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Re: Looking here, there and everywhere!

Having a few spare minutes on this Bank Holiday Monday I thought I would
throw in some points to consider.

I am not so sure that there are glory days ahead for brass bands and I think
that it is partly to do with not learning the lessons of history. To improve
you must progress but to progress it often means looking back.

To start with may I say that I often find this question about professional
brass bands quite amusing. Often bands who lose their sponsorship go to the
wall so without support a band would not survive. Could a brass band stand on
its own without support? I very much doubt it. Orchestras struggle to exist,
many big dance bands rely on picking 'musos' as and when the gigs come in and
pop bands, in general, are very ephemeral. Looking into history St Hilda's
Colliery Band is the example that can be taken.

Learning to play a brass instrument now has a great deal of competition from
alternative forms of entertainment. Also the pressures to maintain a position
in society with relation to employment and domestic life are much greater now
and do not look reducing. The great boom in school brass bands through the
sixties and seventies has now subsided and the emphasis is more on music for
all instruments and therefore an encouragement for wind bands where more
children get the opportunity to take part. Mr Blair said "Education,
education, education" but I don't think he was really focussing on music.
Without introducing many more young people into bands the overall numbers are
likely to diminish.

>From my visits to other European countries, particularly Switzerland, I have
seen that the approach is quite often different, innovative and productive.
Their concerts are entertaining and they have some quite interesting
procedures when it comes to contests. British bands need to be looking over
their shoulders because Europe is catching up fast. However, that said, the
predominance in Europe is still on wind or harmonie bands which,
incidentally, usually get far more support from their local community.

Which brings me on to the local community in Britain. In times gone past even
our highest level bands would obtain their players from a fairly small
catchment area. Travelling great distances was neither easy nor necessary.
Today the days of the close knit nuclear family in Britain has, to a large
extent, disappeared. The parents, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts and
cousins may be spread over the whole length of the British Isles. With this
goes local loyalties (not to be confused with affection for the family home
town) and the growing lack of concern when a band goes to the wall both by
bandspeople and the local community in general. Travelling great distances
for rehearsals is not sustainable over a long period of time. Therefore long
term loyalty, if not commitment, comes into question.

I also am concerned that the 'enjoyment factor' is being overlooked. The
incentive to go to rehearsals and performances diminishes when it becomes a
duty or merely a habit. If someone does not enjoy what they are doing there
will come a time when they will go off and find something else they do enjoy,
be that an alternative musical activity or something completely different.
Isn't this what has been happening? Let there be more humour (but not at
someone else's expense) and positive actions by all.

When I read some of the comments on this list I sometimes cringe. There are
lots of discussions on how to improve a band by weeding out the chaff,
intense discussions about the length of tubing that makes up an instrument,
how the harmonic series on an instrument impacts on another because there may
be a clash of nodes and anti nodes, which instrument in the brass band is
best (incidentally we all need each other) and finally the awful character
assassinations that sometime occur.  Does anyone really think that when the
great composers were writing, these masters stopped in mid flow to worry how
the back bore on the mouthpiece may affect the sound of the music or
consciously considered if the harmonics of each instrument would cause
incompatibilities?

We often complain about the administration relating to contests and the
interpretation of the rules. How many of those that complain ever consider
putting themselves forward to bring about change? To use a paraphrase 'Don't
ask what the band can do for you but rather what can you do for the band'. If
anyone can remember Vaughan Morris it may be remembered that he was very
authoritarian and inflexible but very few argued with him and won! I would
not advocate his style but strong leadership is important.

>From all this I am sure many maybe thinking I am the most miserable sod
around and that I should have become extinct with the Dinosaurs. I don't
believe I am but I am concerned that by 2020 (using Colin Randle's timeframe)
the brass band movement will be even smaller and getting towards the point
where there will not be a critical mass big enough to support it. Unless, of
course, we all do something about it.

I use two latin sayings that I would offer to you. These are: 'Qui non
proficit, deficit' and 'Dum spiro, spero'. It mat be worth finding the
meanings and using them sensibly.

These are the ramblings of a rather insignificant person who has been
involved in brass bands, one way or another, for more years than I wish to
divulge but I do care about music and the contribution that brass bands can
make.

I'll go away now and try and do my bit to keep brass bands an important
aspect of musical life.

Best wishes for 2000 and beyond

Ted Howard


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