Cream crackered

After my last blog post (which really got those who read this stuff discussing serious things about the band) about sports mentality etc., just to show I'm not paying the whole work ethic stuff lip service, I've spent all weekend (bar a few hours at Soham carnival today) studying. I want to be a McGuire Programme course instructor and on Wednesday, I'm off to 4 days of assessment, evaluation and exams. It's not easy, but, you know, life's about choice, and I'm prepared to put in whatever effort is needed. Totally self-indulgent post, but there is a message in there somewhere......

The Sport Of Banding

Sports mentality. What does this mean? What is 'having a sports mentality'? Take Tiger Woods. He didn't become the greatest golfer in the world purely with natural talent. Now, I'm sure that he has bags of natural talent, but everyday, he would go out and practise hitting shots with a sand wedge. He knew that in the high pressure environment of a championship match, he may mis-hit the ball into a bunker. But because he had spent hours practising, he knew that he would still be able to hit the ball out of the bunker.

To me, 'having a sports mentality' is playing to win rather than playing not to lose. Just like Tiger Woods with him practising bunker shots just in case. As you know, I'm on a speech recovery programme. As well as dealing with the physical blocking of stammering, I have had to development a sports mentality in order to improve my speech. I have a set of tools and techniques to help me, and I practise, practise, practise using these tools and techniques with family, friends, others on the speech programme and work colleagues (these are all comfort zones to me), so that when I enter a challenging, pressurised speaking situation, I know that my speech will hold up and I won't have a bad experience. I play to win.

What's this got to do with banding? Think about it. It has everything to do with banding. If we want to improve our playing both individually and as a team (our band), we need to practise. Practise in our 'comfort zones', such as in the band room on a Wednesday night, in our homes. Even at your workplace like I do. By doing this, when we play to a concert audience, we know that we can play the music. When we walk out on a contest stage, a pressurised situation, we know that we have put the hard work in beforehand and know that, despite the nerves, our own playing and that of the band will hold up.

We all know that we need to practise playing to get better. It's the same for those who play a sport. You only improve if you put in that extra time. But have you thought about it before as developing a different mentality. Think of it as getting good at the aport of banding.

You may see where I'm coming from with this and agree, or you may think it's a load of nonsense. To me, adopting a sports mentality is probably the biggest factor that has helped me get to where I am with recovering from my stammer. Plus I spent most of last week in Cork on a McGuire Programme speech course, which provided the inspiration for this blog post.

Last NIghts Rehearsal - trumpets, singing and weeds

Well what can I say, a weird rehearsal last night I thought, the summer programme is coming on and pieces like Silverado are getting better however there is a lot of work to be done. The band seems to have a good rehearsal one week and a bad one the next week, 4th place at Stevenage seems a long time ago now. The numbers were down last night so that always has an impact on the band, with the trombone section not actually existing and empty seats it is difficult to produce a balanced band.

The highlights of the night for me were, the front row bringing out the trumpets for "All Night Long", keep squeezing and the high notes will come. Richard suddenly singing for no apparent reason (what was he on?) but the best moment was: Tom going outside to spray the weeds round the bandroom (thats what its like I guess in a fast paced band like ours)

No rehearsal next week so its time to do some homework, yes homework. I have actually taken my folder home to look at, should hear an improvement by the next rehearsal - fingers crossed.

Trombone Player Crisis Point

Hey, time is ticking away nicely, days turning into weeks into months etc.. still we have no trombone section, whats going on!! It is time for everyone to think hard. ask around and see if there are any trom players lurking in the shadows. Please, please lets try, I so want to play Officer Krupke at Sutton (my own selfishness of course)

just in case you forgot what one looks like, please have a look at the picture (Shaun are you auditioning for the section)

C'mon guys keep blogging, you never know you might like it!!

PONTINS RECRUITMENT

Hey, great response in enthusiasm for Pontins, looks like we can expext another dose of superb accomodation, big seagulls and welsh weather, bring it on, if anyone has ideas for trombones please let me know.

practice

good practice tonight,really enjoyed it.thanks nigel b.

It's Good To Type

In these changing times, some people would rather keep in touch with each other via a keyboard, mouse and PC screen. General chit-chat, share amusing thoughts, funny pictures, what they watched on TV. Yep, I'm talking about Facebook.

The band now has it's own Facebook group, kindly set-up by Ryan (thanks Ryan), and there's a link to it on our website. If you are on Facebook already and want to join the band group, drop Ryan an e-mail (via his address on the website) and he'll invite you to join (Ryan, please correct me if this is wrong). As with this blog, it's there for band members and supporters. Enjoy!

SUTTON PROM EXTRA REHEARSALS

Hi everyone, what do you think about having extra rehearsals for Sutton Prom? It is a long night which is always a hard blow, our performance would surely benefit by adding extra work, please let me have your thoughts......

Good Idea

Thanks Shaun for setting this up. It is a good idea and another way for band members to communicate to each other. As for the moth it attacked us on the back row and I am pretty sure it was Adrian's wallet that it came from !!

Ain't Got That Swing!

I was inspired to write this post after watching the TV coverage of the Election last night, particularly the iconic Swingometer (although somewhat disappointedly replaced by something that wouldn't look out of place in a chemistry laboratory, and given the name 'Flo'). I mentioned in my post yesterday about 'Porgy & Bess' and the need to swing (and this isn't a criticism of anyone, I need to loosen up myself). This got me thinking about brass bands playing this type of music.

I'm sure it's not just our band that maybe feels a little awkward adding swing to music that requires this particular style of playing. Is it because, as individuals, we don't listen to this type of music in our own time, so we can't 'feel' the swing rhythm at band? (I'm not saying we should all add swing style music to our playlists at home or in the car, I'll be sticking with my 80's hairspray rock!)

Could it be the brass band image? 'Brass bands play marches, overtures and hymns, and nothing else'. We know that's far from the truth, with film soundtracks and pop music arrangements liberally included in our concert reportoires. But the mentality that we're a brass band and not, say, a big band could be influencing us.

Or it may simply be down to us not playing enough swingy, funky, jazzy, call it what you like, music. After all, practise makes perfect.

The morning after....

Last night, I briefly mentioned the creation this blog at practise. Not too sure that everyone had heard of a blog, but I've followed this up with an e-mail today, so fingers crossed. But, we have three followers and an additional author already! Happy days!

Last night's rehearsal focused on American themed music in preparation for the Sutton Prom. Have to say, that despite not usually being my 'thing', I really liked the 'Porgy & Bess' selection. We just need to get into 'that swing' a bit more perhaps?

Amusing episodes from last night.....heavy breathing coming from the front row inbetween off-beat quavers and the innocent moth that tried to find it's way up Sue's trousers, then distracted the horn section, before meeting it's demise under Adrian's shoe!

Welcome!

Welcome to the Littleport Brass Blog!

I didn't want to patronise anyone by writing the definition of a 'blog', but if you do want to know, good old Wikipedia can help you out.

Unfortunately for you, as I set up the blog, I'm the default author. Now, this is the first blog I've set up, and, despite reading a number of other blogs (mostly beer related ;-) ), I'd prefer this to not be Shaun's blog. Mr. Keene and I had a chat about this while waiting for the recent St. George's Day parade in Ely to start, and thought this would be good forum for band members to post thoughts, comments, musings (you get the idea) about practise nights (perhaps reflecting on some of Nigel's amusing descriptions on how flat the band is sounding), our music, concerts, contests and really anything else you can think of. Another way to further build on the already great team spirit within the band.

Anyone can comment on blog posts (I've currently set the blog up so you don't have to have a Blogger account set up. But if you do want to be a post author (I'm sure you all do or will in time), you will need to set up an account, and then I can add you to the list of blog authors.

Anyways, enough of me. I've no idea if this blog is going to go anywhere, fingers crossed it will though. Over to you...