Waikato Bay of Plenty Brass Band Regional Championships

Solos:

Hamilton City Auxiliary Brass and Hamilton City Brass Factory was well represented at the WBOP regional solo contest.

Congratuations to Te Reo Hughes our Musical Director who came in 2nd in the Open Solo Slow Melody competition playing her beautiful rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Te Reo always leads by example - the band is very proud of her achievement. Others to play in this section were Blake and Quentin.

Congratulations to Roanna for winning the Intermediate contest. Other entrants included Tom and Sandra.

Congratulations to Daniel came 2nd and Quinn came 3rd in the Beginner grade, and well done Anessa for having a go. This was the first time these players entered a solo competition.

Congratulations to Lizzie who played in the U13 solo contest, Walter who played in the U16 solo contest and Leighton played in the U19s.

Congratulations to Quinn, Stevie and Lizzie who placed second in the D Grade ensemble.
The other Brass Factory ensemble came in 3rd. Players: Lizzie, Stevie, Tracey, Glenn, Samantha, Dana, Quentin, Quinn, Leo, Sharon, Sonya, Leighton, Daniel, Isaac, Kylie, Anessa and Sandra

Leighton and Josh (From Matamata hanging out "the Bass Brothers")

Brass Factory members getting ready to warm up. Quinn, Amelia, Lizzie, Anessa

Sharon

Glenn observing, watching, waiting... Samantha warming up.

Sonya found a quiet space to warm up

Lizzie and Anessa

Lizzie, Anessa and Stevie having fun waiting their turn

Something funny? Anessa and Lizzie goofing around

Anessa's solo

Daniel having a go in the novice section playing baritone.

Leighton playing tuba in u19 with Sonya playing piano

Sandra playing in the intermediate section with Sonya playing piano

Quentin playing his solo with Sonya playing piano

Blake playing his solo with Barry playing piano

Prize giving for the novice section. Well done to Daniel and Quinn making the top three.

This was an opportunity for Hamilton City Auxiliary Band to try and claim our trophies back at regional contest. We played really well, and came second to national champions Matamata Brass. This competition we played a great selection of pieces including:

Funk it Up
Little Brass Monkey - featuring Amanda Longshaw playing as our soloist on E Flat Tuba (with Anessa Ginever as the little monkey entertaining the audience as well).
Saddleworth Festival by Goff Richards - this was our test piece
Mid all the Traffic - this is our sacred piece
James Bond Theme Song

Click here for our performance

Warming up photos

Photos from the performance

Amanda playing the solo

Band Sections

Tuba Section: John, Pam, Leighton, Ema, Amanda

Front Row Cornets:Walter, Ella, Dana, Blake

Back Row Cornets: Quentin (Repiano), Greg, Sue, Robbie, Jeremy, Rowan

Trombones - Josh (Principal)
Robert, Lynn and Cameron (Bass Trombone)
Tenor Trombones Alex and Sandra

A little Brass Monkey (Anessa)

Tenor Horns: Tom and Sonya (Absent Sharon)

Euphonium: Roanna
Baritones: Ian and Lyz (Absent:Daniel)

Percussion: Lorene and Zeelia (Absent Aiko)

Random Band practice photos

These are a selection of random band practice photos from August and September 2019. 

Taken by Sandra, Apri and Dave. 

This just looks interesting - Josh and Daniel swapping instruments!

TeReo in the centre organising the music

Basses - Amanda, Leighton and Ema

Baritones Troms and Tenor Horns 

Back row cornets, Quentin, Rowan, Sue, Greg

Aiko

Lorene

Bass Troms - Cameron and Lynn

Sandra - and another of her fun t-shirts

Amanda practicing for regionals - Little Brass Monkey

Euphoniums/Baritones and Troms

Troms plus Lorene on Timpani

TeReo leading the way

The Auxiliary Band 

A weekend with David Bremner

David Bremner 

1st Trombone New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (full time job for 17 years)

Director of Education for New Zealand Brass Band Association 

Musical Director for Wellington Brass (A Grade National Champions)

The purpose of every practice in David's words is to "make us a better brass player"

On the weekend  10-11 August our band had a wonderful opportunity to spend time with the amazing David Bremner. He shared the wealth of his knowledge with us. It seems, if David doesn't know it, it isn't worth knowing! Ha! Although, in saying this, David freely admits he is always in the pursuit of making himself a better player and he also travels internationally to lessons from international experts. - There is always something to learn.

Big lessons from the sessions:

LISTEN TO A RANGE OF MUSICIANS - GENRES

• looks to Amazing players for inspiration to be able to make ourselves better players
• Analyse what do other players do that we can do to emulate their playing and be better players ourselves?
• Fun - we enjoy our music more as better players
• Well rounded musician - listen to a range of styles/genres and experiment playing a range - never be bored with music
• Go to imslp online - free music to play - mixture of tunes you can try.

David shared some of his music heroes with us and asked us to think about what it is about these players that makes them stand out:

• Wynton Masalis, Dave Childs, Richard Marshall, Upbie Green, James Morrison, Christian Lindberg, Joseph Alessi 
• We were also given tips from David's friends from NZSO and other bands he has played in... one of the quotes I remember: to learn a note higher in the scale aim to go a semitone a month... Then you've done an octave in a year. In other words... good things take time!!

AIRFLOW

• Playing a brass instrument is all about the air!!! - every issue players have is air related... breathe well, have the range and confidence and air will work well for you. 
• Have good posture when paying - upright, good warm air and take deep breaths - fill up the lungs from the bottom to the top
• Don't force the air out - let the air work for you - let the air do the work

BREATHING ACTIVITIES

One example of David's exercises taken from his slide show

BUZZING

• The instrument amplifies the buzz
• Hold with two fingers 
• Buzz in the low register will help your sound
• Focus on the buzz - use air to support it
• Practice in front of a mirror - mouthpiece in the middle
• If you have a red face you are putting too much pressure, you should not have pressure or force to buzz
• Warm up using scales, no tongue, lower notes, legato, concentrate on air flow 

FLEXIBILITY

• This is possibly the most neglected part of playing
• We have to be able to negotiate up and down without using our tongue in the same position

SCALES

• Use a drone to support development of listening to your notes
• Articulation - all scales from memory 

MULTIPLE TONUGING

• Start slowly - hear all the notes, even bite notes out and build up speed eventually you will get them out faster.

RANGE EXTENSION

• To play high notes you have to play low notes. 
• Stay in a quiet dynamic
• Feel comfortable up then go to 'out of range' and go back down
• Build register semitone per month

WORK (rough practice order David follows when practicing)

• Try not to do the same music every day
• Try not to hurry
• Push yourself
• Do some band some solo
• Do some crazy - try something else - have fun i.e. play music written for another instrument
• Warm down - low notes - remember your lips are muscles (athletes warm down their muscles so should we)

NERVES

• They're a fact of life - it is up to us how we cope with them
• We can use the adrenaline to have some fun
• If we know we get nervous we have to start our routines earlier and work through them. The more prepared we are the better we will play. 
• If we have practiced our tunes and know them really well we have no 'need' to be nervous, that's not to say we won't be nervous, but we have done all we can to be prepared.
• Do breathing activities and these will assist in getting oxygen to your body and help eliminate nerves

WRITE A DIARY

• Write a diary of your practices then you know what you have worked on
• When you have a diary you will be able to see how much improvement you have made over a period of time. 

David gave a demonstration of his playing

Throughout the weekend David supported the band and our Band Master Te Reo Hughes by sharing his knowledge of conducting to help our band grow in understanding of how to grow as a band. We worked on our hymn and our test piece.

Some strategies he got us to do included: Breathing exercises, buzzing exercises, singing exercises and playing. If in doubt about the piece you are playing, sing it... as you sing it... so shall you play!

Many thanks again to David Bremner for sharing your wonderful expertise... Also, thank you to Richard Lummus for sharing your photography skills and allowing us to use your photographs for our blog.