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Re: What's the British opinion of American bands?

Hi,

After spending 20 years in British bands and the last 3 years with an
American band I have spent much time pondering the differences in order to
get my own band to improve. I heard a couple of the top American (amateur)
bands at the NABBA contest last May who are good and better than my present
band but there are still areas where the British bands leave them behind.

I think that it's all down to competition. My band are the only brass band
in Denver, probably in Colorado and while some of the players are obviously
working to improve themselves there is no sense of working together as a
band, why should they, they're the best in the area ! They definitely need
to hear more British bands but I played them a recording of a cornet solo by
Cory last week before practice and all they could do was laugh about the
vibrato. They've also had the chance to hear a band live. Just after I got
here BNFL gave a concert that was just brilliant. They also have CDs of
British Bands. Unfortunately this sometimes does more harm than good. They
end up getting music like Volcano and Men and Mountains that is miles too
hard. What I think they need is to hear the leagues of bands in the lower
sections.

After I read the results of the Areas last year I took them along to band as
most people there were interested. One comment when I showed the 4th section
results was "Oh these must be the bands that are not too good". It was on
the tip of my tongue to say "they're not the best bands but they'd still
blow us off any stage" but it's hardly constructive criticism. After seeing
Brassed Off recently the wife of one of our euph players said to her husband
"I didn't think that band were as good as your band".

Unless you have the competition you just can't understand the gap between
yourself and the top bands but taking the band over to Britain for a contest
season is not really feasible. 

In answer to another letter I too think the Brass Band of Battle Creek are
superb. As stated below they import Steve Mead on euph. They also import
Billy Rushworth on horn. I have a couple of CDs by them and one of them has
William Tell. After spending years listening to this track of Grimethorpe's
Classic Brass CD you can really tell the difference. The first few bars are
pretty similar. My guess is that it's Steve Mead on the BBBC CD with a sound
I'm used to. But when the cornets (or is that trumpets !) take over it's
completely different. I prefer the Grimethorpe recording, it's what I am
used to I guess. However the razzle-dazzle swing stuff is just great. They
play it so well and it doesn't really matter that the cornets sound like
trumpets.

My apologies for a long rambling email but I'm really just trying to figure
out how to steer the band here to close the gap. If any one has suggestions
I'd like to know.

Paul 
Rocky Mountain Brassworks






At 06:37 PM 11/24/97 -0500, you wrote:
>----------

>If you have never heard one of these bands live you just 
>can not know that they have a sound that North American 
>bands just haven't got near as yet. It is not recordable
>with the impact that a live band has. I have a Cd of a live performance by
>Desford and it pales in comparison to what you hear in the hall.
>
>The top bands in Britain are at a standard that places them
>as world class ensembles. What we call amateur and what they 
>call amateur is something different.
>
>Check out Doug Yeo's homepage where he states that
>the BDM ( and other top bands) plays at a level that North American pro's
>seldom 
>attain. When James Watson brought Desford to Toronto
>a few years ago what I heard confirmed his statement
>"Our amateurs are better than your professionals"
>
>The Brass band of Battle Creek is a first class ensemble
>but they have to import Steven Mead for Euph. Like most bands 
>over here you can readily tell that the cornets are converted 
>trumpeters.
>
>Keep in that there are hundreds of bands in Britain
>and and competition that is very intense compared to the
>easy going NABBA affairs. 
>Where the top bands here
>would take months to prepare a test piece. In Britain
>they do it in less than two weeks. James Watson told me
>that BDM can learn a piece like Essence of Time in two 
>rehearsals if necessary and not spend all the rehearsal
>time on that piece. 
>
>Actually the best band in North America is probably
>the Canadian Staff Band. 
>
>
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>


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