Who Does He Think He Is, Anyway ?
(Brass Bands in the 1980s No 7)(The British Bandsman - 1979)
This article has the most cuts of all the ones posted here, due to fading relevance over 30 years. It was part of a series of crystal-ball-gazing efforts by various hands, for which I was quite surprised to be asked because my contact with banding up to this point had been very short....
As a relative newcomer to banding, although not to ‘brass’, I feel rather nervous at offering a few scattered observations in such distinguished company, and hope that what I write will not be taken down and used in evidence against me.
I have noticed that many writers regret that band music is not taken as seriously as ‘classical’ music. To expect it to be so is unrealistic: banding is a sport and as such rests on the enjoyment of the players. Love of playing – something that I now miss – and trial by contest are the motives. Not being the servants of composers, the music serves the sport. But before any purists start to overheat let me say that due regard for the artistic element of banding is essential to its healthy growth. At the moment the ingredients in the repertoire pot are many and various, but the dominant musical flavour does not do justice to this unique ensemble. My feeling is that whether ‘light’ or ‘serious’ much of the current band repertoire is trivial.
The future of banding ? Doesn’t it rest, like any social activity, on the force of individuals and their ideas acting on the general community ? The entertainment contest – a brilliant idea, now perhaps in need of some corrective pruning – and Howarth’s uniquely varied contributions are two examples of an idea and an individual changing the course of banding. Committees administrate, but individuals innovate – if we let them ! As we see so much in this country, the former chokes the latter. One good sign in banding, to my eye, is the lack of effective committees. Although this means that parts of banding activity are, to be polite, chaotic, there is little danger of the awful uniformity that more and more afflicts musical life at large. The individuality of bands is a thing to savour and protect. Committees like to ‘organise’, to ‘improve’. Whenever those words are heard, especially when heard with that most dog-eared of adjectives ‘democratic’, one knows that the jackboots of progress will be treading on the buttercups and chopping down the trees. Committee members are all good souls – I’ve done a bit of it myself – but committees take on a life of their own which quickly expands from the original specificaton. Keep banding unorganised ! As a corollary, I hope that it will never be glamorous or starry enough to attract very large sums of money. Even the ultimate cultural accolade of the Rolls Royce of bands appearing on ‘Parkinson’ playing a number by the world’s most successful (?) composer doesn’t mean that banding is going to be really big !
Contests ? As I mentioned, the entertainment contest is a notable idea which needs to be developed with realistic guidelines. I dimly remember from school a law of physics that firmly states that all things left to themselves tend to deteriorate. Sometimes I feel that the band that doesn’t play ‘Close Encounters with SuperJaws II’ is not going to get into the frame ! For one thing I would like to see the Eurocontest formula given a thorough airing.
As for traditional contests, I love them. A sport must have its ritual trials of skill and strength, its winners and losers. Contests improve technical standards and allow fruitful comparisons between bands, stiffened by the will to win and the pride of performing well. Some people may find the motives of pride a little indelicate and impure but they are still the most potent for most people ! And of course contests are the gatherings of the tribe; players and followers alike waited on by the caravans of the trade.
Coming back to banding, I was surprised to find that instrumentation had become a topic for discussion. Obviously cornets and (sax)horns are not trumpets and German/American horns, but the reverse is also true. The cornet, played straight, is much more appropriate to most of the classical and romantic orchestral repertoire than is the modern trumpet, in sound and construction. Similarly the lighter saxhorn sound (straight) is very close to the orchestral horn sound up to the mid fifties (leaving aside the Vienna Philharmonic) and the advent of “big equipment” from the States. The band, as constituted, is a perfect ensemble for those who can use it and write for it: it has both blend and contrast. The sounds that some miss are available if the conductors and players have the musicianship to vary their style of playing. The only exception, on grounds of intonation, is the Eb trumpet as substitute for the Soprano. The development of the Eb trumpet over the last 15 years has been tremendous – Schilke particularly – and with a properly matched mouthpiece, the authentic ‘sop’ sound is available to anyone.
I notice too that the traditional uniform is losing ground. Seedy suburban blazers fit the sound of a fine band as most of them fit their wearers. Clothes for performance should be as suitable as a priest’s robes for his religious rites. ‘White tie’, austere and formal, is the proper garment for the service of great composers. The God of brass is colourful, glittering, ceremonial. What can be finer than the spectacle of a good band in full cry, properly uniformed under the contest lights ?
In playing standards and styles, fashions and priorities change: it is not that playing improves or deteriorates but different generations hold different musical views as to what is important. I referred earlier to the all consuming influence of big money. Styles of orchestral playing since the war have been radically altered by the recording industry. It has been efficiency at all costs. Add to that the change in conductors’ priorities (due to the jet plane) which has meant a deterioration in true ensemble, the internationalisation of style and the resultant loss of character in most orchestras’ performance – with the notable exception of the Vienna Philharmonic, where they are quite happy to be parochial, and all the better for it.
An overall judgement of brass playing in this country must be that we are well behind in pure technique as compared to the USA or France. Certainly in the British professional world there is a consistent lack of consistent virtuoso teaching – I would except Denis Wick – carried out over many years. The fact that we have a handful of fine players in this country is due more to their talent than their ‘breeding’. The situation in banding is different; the tradition is virtuoso, but there is a general lack of basic technique in simpler things. It’s very much a case of running before walking ! Under pressure bands lose out on the ordinary things, never on the fast passages. Writing this is really a compliment. I have the utmost admiration for the standards achieved throughout the fraternity. And I would follow that by saying that our lyrical/dramatic band style is the best possible expressive basis for playing. An improvement in the range of articulations and a proper use of vibrato (sadly lacking at this year’s National) would allow that style to flower even more widely. I was lucky that my teacher, George Eskdale – the first man, in the thirties, to record the Haydn Concerto, and the Brandenburg (on the F trumpet, fee 200 guineas and a crate of Guinness) - encouraged the use of vibrato as a musical tool, not as a camouflage for indifferent sound. I like tomato ketchup but not on everything ! Should the European movement really get going over the next decade, the days of 1,2,3 at the Eurocontest will be gone for ever. The world’s finest brass players are on record. Listen, imitate, adapt, incorporate. The best muscle in the embouchure is placed very handily between the ears.
Lastly, and most important, repertoire. Arthur Butterworth recently wrote that banding needs its Stravinsky. Perhaps in 50 years time, but for me a Richard Strauss or a Shostakovitch would be more to the point: a band needs flesh and blood music. We need composers who will stay with ‘the band’ and write whole series of weighty pieces, not just petty one-offs, to add to the backbone of the repertoire. While bandsmen will grumble as readily as their orchestral counterparts about new sounds and unfamiliar musical accents, it is composers who lead playing technique forward where players would never think to go.
If players feel that music is interesting to play they will respond to what the music has to say. It takes time, but that’s the composer’s lot. In fact, I believe that for composers who think in terms of traditional instruments, banding offers an outlet where there are greater possibilities than in the ghettos of serious music.
Hand in hand with the composer goes the conductor. To be a conductor of any kind requires one not only to teach, train and motivate players, but to lead them and their audiences into new pastures and unsuspected pleasures. The basic responsibility is to leave our individual musical world, however small, a better place.
On the wider view of what bands play, there is the danger of wasting all this skill and potential on unending candyfloss music and, what is as bad, music that is inappropriate and alien to the medium. Many bands, some of them very good, seem to vying with each other as country bumpkins of pop, with the wrong articulations and misplaced phrasing, especially in the more rhythmic popular music. Or perhaps it would be in order for the Rolling Stones to give us their version of Life Divine ? Seriously, I think banding ought to be careful about devaluing its currency.
Of course, up goes the cry, “But that’s what the audience wants !” I would like to state my opinion that audiences want what they are given, if the advocacy is persistent enough. Commercial pressures ensure that they are force-fed the more addictive kinds of music. Repetition, as Hitler knew, and the advertising industry knows, is virtually irresistible. It’s up to the bands and conductors to lead banding for what it is worth and not to go for the softer options.
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