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worlds of music

Occasionally I have received requests from people to write pieces for them that
I am not happy about doing.

Naturally I am not going to mention any names but generally the requests go
along the lines of Can you write something for me that goes at a million miles
an hour but is actually not all that difficult because I want to show off?

These requests have set me thinking about the nature of brass bands and the
relationship between audience, player and composer. Most of us wear two of these
hats and some all three.

I for one am a musician whose roots are really in orchestral playing. There are
elements of banding about which I am really enthusiastic and there are others
which I am not so keen. I had a certain amount of experience with bands as a lad
but they were not my real "musical nursery". My own interest in band music is
really in filling in the gaps which mainstream music has left in the banding
repertoire. I can think of pieces like "severn suite" and "downland suite" which
are minor masterpieces by any standard but there were developments in music that
happened in Europe and America through the 20th century which are not reflected
in the brass band repertoire. There are some wonderful arrangements of 19thC
pieces for band and some works  by composers whose names we all know and I feel
that if the mainstream classical audience could overcome a prejudice against
bands and listen to some of the works of Eric Ball amongst others that they
would be pleasantly surprised.

However this also works the other way round. There must be a significant number
of bandsmen who are literate musicians who have perhaps never heard the
originals of some of the arrangements that they enjoy playing and know
perhaps nothing of the works of Delius, Bartok, Stravinsky, Debussy.

I am sure that if tastes were broadened that I would receive fewer requests
for"hard solos" so "I can show off."

However banding is a "broad church" and toleramce for the tastes of others is
important. I can live with occasionally having to play Hootenanny et al even if
I can't really understand why anyone would want to play or hear this sort of
thing. if some people really enjoy it that is their right. The same can be said
of frighteningly difficult testpieces. I have, unfortunately, been away from
banding as a player or conductor for too long to know the pieces which people
get excited about nowadays but remember Fireworks coming out and much the same
things being said about that which has now come to be regarded as "not all that
difficult.

Incidentally this post is NOT a dig at the young man who wrote to me yesterday.
He said something slightly but significantly different.

Any one who would like to see what I consider to be difficult but also musically
worthwhile should perhaps download the rondo for flugel and piano on the RTB
website.

Yes I could ,as could any properly trained composer, write any number of triple
tonguing solos. But I don't want to. I am not obsessed with ORIGINALITY per se
but like to extend and challenge the musicality of players as much as their
technique. Sometimes the ideas that I have are technically demanding but the
demands on technique are always secondary to the demands on musicality. In my
view technique is developed to serve the music not the ego of the player.

However it would be interesting to write a triple tonguing solo in 6 or 7 sharps
or flats. HMM that gives me an idea!

All the best

Steve Watkins


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