First and foremost a massive Happy New Year to all of our friends and family. We here at DSB hope that you have enjoyed your festive period as much as we have.
Secondly, a quick look back on the final month of 2017, a month that any musician can testify is always a busy one! In December the band spread joy far and wide entertaining crowds in Ovingham, Castletown and our very own Dunston with carols and Christmas music. A highlight was Dunston Silver Youth band playing both with the senior band as well as independently giving us renditions of classic Christmas songs including Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer. Such a fantastic way to cap off the year with their musical director Will Roberts noting that the band has more than doubled in size within the year, showing much promise for the future.
Another feature of the concerts was a short preview of our 2018 programme as we perfected the Phillip Harper masterpiece A little star went out, a piece based on the life of Roald Dahl and part of their 2016 Brass in Concert victory. This flugal solo, performed by our award winning flugal player Sarah Foster (who you might remember from our Meet the Band segment in August’s blog), really caught the imagination of the audience and is definitely a spectacle not to be missed. As well as this piece there are a few others that we have began to prepare for what promises to be and exciting 2018 so stay tuned to find out more!
December has also been a month of work as we prepare diligently for Butlins in January. It is a piece that has stretched our ability to stylise the way in which we play but we are putting the finishing touches on what we hope will be a winning performance.
As the new year is welcomed in many people make resolutions to challenge their current or future lifestyle. One for myself could be giving up playing incorrect notes or practicing more but these individual wishes might be great for self-improvement but what if everyone had a collective goal? For instance if every band member practiced an extra 5 minutes a day so for an average band of 26 players the total is 130 minutes a week which is equivalent to one of our rehearsals a week, a lot of time! Sometimes it can be these marginal gains made by each player that collectively make the difference in both placing at competitions and more importantly the quality of performances.
Finally I’d encourage any brass musicians seeking a band to get in touch with us, we are always wanting to share our music with as many people as possible so get in contact as we’d love to see you. If you’d rather watch the band in comfort keep an eye on our calendar page on our website to see what’s coming up, we will be out in force in 2018!
There you have it New Year, not so new blog! That’s the best way, as we wouldn’t want everything to change! ‘Til next month
DSB