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Enjoying Contests (long)

On Fri, 8 May 1998, Alec Gallagher wrote:

> Couldn't you get your teeth into a difficult piece of music without having
> to wait for the next contest?  You are allowed to, you know!!
>
> Isn't up to you, the musician, to provide the challenge to the public?
> Music would never develop if  musicians and composers did not provide the
> listening public with new challenges...


I'm sure that we'd all love to be able to set a challenge for an audience 
by performing works from the "serious" brass band repertoire.

Unfortunately, when the audience consists of little Jimmy and his granny, 
an ice cream salesman from Tobermory and Mrs G. Pinnet of 9 The Cuttings, 
Basingstoke, they'd much rather listen to the "Floral Dance" than 
"Fornications for Band" or whatever the latest test-piece is.

Contests provide (amongst other things) the platform to perform good 
music to an audience (albeit a small one at times) who want to listen to 
it. Of course, they also promote social and musical cohesion, improve 
individual and ensemble musicianship, and provide a good excuse to drink 
a lot of tea (or whatever that tea-coloured stuff with the white stuff 
on top is) with like-minded silly people. I have also heard that band 
contests can cure all known diseases and put an end to London's traffic 
problems. 

Cameron

P.S. In evolutionary terms, brass bands (including all facets of the 
movement such as contesting, silly uniforms etc.) can probably be 
regarded 
as an E.S.S. (that is, an evolutionary stable strategy). The modern brass 
band exists because it works (for whatever reasons - musical, social or 
whatever), just as we all have eyes because they enable us to see, 
and seeing is generally 
a good thing to be able to do. Any changes to the brass band (whether the 
addition of French Horns or the loss of contesting) wouldn't last 
because, generally speaking, bandsmen like things the way they are. As 
Alastair pointed out, unsuccessful attempts have been made to include 
French Horns etc. in bands. Similarly, dodos didn't survive amidst the 
myriad of other, more successful Aves because they were generally a bit 
useless.

Of course, even the dinosaurs died out eventually (after having dominated 
the Earth for an extremely long time...even longer than the time since 
England last won the world cup). No-one can say that in fifty years time, 
brass bands won't suddenly change because something new and unpredicatble 
happens (the invention of a new brass instrument with a ten octave range, 
mellow but variable tone and perfect tuning, for example). BUT (and this 
is the crux of this rather exaggerated point), the alternatives currently 
available to the brass band do not work as well as the one we use.

That concludes todays lesson: tomorrow, we shall be learning why a brass 
band is like the Forth Rail Bridge, and designing a new kind of underwear 
for people with extremely large helical instruments.

Cameron

--  
  Cameron Mabon (International Biologist)       cmabon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Piano, cornet and duck-call
  Fundamental Brass	       http://users.ox.ac.uk/~newc0349/fun
  City of Oxford Band     http://www.jesus.ox.ac.uk/~cmabon/COSB.html


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