Our readers have been exercising their keyboards covering Worlds qualifying, bands travelling to compete and various arrangements at the recent Scottish Championships……
Dave Gatcum: Perhaps it’s time to look at lower grades qualifying to compete at the Worlds. I’m not sure it’s a great thing to have lower grades playing at silly o’clock in the morning to see if they qualify – spending thousands of pounds to be told they’re not good enough. Everyone wants to play at the Worlds but at least give bands with little or no chance of getting to the final time to save their money and practice until they are at the required standard.
On Grade 1, there might be a case to separate the top bands into an elite competition because no one really listens to the lower grade bands at Glasgow Green, though personally I have always done so. Some lower grade bands i.e. Grade 2 perhaps perform better than their G1 counterparts on the day.
Tom McGiveron in reply to David Cross: ‘Think about this – the players in these Grade 1 bands play the same competitions against the same bands, year in year out. They see the same places, the same players. My point: You’d think that players would WANT to travel a little, see different countries and compete at new venues, facing new bands, etc.
Or is it that these Grade 1 bands are afraid of tuning in a new environment, different temperatures/elevations, perhaps? They want to uphold their reputations?
I was in Chicago this year to compete and also saw Inveraray. They’re a forward-thinking band and I respect them for making the trip. So you might say – why travel 1,000 or 12,000 miles to play? Answer: You do it for new experiences, new challenges and (especially) to support not just another country or venue, but the music and the tradition as well. I say well done to Inveraray for making such a trip.
Leonard Turkington: Dumbarton [the Scottish Championships] re-shuffled the layout in the park this year. Was this to suit bands or the public? The Grade 1 arena was in usual place but the funfair was just over the fence with large noisy generators running. Result: Grade 1 tuning had to be moved up under the trees. The quietest place in the park was the bar.
Bus parking was OK along the road within the park, but car parking was all outside the park except for VIPs and officials.
The Finale was disorganised as usual and bands took a long time to start gathering up. The centre bands formed an orderly row with the Drum Majors in front of them. The remaining bands just walked randomly to the back behind the centre bands.
Then on command from the senior D/M, the bands start to play and move forward and, as happens at every Finale with all pipers and all drummers playing, it quickly gets out of step and everyone is playing at random. So at the end of the tune half of the bands stop and the other half keep playing.
The normal procedure for massed band playing used to be, ‘Only the drums of the centre bands to beat’. Why can that not still be the case? There are four majors over now. I wonder will they get it right for the Worlds.
March Lessons… A large range of tunes…. click on pic
Lessons on marches… click on pic to select your tune