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Re: Top 50, etc.

At 01:08 PM 10/22/97 +0100, Tim Morgan wrote:
>Just thought some of our international friends may be interested to see
>just how the British bands stand at the moment in the Brass Band World
>magazine computer rankings.  

And since that time, there have been torrents of opinionated responses
overflowing my inbox.  

As an international friend, might I suggest that perhaps we are trying to
make a sport out of an art?  I speak as an adjudicator when I say that
musical skills can be improved, but I also know that my judgements are
subjective.  As a band director and performer, I also want to achieve the
best results possible with myself or with my groups, but I can only
assuredly guide their group efforts, or my own, to my subjective views.
Others may wholeheartedly agree with our results, while still others may not.  

So far, my Plumbing Factory Brass Band has not participated in any contests
because of the lack of time, of mobility, of funding, and frankly, of
interest in competition for its own sake (or for the sake of sponsorships).
We also don't want to place our music-making into a straightjacket of some
preconceived ideas about what it would take to "win."  Nor do we want the
restrictions to repertoire or to our approach to it, nor to instrumentation,
that might come from stated or perceived rules (a la sports).  

We play music FOR each other (including an audience) and WITH each other --
not AGAINST each other!  We have "won" if we have done the best job we can
do on an individual and collective basis, and under the constraints of the
particular programme or preparation time, etc.  We have some of the finest
professional musicians in Canada playing, as unpaid amateurs, for the pure
joy of it (e.g., trumpet virutosi playing cornets; orchestral horn players
on Eb tenor/alto upright saxhorns; trombonists and tubaists wanting to
experience a different clef or different pitched instrument, such as G bass
trombone, Eb tuba, etc.).  We also have some fully amateur musicians who
want to increase their skills and who love playing and making music.  Our
ages vary from 18 to 75.  And sometimes we have a shortage, or (now more
often) a sufeit, of players in a given section.  Frequently we play on
non-traditional instruments from "the Plumbing Factory" (my instrument
collection of 2350 supplies both the name and most of the instruments for
the band), and as suggested by the repertoire, we will perform on natural
trumpets or horns, cornettos and sackbuts, etc.  We even have plans for a
sub-group German band, and perhaps a Mariachi band, etc.  But we always
shoot for the absolute highest possible level of achievement, despite all
these variables.  And from reports by our growing audiences, and from the
satisfaction of our growing membership, it seems that we are successful --
we are "winning" in all of its permutations.

Please don't forget the MUSIC, nor the love of/for making it, and of/for the
fellow humans necessary for this music-making:  a "humanistic" endeavor, an
art, an integrating experience -- not a DISintegrating one, an international
language for communication, an expression of life, a joy!

Henry Meredith
Director, The Plumbing Factory Brass Band
London, Ontario  Canada


P.S. -- Look for reports from me on some of our previous and upcoming
concert programmes, as requested directly to me by some of this list's
members (if we haven't chased them away by now!) who were interested in
sharing repertoire ideas etc., i.e., talking about music.

P.P.S. -- I commend the efforts of many individuals and groups along the
lines of the (subjective) philosophies above, including those with corporate
funding, such as the very fine (and similarly varied) Woods Manufacturing
Co. Brass Band of Ottawa and their bandmaster David Druce, who involve so
many band enthusiasts from around the world in their creative, if
non-traditional, activities -- e.g., the Instant Band for last year's NABBA
competition, and the upcoming BIG band for next summer's Halifax, Nova
Scotia International Tattoo.  It was a pleasure for me to sit-in with them
on Eb soprano cornet for a performance (last minute and without rehearsal)
at the Hamilton Tattoo last June.  Steve Sykes was the featured soloist.
Wonderful music-making by a great soloist, and a great group, enanced by its
open-arm policy and its willingness to take risks; and to include, to
inspire, and to exude a love of the music.


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