The young players of the National Youth Brass Band of Scotland recently put their skills to the test in developing their compositional skills.

It took place on their Easter Course at Strathallan School in Perthshire where they were led through the exercise by composer and conductor Alan Fernie.

Explore and develop

Using his experience is writing works at all banding levels, including the recent Fourth Section Regional Championship test-piece, 'Music for Jock Tamson', Alan mentored the youngsters in exploring and developing their understanding of just what it takes to write a work for the brass band medium.

"A proposed theme for our Children's Band summer course was old and new,"he explained.

"We played some very old repertoire alongside new works by Gareth Bowman and myself, so I thought it would be a good idea to help develop the players in writing a wee tune for the Children's Band Summer Course later this year."

Summer Course

He added: "We had a small group whom I laid out my initial thoughts and ideas to. They'll be sending me their work over the next few weeks, and after some consultation and development, we'll hopefully have some new music for the summer.

It's not a competition, more of a development project which will culminate in some great new repertoire to perform."