The rehearsal with the band last night was excellent. It was lead by Glyn Williams, the Principle Euphonium of Foden’s and he took the band through some interesting exercises based on a hymn tune just to get us playing together, not only starting the notes together but also finishing together too. Unfortunately I arrived a bit late but it sounded like he’d also taken the band through some basic breathing and preparation techniques too.

We spent a long time going through the first movement of Divertimento, the test piece for the regional qualifiers next week. It was all really good stuff, but I fear it may be too late for it to make a significant difference. Interestingly Glyn altered the way Martyn was having us play some parts of the piece. It’ll be interesting to see how Thursday’s rehearsal goes on that basis.

I also took the opportunity to play a Courtois cornet. In summary it’s clearly a very well made cornet but I found it a little stuffy for my liking. The valves were good and very responsive though I suspect they could have done with a little oil. After playing it for about 40 minutes I switched back to my own cornet and was immediately much more comfortable as it’s more free blowing.

I’ve been talking to a fellow band member about the issue of the getting everyone to play the same instruments and the possibility of the band buying a set of instruments for such a purpose and he says, and I completely agree with him, that we’d be better off getting the existing instruments repaired (or replaced where appropriate) and spending time and money on having a weekend brass workshop with some people of the calibre of Glyn, perhaps we could persuade Glyn to bring some of his other Foden’s colleagues.

Getting the players playing properly would be the biggest gain for the band without a huge outlay of cash and we could use it to give those who play on band instruments the opportunity to try some other makes of instrument under expert guidance to try and find the right instrument for them.

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