Editorial ~ 2006: August

This month we give our opinion on the question of commitment; too many contests, and whether or not to be a lender or borrower.

A question of commitment

It was the great Gary Player who coined the phrase that the more he practiced the luckier he seemed to get when it came to winning golf tournaments.  For him, above all, it was a question of the commitment.

Player though saw things literally in black and white. For a man who hailed from a country that imposed the evil of apartheid on its people, he once took to the golf course dressed in a outfit, one half black, one half white, yet failed to realize the incongruity the fashion statement set to the wider non golfing world.

The brass band movement in many ways suffers with the same problem.  Success is measured only in terms of contest wins, commitment measured only in terms of backsides on seats it seems. That is our black and white problem.

Perhaps we have lost sight of why a group of individuals from varying social and economic backgrounds come together in the first place to play in a brass band. Making and enjoying music should transcend all other preoccupations about what we essentially do as a hobby.

That we don't is because just like Gary Player we are indoctrinated with the competitive desire to beat our fellow rivals.  Practice and commitment are seen as goals to that end. Music making is of course all the more enjoyable if it is done with a group of like minded individuals, and whilst it is great to win, all victories come at a price.

The more you commit, the more you practice, the more time you spend in the bandroom away from family and friends, the more you take annual leave, miss your kids birthday parties or school plays, miss a shift at work or miss a meal with the wife - the more those victories cost in real life, not just in brass band terms.

Gary Player never came to those terms with life outside golf. He saw everything as a never ending round of practice, commitment and competition in a very confined world. It should therefore come as no surprise that he has never been as successful away from a golf course than he ever was on it.  

Getting the balance between commitment and enjoyment is perhaps the secret to ultimate success. Tip the balance too much either way and what we get are the accusations and recriminations that blight our movement when things do not go to plan for either bands or conductors. Get it right and you will have a musical experience that cannot be bettered, with contest wins to show for all your hard work.  Even Gary Player couldn't beat that, however many hours he may have practiced to get lucky.

What do you think?
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Too many contests?

With the news in recent weeks that both the Buxton and Folkestone Contest have been cancelled for this, and possibly future years, it would be easy to suggest that we are beginning to see the end of what could be termed ‘provincial contesting' in the UK.

Because of our historical penchant for contesting, there was bound to come a time when the number of contests in the country would have to reflect the reducing numbers of bands willing to compete in them. That so many contests the length and breadth of Britain have survived so long have been something of a minor miracle of good husbandry and organization. Now it seems, not even those twin virtues can stop the cold wind of financial economics blowing through the movement and picking them off.

It is not all doom or gloom. Even though the demise of some longstanding contests is cause for concern, perhaps it will mean a much more focused attempt to promote and develop those left.

Local brass band associations should look to work together more to promote better local contests, pooling resources both physical and financial to create events that have a greater appeal, better prize money and a higher profile. Traditionalists may baulk at the idea of losing a contest with such a rich heritage in their immediate area, but wouldn't it be better for all concerned if their demise meant another flourishing?

As we have said many times before: Less can sometimes mean more, and perhaps now is the time to find out if that also applies to our contesting structure throughout the UK.

What do you think?
Send an email to: comments@4barsrest.com

Neither a borrower nor a lender be

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

Shakespeare had it just about right in Hamlet. We now take borrowing for granted and we have little or no regard it seems for its consequences.

Even the late and much derided Robert Maxwell summed up the effects of borrowing more than you could hope to pay back, perfectly too: "If you owe 100 to a friend or 1000 to the bank then it's your problem; but owe 10 million and it quickly becomes theirs."

Perhaps in retrospect both men could have been talking about the brass band world and its seemingly inexorable shift to using borrowing as a means of enabling bands to enter competitions. The end result though could also be the same too: Hamlet when bonkers in his castle, whilst old Rob, as the Mafia used to neatly put it, ended up swimming with the fishes.

We are quickly becoming a contesting movement which is surviving on player credit, and the only possible unchecked consequence for bands is to either end up in the equivalent of Hamlet's Elsinore or become shark food when the banks come calling on bands to pay up their debts.

And as Shakespeare said: Borrowing players costs good money, and how many bands can continue to afford to bring in one, two or even four players a contest in the vain hope they may be able to afford to pay them out of their winnings? We are now even seeing top bands importing players from abroad, not illegal of course, but certainly not strictly within the spirit of what ‘borrowing' was meant to be all about.  It's rather like Cardiff City asking Real Madrid for a lend of David Beckham for a couple matches to help them out of a bit of relegation trouble.

In addition, the more cynical amongst us would also point out that the second question usually asked of a borrowed player after, ‘What do we owe you?' is usually a not too discreet, ‘How would you fancy playing for us then?' ‘For loan oft loses itself and friend', indeed, and how many a transfer has a crafty Band Manger brokered on the back of a supposed one off ‘borrowed' appearance from a fellow rival?

Unless something is done and done quickly, then the occasional well meaning desire to help bands out at contests will quickly become unsustainable and will lead to the general demise not just for individual bands, but possibly the whole framework of contesting in this country.

The recent English National Championships was the latest to allow ‘borrowed' players to be used by competing bands.  For a contest of this importance it seems incredible that these bands couldn't (given that they can have up to 40 players on their books) come up with a full compliment of players. If that was the case, then the movement is in real trouble. 

What the answers are can be discussed at another time perhaps, but the questions posed by both the Old Bard and the Daily Mirror pension fund robber remain the same. Unless we look to control how and what we borrow, the outcome could well be long term problems for us all. 

(An amended version of this editorial appeared in the British Bandsman newspaper on 22nd July)

What do you think?
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