationals! It's so good that you show an interest for what is going on outside the UK, and we really appreciate your commitment for our Brass Band movement. Your page is very popular here in Norway, keep up the good work!

I hope your hearing is OK after our own choice last Saturday - we will not accept any legal claims for damage, or pay for any use of hearing aid later on.

We will be looking forward to seeing you in Norway again, maybe at the Grenland Brass Festival in April?

John Philip Hannevik
MD, Sandefjord Brass Symposium
(Current Norwegian Champion of point-splits, 81-95!)

Forward thinking Norway

Well done 4BR on bringing us your coverage of the Norwegian Brass Band Championships from Bergen. It is nice to find out more about the brass band world away from the this country. Sometimes we think we are the best at everything, but it is nice to know that the organisers in Norway are much more forward thinking.

The British Open with 10 bands, playing two test pieces - now wouldn't that bring the crowds back?

Mr John Vincent
Harlow

The Right Choice!

In response to Mr Hartwells comments suggesting Les Preludes to be too difficult for the vast majority of the bands competing at the Grand Shield, could I just ask exactly what he is expecting from a qualifying test peice for THE OPEN! Of course it's hard, it's supposed to be. I should know, we came last on the thing when it was used at the Open!!!!!

The vast majority of the bands at the Shield want to compete in what some consider to be the greatest competition of the year amongst the worlds best Bands, what do you expect, Hootenany?

If you can't stand the heat Mr Hartwell?

A Norman
Flowers Band

Cloud Cuckoo Land

Mr Hartwell is living in cloud cuckoo land! If you want to get the best bands to the British Open then you have to pick a test piece that tests the "wannabees" to the limit.

Last year we had the poor choice of "Tallis Variations" that certainly didn't prove an ideal test, so picking "Les Preludes" is a fine decision. So what if there will be plenty of mistakes - it will certainly mean that the best bands, with the best players will get through. Well done to the British Open organisers!

Stephen Jewel
Bristol

Errors anyone?

I have just purchased a set of Les Preludes arr Bram Gay, and after playing through the piece it was immediately apparent that there were major discrepancies in the score. Is there an errata available?

Edward Kennedy
Musical Director
South Brisbane Federal Band
Australia

How do I become a judge?

How does one become an adjudicator? Is there a web site for the ABBA?

Is there an apprenticeship scheme available for potential adjudicators, or do they just get thrown into the deep end? I'd consider becoming an adjudicator if some sort of support mechanism was in place to help me get there.

Will Elsom
Fulham Brass Band

Don't dampen the enthusiasm

Far be it from me to dampen Ray Wood's enthusiasm for the future of brass banding ( heaven knows I need all my energy to maintain my own ) but one great concert does not a rosy future make! I think it's worth mentioning that this concert took place in an area which may be regarded as a brass band stronghold. A quick glance at the map will show that, and frankly I think I could easily fill a hall here if YBS were on the bill.

The true picture is much larger however, and somewhat more gloomy. The future of brass bands lies in our youth and our current society seems virtually designed to prevent young people from becoming involved in activities such as ours. Firstly; schooling. Our children are now placed under such pressures with their constant tests and examinations that they are often putting in more working hours per day than most adults.

With this in mind is it any wonder that when the homework is finished they tend to turn to the PC or playstation, merely because it requires little physical effort? Secondly, the education system: Our schools are also under immense pressure to perform, so their efforts go into the so called 'essentials'. Music education is not high on this list, so it is amongst the first to fall by the wayside when 'cuts' are required, both financially and in terms of available time. When I was a child I attended an ordinary secondary modern school. The school band was strong and was run after school hours, but on the premises, by the conductor of the town band who was employed as a peripatetic.

This way the amount of time available was somewhat 'elastic', so assuming the caretaker didn't have a hot date we would take as much time as we needed. In my experience this sort of system no longer exists. I was employed recently as a peripatetic in the county of Suffolk and all lessons were carried out during school hours. This presented me with two problems immediately. Firstly, because 'kids will be kids', some of the children were present simply because it got them away from Maths or History or whatever, and more importantly the lessons were shared by up to four children and lasted 15 - 20 minutes.

By the time they've arrived late and then run back to fetch the mouthpiece they left in their locker, very little useful time was left. Also, a certain amount of resentment was present from the teachers who had to watch children disappear from their lessons. Understandably so.

There are of course a great many music teachers in our schools who are doing their very best to encourage children to take an interest in music, but they are fighting an uphill battle against huge odds.
And of course even these teachers may not have a favourable opinion of brass bands.

There are of course other possible reasons for the decline in our movement. The image we present
and the music we play to mention but two. But that's for another time.

Sorry Ray, I sincerely hope you're right and I'm wrong but I've got this really uneasy feeling.........

Roger Pearcey. Suffolk.

Peter Ganes Mutes - not anymore?

I recently enquired to Normans Musical Instruments about purchasing some tenor horn mutes for our band. I had been told at the band the other night,
that Peter Gane himself passed away fairly recently, and no-one else has continued the business.

What I'm hoping is that there is a shop who may
have some still in stock, or failing that, someone has a second hand one they no longer need.

Eileen Jenkins

Where were you!!!

Why weren't 4BR at the recent Action Research Youth Brass Band Entertainment Championships?

The future of the British Brass Band movement was there for all to see - loads of talented youngster enjoying themselves, great music and a full audience. It seems that you felt the delights of Norway were more important. Shame on you lads - Blackpool is certainly more interesting than Bergen!

Kelly Andrews
Stockport

BBC Baritone delight

Well done to Katrina Marzella for winning the BBC Radio 2 Young Brass Soloist Competition. The standard at the final was superb, with equally excellent performances from the other finalists - especially Andrew King on trombone.

Katrina though was quite brilliant - and what a delight it was to hear the baritone played in such a manner.

Kevin Andrews
Birmingham

In decline? - not in Rochdale for sure

Anyone who thinks that the Brass Band movement is in decline should have been at the Gracie Fields Theatre in Rochdale last Saturday. A full house
was there to see three bands, The Yorkshire Building Society Band, the Rochdale Junior Brass Band and the Rochdale Youth Band - and what a superb concert it was!!!

The Rochdale Junior Brass Band which was conducted by one of the YBS players, Hayley Moore were superb. I couldn't believe that many of the 50
strong band were only seven years old and had only been playing for a year or so. It was a joy to watch the MD cajoling and encouraging her young
players to produce a performance way beyond their years.

YBS were as usual quite stunning and their programme was really appreciated by an many of the audience who were not regular brass band concert goers. The Rochdale Youth Band were also fantastic . It seems quite simple, but many other Local Authorities could do worse than to take the example of Rochdale Music Service who have a Junior Band and Intermediate Band which in
turn feed the youth band.

Local bands will no doubt benefit providing they can offer the same 'fun experience' that the youngster have been used to.

I was also impressed with many of the YBS players who took the trouble to help the youngster in the massed bands finale. A great night which gave me much confidence in the future of banding

Ray Wood

Getting there slowly

Nice to see the ABBA making the effort to look at their standards and seeing how they can possibly improve them. It's been a long time coming for sure, but nice to know they are finally making slow but sure progress in the right direction.

The first step though is surley to be brave enough to get rid of some of their more incompetent practitioners.

John Delaney
Stoke on Trent

Brave old Broadbent

Well done 4BR on printing Derek Broadbents article on the site. We seem to have at last one judge who is prepared to say that things haven't been too good in the past with the quality of adjudicating. Lets hope it continues.

Paul Hislop
Aberdeen

Well done, but can they now speak up?

Congratulations to Derek Broadbent and his article which you printed in full. Will this mean that his Association will now make it the norm for it's members to explain themselves at our biggest contests, instead of hiding away as they have too often done in the past?

J. Snatchwell

Forward thinking Festival

Having spent a very nice weekend listening to some fine peformances at the Festival of Brass at the RNCM, I must write to say well done to the organisers for the wide variety of the music on display.

A previous correspondant complained of a lack of "brass band classics", but this is surely not the point of this Festival. What we were presented with here was quality music making that looked forward rather than back (something we do far to much of in our movement). Fine choices by all the bands and MD's and well done Edward Gregson and his team.

Brian Somerville
Bromsgrove

Avant Garde Rubbish!

What was this year's Festival of Brass all about then? The vast majority of the music was pretensious rubbish dressed up to sugest that there is some sort of "avant garde" Radio 3 audience ready and willing out there in the banding world who thinks this is the way forward. Get real.

90% of this stuff won't ever be heard of again - and that is the real acid test of whether it was any good. If you want full halls, then play proper brass band music. I for one won't be back next year if this is what we will have in store.

Mr William Robinson

BBC Bias. Lord Hutton was right!

Just read the fabulous article by Tyrone Guthrie about brass band contesting in Bolton in 1948. Well done for finding it and reprinting on 4BR.

And you wonder why Lord Hutton thought the BBC was in such a useless state.

Keith Pollard
Jersey

Trust the judges

Great article on the 1948 North West contest. Strange though to think that as an outsider to the brass band contest he thought the idea of sticking three men in a crate in a dingy hall for hours on end was a pretty stupid idea. It was then, and it is now. Surely over 50 years later, we can come up with a better method of deciding the results. Don't we trust the judges of today?

Elaine Mather.

Hiring and Firing

So Frank Renton returns to Grimethopre. Isn't it strange that our top bands hire and fire conductors at the drop of a hat, yet invariably when they find that it does them no good they return to the original ones that gave them success in the first place.

Ian Janes
London.

The numbers game

Do you think it would be a good idea if this year the organisers of the Regional Championships gave us some idea of how many paying customers actually come to hear the contests around the country. After the debacle of "Prague" it would be insteresting to find out how many are actually paying good brass to hear good brass?

Dr James Read
Liverpool

We don't want a PC Masters!

Having just read on the 4BR site the line up of bands at the forthcoming Masters, you must ask if the organisers have slightly lost the plot about the nature of the contest.

I thought this was to be a "Masters" contest, ie, the best bands in England getting to test themselves against eachother. What we have got is some sort of fudge compromise whereby each Region gets a couple of bands so that the "Full English" label can be justified.

This should be a contest for the best bands in England, not a collection to keep the PC Brigade happy. Get rid of the dross (where ever they come from) and pick bands in form and on the up. It would make for a better more meaningful contest.

Carl Sneddon
Yorkshire

Les Preludes - a kneee jerk reaction?

Can someone tell us who on earth picked "Les Preludes" as the test piece for the Grand Shield. Too long and too hard for the vast majority of the bands of this standard - will it come down to who has the best soprano and flugel horn player? I hope not - as making decisions on just the split note count would be a great shame.

I know "Tallis" wasn't a great choice last year, but this one seems to be a kneee jerk reaction possibly too far in the opposite direction.

Keith Hartwell

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