Editorial ~ 2008: June

This month we look at the need for a Registry, conductor casualties and in praise of French banding.

Do we need a Registry?

At a time when more and more contests are relaxing their rules to allow bands to borrow players to enable them to participate at their contests, the question inevitability arises to whether or not the brass band movement now requires its players to be centrally registered or not.

Today, players are regularly brought in from all corners of the globe to ‘sign’ for competing bands at contests as diverse as the Grand Shield and All England Masters to Pontins and local association contests, only to almost miraculously reappear with their own domestic bands as soon as the last note of a test piece has been played. 

Over 40 years ago the National Registry (and this equally applies to those of Scotland and Wales) was brought into being to stop the unethical borrowing of players at contests.

At that time it could not have envisaged the onset of cheap air travel making it financially viable for bands to ‘import’ star players as easily as it is today for Tesco’s to ship in fresh fruit from Spain, let alone the desire of domestic contest organisers to try and maintain competitor numbers by relaxing their entry requirements so that in some cases, up to a fifth of a bands brass players can be borrowed to allow them to compete.

The Registries are of course powerless to stop contest organisers imposing any rules they wish to attract competing bands, but it has become a sad and cynical state of affairs when bands (and conductors) can artificially enhance their chances of contest success by simply spending money on ‘star‘ players (foreign or home grown) with no loyalty, commitment or real desire to play for the band in question, other than they will receive a nice wad of cash for their trouble.

That is why the brass band movement in the UK in particular, desperately requires a robustly supported registry with powers to stamp out the growing unethical abuse of a system that threatens to undermine the very nature of brass band contesting.

Organisers may bleat that without more relaxed rules some contests would struggle to attract competing bands. On the other hand, the very relaxation of the registration rules means that all contest organisers are doing is trying to camouflage a much more basic structural problem within the movement itself – the lack of playing resources.

The registries are the barometers of the movement’s health, but presently their excellent work is being undermined by those with self interest at their heart.

Perhaps we should look back 40 years again to see why the initial problem sought the brass band movement in the UK have registries in the first place. 

What do you think?
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Conductor Casualties

Another week another conducting casualty.

However bands and MDs like to dress it up – from ‘amicable decisions’ and ‘parting of the waves’, to ‘artistic differences’ and ‘conflict of interests’, the lifespan of a conductor at the top most level of banding has become as perilous as that of a Premiership football manager.

It should therefore come as little surprise that the days when the name and reputation of a band was synonymous with its professional conductor are now very much a thing of the past. 

From George Thompson and Grimethorpe to Stanley Boddington and GUS, to Howard Snell at Fodens and Peter Parkes at Black Dyke – tenures marked in decades have been replaced by appointments earmarked in months.

It should also come as little surprise that successful bands still appear to be those who have managed to build a mutually beneficial long term partnership: The Childs brothers at Black Dyke and Cory for instance, whilst slightly lower down the banding hierarchy there are sterling examples such as Wes Garner at Solent Concert, and until recently, Alan Lawton MBE at Poynton. There are many more.

Perhaps at the highest level the pressure to gain instant success means that long term planning and development is a concept that doesn’t enter the thoughts of many parties when discussing the appointment of a new MD.

The pressures now imposed on conductors, even on the lowest rungs of the competitive ladder, to also bring to their new band, new players (even from former bands) has meant that the drive for instant success can in too many cases be illusory and potentially destructive.

What’s the point of worrying about contesting five years in the future when what you think you need is a morale boosting performance in five days time?

As a result, the number of bands that have been left to pick up the pieces after an, ‘amicable decision’ has been made to part with an MD is more numerous than the semi quavers in a Philip Wilby euphonium cadenza.  

Bands and their players will always want immediate success, but invariably it will only come when a realistic appraisal of their current and future potential is undertaken with a cold eyed sobriety that invariably is lacking when sackings and appointments are discussed in the pub after a poor contest result. 

Until that time, the never ending list of banding departures will continue to put the Premiership in the shade. 

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

In praise of French banding

Who would have thought it?

Of all the countries in the world to fully appreciate the true musical beauty of the British brass band, it is the French who seem to be the ones who are embracing it closest to their hearts.

For a country that has at best a laissez-faire attitude to all things British, the emergence of a fledgling brass band community in the Fifth Republic is something that should be both cherished and celebrated.

The signs are there that it may be more than just a passing fad too, (the French are currently in the throws of experiencing an almost incomprehensible affliction to American ‘Line Dancing’ – complete with Stetsons and Cuban heeled cowboy boots) with their National Championships in Paris growing by the year.  

More importantly however, is that not only is the overall standard of playing improving rapidly (witness the recent success of Brass Band Aeolus at the Masters in Cambridge) but the artistic direction is one that is based firmly with its heart and mind focused on copying the best of what the British brass band is all about – its sound.

Why this is so is hard to perhaps explain, but as 4BR found out at Cambridge, its leading band produced a wonderfully rich, warm and sonorous timbre, whilst its principal cornet was a true cornet player of the very highest class. 

And where one leads, others will surely follow.

Who would have thought it indeed? A British brass band with a touch of Gallic flair.  As Peter Kay so famously once said. “Whatever next? Garlic bread?”

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

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