Many of you on here can go back way further than me, recalling Kneller Hall in Victorian Times (chuckle), but those younger guys I served with probably only know KH as it is now. In 1984, KH was already down from 4 companies to 3 but we got to play in Full Band (for the Rock) plus Coy Bands, marching band, No.1 Band, Conducting Band (to get the Stds through their ARCMs) and Big Band (with Denis). I had weekly lessons on perc with Bernard Harmon and Johnny Cave (Bernards son Fred rode drum-horse in the Lifeguards for many years before teaching perc at Pirbright....), and on string pig (my mandatory 2nd instrument) with Dicky Driver ( I kept that quiet when I got to the Micks. And anyway, they had Ding-dong on pig so I wasnt really needed). I was asked to play with James Blades in a perc masterclass he gave, and played with both fanfare teams wherever they went. And the other day (were moving house) I found a cassette-recording of No.1 Band and the BBC Concert Orch appearing on Friday Night is Bath Night? or maybe Listen to the Band? and having not heard it in 30yrs, I was quite honestly gobsmacked at how good it sounds. I literally found myself saying outloud, Thats how to play a march! . The scale is there, with full and proper instrumentation and any number of whatever instrument you choose..... the quality is there (people have already attested to players like Graeme, Terry, Gary, Simon, Steve Younger and the like), but the ensemble playing, and phrasing, is superb. Musically, I think Dave Marshal impressed me the most. Few other conductors I met later could match him, and few Stds would have got through Sorcerers Apprentice, or Land of the Mountain and the Flood without his excellent instruction. I was never a musician of the calibre of those mentioned in my earlier post, but I like to think I had something to contribute.....most of all I enjoyed being in the thick of it, in the melee, when Military Music was big and powerful and exhilarating, had scale and presence, and made a real impact.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 20:34:06 +0000