Factors Influencing Membership and Stability in Adult Amateur Bands - GW Bowie

Extracts from the Gordon Bowie Paper” (1990)

AN OVERVIEW OF FACTORS INFLUENCING MEMBERSHIP RECRUITMENT AND STABILITY IN AMERICAN ADULT AMATEUR BANDS

Edited By Marlin Strand

with a special emphasis on Band Leadership and its impact on

Success, Growth and Sustainment of the Community Band

There are numerous success stories in the band movement, but many community bands flourish briefly, and then decline in the face of personnel pressures.  Traditional bands that have survived through the years and maintained the valuable and artistic repertoire of the adult band (distinct from the educational repertoire) need to adapt and grow as times change if they are not to dwindle and perish.  Because society as a whole no longer places a premium on adult band membership, the key issue is attracting and retaining enough of the right players to allow a band to perpetuate its special activities.

Saxophones and tubas and euphoniums, oh my!

Contributed by R. Kelly Wagner

The annual Navy Band Saxophone Symposium was held this year on January 20 and 21st at George Mason University in Fairfax; I have tried to attend this every year since we moved to Maryland, although in January 2011 I missed it. So it was good to get back to atttending this year. The Symposium follows a similar format each year, with the events starting on Friday afternoon, a big concert by the full Navy Band on Friday night, more events all day Saturday including master classes and lectures, and a big concert by the Navy Commodores (jazz band) on Saturday night. The big evening concerts have lots of guest soloists, who usually are also presenters of master classes and/or solo recitals during the daytime events.

Conductor's Corner - Christmas Music

- contributed by Gordon Bowie

Every Christmas and holiday season reminds us of how important our musical traditions are in marking the passage of the year. For me, the songs that mark the holiday season are among the most enduring musical memories, precisely because they come back at the same time year after year.

Anthropologists often describe a culture in terms of its “annual round.”  Plant in the spring, go off raiding in the summer, harvest in the fall, hunt meat in the late fall, have a big fire celebration to welcome the sun back at new year’s, etc. Whatever it is or was.....

Band members in our culture have an “annual round” too.  Veteran’s Day Patriotic music, Christmas and Hanukkah music, New Years and “Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot”  exploration of some serious works in the Winter and Spring, then patriotic music for the Fourth of July, and we do it all over again. 

Library Work Session - Weds Dec 14 - Volunteers Needed

Dear Band Members,

December is a busy time for us all and I want to thank you for your participation and fine volunteer spirit as we head into the month’s many musical duties.  The tree lighting was a huge success for the band, with a sizeable crowd out to hear Bob Hydorn, greet Santa, sing carols along with the “band,” watch the tree light up to the strains of  “O Tannenbaum” and have hot chocolate afterwards.  Nine hardy souls and I sounded just fine on the traditional carols, and didn’t get too frozen.  Thank you!

Next is the MVF Board party for which Bill Brasile has organized a mostly clarinet woodwind quartet, which should be a little different from the past few years, and show the board another facet of our band.  Thank you Bill, Marlin, Paul and Amanda!

Potato Peels

- contributed by Marlin Strand

So the Maine Small potatoes to Big dreams program is a success. Gordon was able to get the George Jennings scores on loan from the Bangor Band, and we can begin the process to make them ready for Prime Time with the MVCB , and perhaps even perform a couple late this season.

The small “perfect bound” band portfolios appear to date to pre WWII and contain ten of the Jennings marches. Most of the pieces are copyrighted around 1894. Also included are nineteen other march gems including some well known (King Cotton – JP Sousa himself!), RB Hall (The Red Men’s March w/ note “respectfully dedicated to the order of RED MEN”), a Wagner, and the CS Grafulla Washington Grays March, just in time for Spring Training.

CD Review: Christmas Cheers by Straight No Chaser

- contributed by Len Morse

Music can be found just about everywhere, and it is often created by musicians with high-quality instruments, but sometimes voices alone can be plenty. Therefore, a CD from Straight No Chaser, the ten-man contemporary a capella sensation, should be at the top of your Christmas gift list this year. Their second album, Christmas Cheers, was released in 2009 and provides the catchy rhythms, smooth harmonies, memorable lyrics, and good-natured humor for which SNC is known.

Almost everyone can relate to the CD’s first tune, The Christmas Can-Can, which pokes fun at the annual Christmas marketing season, which seems to get longer each year. This piece contains interpolations of Offenbach’s opera “Orpheus in the Underworld” and many recognizable holiday tunes, but completely original lyrics, thanks to group member and arranger Walt.

Summer of Many Styles

Contributed by Len Morse

Being musicians, we realize that we each have busy, non-musical lives outside of the Montgomery Village Community Band. We engage in various activities to keep our lives moving, hopefully in the directions we want: jobs, family, relationships, finances, friends, and other facets of human existence come together when we’re not at a MVCB rehearsal or performance venue.

As for the musical highlights of my summer, the academy (see below) was by far the highlight of my year, so it will take up most of this article.

'Ghost of the Band Room' Explained

The Bangor Band regularly rehearsed in the top floor of what is now known as The Isaac Farrar Mansion (166 Union St/ 17 2nd St, Bangor) from the 1920s or early 1930s until the building was purchased by the YWCA in the 1970s.  During those years the house was known as Symphony House and was originally a project of the Bangor Symphony and later the site of a music teaching school known as The Northern Conservatory of Music.

Prior to the Symphony's acquisition of the mansion, the Farrar family had a tragic death on the top floor of the mansion, said to have been their daughter's suicide by hanging.   The rooms on the top floor were said to be haunted by her ghost.  The rear door and kitchen area were also haunted by a poltergeist of a small boy who would mischievously rattle and rearrange the coat hangers, lamps and chairs in the rear area, with no explanation.

Presidential Address - Fall, 2011

- from John King

I want to welcome everyone to another season of great music-making with the Montgomery Village Community Band. I look forward to serving again as president. More importantly, I'm thrilled that we will continue to have the pleasure to play under the baton of Dr. Gordon Bowie and assistant conductor Len Morse.

Valdresspringar and Norwegian Hardanger Fiddle Music and Dance

contributed by Martin Misakian

Excerpts of Marlin Strand’s remarks below about Hanssen’s Valdres March, the Valdres region of Norway, and the Hardanger fiddle (March issue of MVCB Newsletter) prompted me to ask a friend, Ross Schipper, to describe a Norwegian folk dance, Valdresspringar, and music from the same region.  Ross, who plays the Hardanger fiddle, also teaches Norwegian and Swedish folk dances with his wife Linda Brooks in the Washington area.  Ross’ remarks follow excerpts from Marlin’s article.

Maine Potato Benefit for MVCB

Contributed by Marlin Strand, potato and licorice stick man

From Small Potatoes……………..
Ask somebody to respond with a single word to “the State of Maine” and half of them say Lobster. The other half, save one, respond with something related to the majesty of nature “down east’ such as pine forests, green horizons, moose, hunting and water. Did you know that the state insect was the honeybee or that the state gemstone was tourmaline? How about the Maine Bears? They are a perennial leader in NCAA Baseball. Or politicians? Edmund Muskie ran unsuccessfully for the presidential nomination in the seventies. And he wasn’t a fish (although he could be quite bland) such as a haddock or codfish, (known as scrod when they are young, and a feature of that Southern Mecca (to Mainers) Bahhhhstohhn (Boston.) And wrong again, scrod is not the past tense of that word your stand-mate uses to characterize your playing after you’ve blown a harmonic sixteenth run-up into the trio!