Life of Wiley

…but we didn’t conquer.

I am, of course, talking about Watford Band’s performance at the recent Milton Keynes Brass Band Festival.

As I expected I was very nervous, but not about playing the music, I was more nervous about making sure everyone got there, had their tickets and registration cards, that we’d got a room to rehearse/warm up in, etc. In the end everything was fine. And if there’s one thing that we achieved on Sunday morning it was the fact that we turned out a full band comprising of our own players and not reliant on guests.

But we did achieve more than that. Okay we didn’t win, but we certainly didn’t disgrace ourselves either; we were just one point below the band above us, Hitchin Band. The comments received from members of the audience were positive and many members of the band have gained their first experience on the contest stage. I think we’ve gained another new player too.

I think Martyn gained a lot from the experience too. We didn’t all agree with the adjudicator’s comments but he did highlight overblowing which we know, as a band, that we can be guilty of. Having listened to the CD of our performance the tuning wasn’t bad, which is an area we’ve often fallen down on in the past. There are some moments when we’re not playing together, particularly in the cornet section; this could be down to the acoustics of the hall and nerves, but it’s something we probably need to work on.

The programme that we played was:

Britannia – A Salvation Army “Festival March” based on Rule Britannia
Crimond – A Wes Kendrick arrangement of the famous hymn tune
Doyen – A Goff Richard’s composition
La Mourisque – David Lancaster’s arrangement of Tylman Susato’s piece taken from The Dansyre

I think the adjudicator particularly enjoyed La Mourisque as this is a very good, new arrangement for brass band.

Now we can work hard for the “areas”, the London & Southern Counties Regional Brass Band Championships in Stevenage, coming up in March. At least this time we won’t have to deal with the subjective nature of programme choice as this is a set test piece, Edward Gregson’s Partita in our case.

BBC NEWS | Christian question alarms flight

When I first read the above article I thought, “what a nutter”, and then I started to think about whether there are boundaries to extolling a faith onto others. As a Christian and a preacher in the Methodist Church I am called to “those who have not heard”, however, I feel that this is a case where it was not appropriate. Am I stating the obvious?

Talk of a persons faith is an intimate, personal thing and it needs to be handled with sensitivity and dignity. This pilot certainly didn’t do either with his little speech, particularly in light of 9/11.

Do I share my faith at work and in social activities? Yes, but to the extent that people know I am a Christian and a preacher. If someone wants to go deeper than that then I’m happy to talk about it.

Where else do the boundaries of decency lie with respect to faith sharing I wonder?

Wesley Would Blog

Whoa, this came as a bit of a surprise this morning. There I was minding my own business catching up the few blogs I read when I discovered I’ve been put in print again. This time in The Methodist Recorder.

Great article by Rev. Richard Hall who writes in The Connexion, particularly the view that, had John Wesley been alive today he would have probably recorded his journal as a weblog.

This may go someway to explain the sudden, relative surge in visitor numbers to my site this past week. I’d better start writing something interesting then!

I’ve just received a comment from Martyn, the MD of Watford Band and that has reminded me to post an entry about this week’s rehearsals.

First of all note that I said rehearsals; I’ve managed to get to both rehearsals this week. I like to attend both rehearsals leading up to a concert or contest as I get to learn about any last minute alterations to programmes or pieces or what have you.

The rehearsals this week were great. There was the danger of overdosing on the contest pieces as it’s the Milton Keynes contest on Sunday but we continued to work on new stuff first and then run through the contest programme later. Martyn’s dead right when he says that the band’s ability to sight read new pieces has improved dramatically. Not just reading the notes either, we’re also a lot better at taking in the dynamics, style, geography (repeats, etc.), key changes and tempo changes.

The run through of the contest pieces was very encouraging, on both nights we played them all very well and I think I’ve finally got the volumes sorted out as I didn’t blow my lip out before the end of the second piece! Actually, I think it was an exercise Martyn had us do before that cracked it.

At Tuesday’s rehearsal, Alan, one of our guest players for the contest, commented that the band sounded good which I think is also encouraging. I just hope we haven’t peaked too early and nerves/adrenalin don’t get the better of us on the day. I’m not sure whether I’m more nervous about the playing side or the organisational side. I’ll just have to make sure I’m there early to collect tickets and figure out where our rehearsal room is.

We owe Martyn some of his fees but at the committee meeting on Tuesday he asked our treasurer, Richard, to bring to the contest in cash so that he can stick it behind the bar if we win. There’s definitely an air of confidence about this contest. The band have done well in this contest before and it would be nice to do well and get in amongst the prizes at our first contest back after a couple of years break.

Martyn’s already got his eye on the Pontins contest at Prestatyn in October later in the year. Should make a good weekend away for the band, if they’re prepared to travel.

At the Thursday rehearsal last week Mike, our principal trombonist, handed out and arrangement of Basin Street Blues that he’d done as a trombone solo. It was superb, will be a great addition to our concert programme. Martyn has stated an aim that he wants to get our audiences singing along to our concerts so we’ve been getting new arrangements for things like La Bamba and Jesus Christ Superstar and some well known TV themes like the theme from Soldier Soldier, Musket Fife and Drum. Looks like a good summer season ahead for us providing we can get the gigs in.

Today I’ve had a day off, which was nice.

I had to fetch Euan back from nursery for the first time too and it was a bit embarrassing as I was having to ask what happened next, and which way round the school to go to get to the classroom (there are rules, you know). Anyway, it was nice to see Euan coming out all happy and smiley, but with green paint in his hair! Ever since he’s been going to his new school everything’s been a secret, but he’s now beginning to divulge what he gets up to and who he’s been playing with.

The main task for today has been to build the shelves we bought from Ikea last Saturday. Here’s one unpacked:

and here it is 20 minutes later!

Such a difference from the shopping experience at Ikea! We’d got there early, managed to get Euan into the play area whilst we went to shop which was a huge help. I was okay for about half an hour and then slowly but surely my blood pressure started to rise and almost lost it when I struggled to get the trolley free from the rack. Anyway, it was a nice Christmas present from my mum and we got to have the Swedish meatballs and chips for our lunch!

…these countries:

create your own visited country map

It’s a bit inaccurate though as I haven’t been to Alaska and only to Montreal in Canada. There are lots of islands shaded red too that I’ve never set foot on but I guess they colonies or dependent territories of places I’ve been.

These are the places I’ve been to in the States:

Hee, hee, I had to laugh when I passed the cash point attached to our local shop as it had this error showing! It’s a good job I didn’t need any money at the time.

I think the folks just coming out of the shop thought I was a bit odd taking photos of a cashpoint though!

Finally got the last of the registrations through in time for the Milton Keynes contest in just over a weeks time. It’s just as well as one of them was our principal cornet, another was our solo horn and the last was a soprano cornet player, all key positions in the band. Not sure why it took so long for these to come through when others sent much later came back fairly quickly. I guess it’s contest season and the registry are very very busy. Anyway it’s sorted now so that’s a relief.

Phew! That’s over for another year.

Actually it was quite good. I would have posted earlier if it hadn’t have been for that darned snow snarling me up in traffic yesterday (see previous post).

It seemed as though we had a good attendance for the band’s AGM on Tuesday night. All the reports were accepted, the existing committee was re-instated (which means I’m now officially chairman). It seemed like we’d made the right choices for the awards and our President was genuinely touched by the special presentation we made to him for his generosity. You’ll have to look at the band’s website for full details and photos.

The really great thing that came from it was the support for the motion to increase subscriptions which is much needed now we no longer have sponsorship. There was no arguing over it, everyone knew that it was needed and accepted it. Excellent!

We’ve got snow down here in Watford, all of 2cms of it. And from my journey home last night you’d have thought we’ve never seen it before! It took me over 4 hours to do a journey that should take just 30 minutes. It was so bad I decided to abandon the car and walk the last part of the journey so that I would at least have a chance of saying goodnight to my son.

It seems Watford wasn’t the only area hit by gridlock either. Why is it people can’t cope? It’s just like when it rains in California, they forget how to drive too. It seems people don’t want to sacrifice time and speed for the sake of safety.

A lot of the schools in Watford closed down today too, including Euan’s. Again I can’t quite believe it, but at least it gave me the opportunity to take him into the park with his sledge!