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Re: Registration - to be or not to be

To: brass-band@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Registration - to be or not to be
From: Matthew Watts <mgwatts@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 17:56:14 0000
Priority: low
Reply-to: brass-band@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hi y'all

Alec wrote:

>>Registration - many of you may know me as an evangelist for the total
>>removal of all registration systems, a view I still hold.

>I have an even better idea.  Abolish all contests.  They stifle creativity;
>they prove absolutely nothing, because any adjudication in a brass band
>contest is necessarily subjective; they have restricted the repertoire; they
>have restricted the instrumentation;  they have hindered brass bands in
>gaining respectability and credibility as a musical medium;  in 99% of cases
>they cost the competing band money;  they are of absolutely no interest or
>consequence to anyone outside of those directly or closely linked with brass
>bands; in short, contests have held brass bands back from the day they were
>invented. They are utterly futile.

IMHO, they are also good fun and give a band something to aim towards. I have 
seen several bands destroyed because they have stopped contesting and therefore 
lost the will to carry on. Admittedly, if contesting stopped this wouldn't 
happen so much as the main problem with these bands is that they lose all of 
their players to contesting bands. Then again, I know that I would probably not 
do so much practice if I did not play for a contesting band. It gives the 
players something to work towards and a level of playing to attain.

Again IMHO, I do think that registration is a necessary evil but there does seem 
to be a lot of red-tape around it. I think that a ban is a good idea for 
contravention of the rules but in the system put forward by Andy Wooler, how 
would you stop star players from going from band to band?

Surely the whole ethos of banding is the fact that the players are amateur and 
play for the band over a period of time. They are *regulars* and normally quite 
local. 

Comments please....................

Matt Watts
Sent via BigAssWeb - free email service at http://www.bigassweb.com

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