Greetings.  Last night I had a great rehearsal with The Lindley Band.  They continue to prove to be great people and a wonderful band.  I’m going to love being with them for 10-months.   Their website is here:  http://thelindleyband.co.uk/lindley.htm

They have a contest coming up on Oct. 24.  I have a rehearsal and concert with Brighouse that day too so we are waiting to see what the draw is for Lindley.  If the draw is early I’ll be able to contest and get back for B&R, if not I’ll just observe the Lindley rehearsals and sub as needed to fill out the rehearsal section.  For now I’m playing 2nd man down on the front.

The piece is Symphony of Marches and it is a bit of a blow.  Chops are tired at the end.  The band has decided to bring in a contest conductor at the request of their MD Neil Jowett.  Neil is a great guy, fine musician, and former cornet player with Dyke.  He wanted to see the band pushed a bit more for this contest and the band have hired a conductor named James Davis.  I don’t know him (former Brighouse player) but I thought he was excellent with the band last night.  I’ll write more about all of this later but here is how the rehearsal went:

1-Davis reads through the piece with the band.  

2-At the end he says “So do you want to win this contest?”  

3-The band says a less then emphatic “Yes”

4-he replies 2 ways.  He takes off his tie, rolls up his sleeves and then says “Well we had better get serious then.  Here we go.  Top of the piece cornets.”  And he then proceeded to push the band for the next hour and 45 minutes.  

It was very fun.  The opening of the piece is basically a 3 line cornet fanfare with several top C’s.  We missed a couple of notes and his comment was “If you miss any of the notes in the opening I’ll just walk off the stage and go to the bar as there is no point in continuing”.  He then turned to the band and said “We might as well all do that if they miss.”

The truth is that in a contest (as Jim explained it) as soon as you make a mistake the judge starts writing.  Again to the cornets:  “At least give it until the 3rd page of the score before he needs to write something”.

It was a lot of fun.

Back with Brighouse tonight for our second rehearsal in preparation for our 36 hour trip to France.

More later….

Cheers,

B-