Cornet player and brass tutor Mark Rodgers gives us an insight into the band world with his column, Brassed Off.
AS I explained last month, these next few weeks are all about contesting.
Some love it – the rush and edge of your seat experiences on stage that you don’t get at a concert, with a few well deserved drinks with fellow players afterwards.
Others though will hate it – rehearsing the same piece for a few weeks, an increased number of rehearsals eating into their already busy lives and then, on the day, the ‘fight or flight’ pressure and nerves.
Contesting is not the ‘be all and end all’ of our music-making but, as in football, it can determine promotion and relegation.
Concerts are the amateur musicians’ lifeblood but the competitive nature in this district is strong.
The Butlins Mineworkers Contest in Skegness proved to be a fairly successful weekend for our local bands.
The most outstanding result went to our very close neighbours at Mossley, who deserve a special mention. They gained the Second Section Champions title and £2,000 prize money for a fourth successive year – a remarkable achievement and proof that bands, like football teams, can have ‘happy hunting grounds’.
Greenfield Band gained an excellent third place in Section Four to add to their recent run of good form in competitions.
Meanwhile their ‘noisy neighbours’ at Boarshurst might have been disappointed with fifth out of eighteen bands in the tier above after a winning streak at this contest but this is still a good reflection of their progress.
Next in the diary will be the Brass at the Guild contest in Preston on February 2, with Saddleworth represented by Greenfield, Boarshurst and Delph.
I must admit I am looking forward to this contest as it gives you a ‘taster’ of contesting before the big one (not the ride!) at Blackpool in March.
There are other plusses too: we have been fortunate to recruit some new players over the past few weeks.
One is an old friend, Matt Curtis, who I started playing alongside at Delph School and Delph Youth Band. It will be twenty three years since we were on stage with the same band.
Our two other new players have both band and name connections. Matt Lait is our Youth Band Principal Cornet player and the other is our Youth Band conductor MattStimpson on Horn. If we do well I promise to refrain from any ‘Matt Finish’ puns!
Next month is ‘crunch month’ with the Blackpool areas and I hope to have a band by band build-up to the contest.
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