Blowing their trumpet

Above: Conductor Alex Francis

Above: Barnsley Metropolitan Band- horn section

Above: Peter Cotton and Richard Shaw in the solo cornet section

Above: In the Barnsley Metropolitan Band instrument room

Above: Dominic Turton

Currently the system is not playing fair. To put the situation in context, over the last five years the Arts Council for England has given £155m to opera, £70m to ballet and just £140,000 to brass bands. Put another way, for every pound they received, opera had £1,113. A soprano is generously supported but a soprano cornet player gets a raw deal. Little wonder
they’re brassed off in Yorkshire, one of the spiritual homes of the brass band movement. The sense of grievance is not even a North-South divide issue. A delegation which presented brass’s case to Culture Minister Margaret Hodge reflected its broad social reach, from the secretary of the national champions, Grimethorpe Colliery Band, to the musical director of Ascot Brass, based in the stockbroker belt of the Thames Valley. Jeff Ennis, MP for Barnsley East and Mexborough who led the deputation, said the minister suggested ways the bands could be more effective in tapping into external funding. It’s hinted that they could have a central role at the opening ceremony of the London Olympics in 2012. Hodge is said to be sympathetic to the bands’ current plight, and so she should be. Brass bands already meet the Arts Council’s funding criteria. In particular they have a close relationship with their communities and audience, and they encourage youngsters to take up a musical instrument – which coincides with a central plank of the government’s policy on primary education. ‘Brass bands tick the right boxes in terms of their wider role, yet the current national funding situation works against them. That cannot be right,’ says Ennis. The impact has been alarming. There are approximately 600 brass bands – and almost 20,000 players – throughout the country and of the bands which compete, about 80 are in Yorkshire. It sounds impressive until compared with a generation ago. In the 1980s there were 32 bands in the fourth section alone of the area championships’ structure. Now there are 12 and it’s been down to eight. The decline of the staple industries which spawned and financed them in Yorkshire – coal, textiles and engineering – led to numerous casualties. As a vivid example, 37 colliery bands appeared at the Yorkshire Miners’ Gala in 1970, each of them supported by their pit, in part through a weekly levy imposed on the workforce. When the pits closed, bands either perished with them or went in search of alternative funding. There is only so much commercial sponsorship out there, so that Arts Council and National Lottery grants become even more crucial. A lack of money from such sources, together with other factors, could see more and more bands disappear. It’s a different matter if you’re world-famous. The status and backing of Yorkshire’s elite bands are an indication of how varied their market-place has become. Grimethorpe retains a link with coal but with the support of the corporate sector, Powerfuel plc.What began as the Yorkshire Copper Works Band at Stourton near Leeds and became Yorkshire Imperial following an industrial merger, is now the Yorkshire Imperial Urquhart Travel Band through the sponsorship of a coach operator. The 153-year-old former Black Dyke Mills dropped the ‘Mills’ after its long association with the textile company, John Foster, ended. The band is now a registered charity, but has several partners, including instrument-makers and Leeds Metropolitan University. Brighouse and Rastrick, another of the major players, continues to be supported through public subscriptions and its own fund raising efforts. Traditionally its amateur members pride themselves on being financially independent. At the age of 26 one of its cornetists, Alex Francis, recently also became conductor of Barnsley Metropolitan Band. It has a reputation for developing young talent as well as bridging the gender and age gaps despite the constant battle to find alternative revenue after national grants dried up. Its annual running costs are about £9,000 and it has to work ferociously hard at money-raising. Currently it has 40 members and their £2-a-week subs just about cover the cost of hiring their rehearsal room. It is dwarfed by their main expenditure, replacing instruments. A set of drums is £8,000, a B Flat tuba £6,500, an E Flat bass £5,800, trombones up to £2,500, and £1,500 for a cornet. A set of uniforms, with jackets in red, black and gold, is around £8,000. Yet the band’s existence has a social dimension beyond price. How many other organisations could bring together 10-year-old Ruth Sykes, with her cornet, and a financial adviser in his 50s playing the tuba? David Cotton started playing after seeing how much pleasure the band gave his son, Mike. Then Mike’s younger brother Peter joined and is now principal cornet which in turn inspired the arrival of their mother Cynthia, who has since become the band’s lead euphonium. The four Cottons are unusual but not unique. One of the remarkable aspects of bands like Barnsley Metropolitan is that young members have in several cases inspired their parents to take up an instrument and join them. ‘They bring their kids to rehearsals or see them play in concerts and various events, and realise it’s something they’d also like to do. A role reversal where the children learn first and the adults follow them,’ says John Grinnell. After 22 years he gave up the band’s baton to become associate conductor and a member of the trombone section. He is also is also deputy head of the Performing Arts Development Service in which he manages the instrumental music service for Barnsley. In line with national policy, it’s enabling hundreds of children in the area, regardless of background, to play music. It also acts as a supply-line, providing a new generation of instrumentalists for those bands which survive the economics and wider cultural shifts. Those shifts are considerable. For many adults employment patterns have changed, and there’s more weekend working. Young players face different challenges. These days there are more claims on their time. Computers can be a stern challenge for a cornet and the demands it makes to be played well. There’s also peer pressure on a teenager to go with the crowd.
As John Grinnell puts it: ‘It’s not cool to take a musical instrument on the school bus.’Manufacturers are trying to help by improving the image and rebranding instrument cases as ‘gig bags’. But there are no short cuts to playing well. Membership of a brass band calls for a huge commitment, says Grinnell. ‘It’s more than loyalty and friendship. The word is fellowship.We also want the experience to be as much fun as possible.’ It’s not all about competition and striving to improve the band’s position in the respective league tables. Barnsley Metropolitan gives concerts on the continent, they play at the seaside, carnivals, country shows, civic occasions, raise money for charity and can be hired for weddings and other private events. Their home-grown talent often moves on to bigger things. Some members have been recruited by championship bands – the cream of the movement – and military bands. One boy plays the tenor horn in the National Youth Band, and others have gone on to careers in various areas of the music business and performing arts. Grinnell also tells a story which highlights how a brass band encourages a sense of belonging and can give a troubled youngster selfdiscipline and a sense of achievement. ‘We had a percussionist, a lad of about 15, who was an absolute young gent – polite, reliable, and a talented player.We didn’t know until later that during the last year he was with us he was excluded from school for assaulting teachers.We never saw that side of him. He became someone else, a happier person, when he was playing music

PHOTOGRAPHS ANDY BULMER