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NABBA CONTEST XIX

Finally I have got a bit of a writeup of the recent NABBA Contest. It
seems to have grown to a fair length for which I am sorry. All opinions
are solely those of the writer and may or may not be shared by anyone
else.

I also plan to review specifically the Adult Ensemble Competition and
the Gala Concert and will post those when they get done.

Enjoy.

Dave Buckley.

NABBA Championship XIX

The pleasant grounds and facilities of the U.S Army Base at Fort Myer
along with the comfortable spring weather made a superb setting for the
nineteenth NABBA Contest. As this was my first NABBA as a spectator
only, I was able to appreciate the superb organization and management of

the events by members of the U.S. Army Brass Band and board members of
NABBA along with some recruits from other bands based at Fort Myer. On
behalf of all the players and spectators, I would offer my sincere
congratulations on a job well done. Captain Andrew J. Esch assured me
that the band members do all their regularly assigned duties and
volunteer for all the work for NABBA on their own time. These same
musicians at Fort Myer also run the Eastern Trombone Workshop and the
Tuba Euph Workshop, making a tremendous contribution to music in the
United States and Canada.

Special congratulations must also be given to the totally volunteer
board members of NABBA both current and past. The brass band movement in

the United States was a pretty tiny infant when NABBA started but it now

is a very healthy adolescent. The top North American Bands may not yet
match the UK Championship bands but at the the present rate of progress,

they will before too long. Technically they can play all the many notes
but I heard no pianissimos from any band to match the Brits, not did I
hear the awe inspiring fortissimos of the top bands. Maybe the time has
come to take the technique for granted and explore the musical elements
in the test pieces more deeply. I kept feeling that there was music
waiting to get out from the Broughton which was obscured by the
technical demands. It would have been nice to have replica scores as
they do in the UK to study this and to follow along. Mind you, some of
the test pieces played as own choices did not seem to be blessed with a
whole lot of musical appeal. The chamber music aspect of brass banding
with perfectly balanced and tuned chords was also to me missing probably

due to the stress of meeting the awesome technical challenges. I must
confess that I did not hear one test piece that I would be interested in

hearing again, but it is clear that their demands have resulted in
significant improvements in playing standards through the challenge to
players to improve.

I heard all of the adult small ensemble competition and part of the
adult slow melody competition and was impressed by the quality of
musicianship shown. It made a pleasant change from test pieces too.

Although I missed the fun of a reading band - nothing like fifteen
trombones, thirty seven cornets and twenty tubas, etc. - the
demonstration conducted by Steven Sykes and Russell Gray with the
Salvation Army National Capital Area Band was most interesting and
probably more valuable. Sykes demonstrated pianissimos beyond anything
we believed were attainable. His exercises going up to 5 notes on a beat

were also new to me and potentially very useful. I must confess that I
found Russell Gray's vibrato demonstration quite bizarre. However he
certainly proved that however he produces vib, he can play with the
utmost skill and artistry and his recent success at the Royal Albert
Hall indicate he also knows how to prepare a band. I would like to have
had him spend some time on balance and tuning, something he did at a
Weston Silver Band practice a year or so ago. But there is never enough
time for everything.

It was good to see old and new friends and to meet people from the
Trombone-L List too. I met Dave Burch, David Guion, Tim McIntyre and the
great guru of the list, Doug Yeo, some for the first time, and also old
friend Al Stickland whom I have known since he was a little kid. Good to
see Anita Cocker Hunt, Keith Wilkinson, Colin Holman and Ron Holtz again
too. This is one of the great joys of this type of event.

The scheduling, although not allowing any one person to hear everything,

at least enabled us to eat, a big improvement on the Eastern Trombone
Workshop. It would be a big advantage if arrangements could be made for
the noon meal to be eaten at the Sergeants' Mess since the bowling alley

is quite inadequate. This year's Tuba Euph Conference was able to
arrange for this - why not NABBA?

The one thing which disturbed me and many others greatly was the
proliferation of subs during bands' presentations. The concessions made
to the rigidities of the British contesting format were undoubtedly
necessary to get the contest off the ground in North America. Brass
Banding is a great participation sport and in early days, anything which

encouraged participation was important. However with the current level
of activity and the seriousness of the contesting element, surely the
time has come to rethink the use of subs. At the least, among other
things, the stamina required to play thirty minutes of music with no
break at a high level is an important part of the contest. When a band
subs about one third of its players after each piece, they make a
travesty of the contest. Had the judges been aware of this, thye not
only would have been shocked but their decisions would undoubtedly have
been quite different. Maybe the
solution is for the offending bands to enter a second band in a lower
level to allow all their members to participate, or to limit the number
of subs to possibly one or two. Regardless of what changes are made,
myself and many of those I spoke with feel this seriously affects the
integrity of the competition and must be fixed.

Having said all that, I still must reiterate my sincere congratulations
to all involved for an outstanding event.

David Buckley
Weston Silver Band, Toronto, Ontario.





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