The Music Education Podcast
Listen for authentic and challenging conversation on all things music ed. Brought to you by Charanga. Hosted and produced by Chris Woods of The Chris Woods Groove Orchestra.
The Music Education Podcast
Episode 45 - 'Brass Bands and Grass Roots' Victoria Steinitz
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In this episode Chris talks with Victoria Steinitz about Brass Bands.
Welcome to the Music Education Podcast. I'm Chris of the Chris Woods Groove Orchestra, and this podcast is brought to you by the Soundstorm Music Education Hub. I think sometimes the conversations around music education can be quite preoccupied with desperately trying to be current and relevant. And by doing that, I think we often miss out on music education opportunities that are traditional and grassroots and already ingrained into culture itself. The wonderful thing about accessing these more traditional music communities or music groups is that they come with so much of that really magical, wonderful human community stuff, which is so powerful it's almost impossible to put into words. Now in Britain, one of our most notable traditional musical community groups are brass bands. And in this episode, I have a conversation with Victoria Steinitz about brass bands and the role they play historically, present, and perhaps future. And of course, all from a music education perspective. Now this has to be one of my favourite podcasts so far. I hope you enjoy listening. Victoria, thank you so much for joining me this afternoon. Can we start off? Can we start off with a bit of a who you are and what we do?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, of course. Um so my name is Victoria Steinitz. Um my sort of history or the reason why I've come into this is from a brass band point of view. Um I conduct two brass bands locally to where I live at the moment, the Boxtead Methodist Silver Band and the greatly named Ipswich Over 50s brass band. Um so I'm sort of working with a later aged demographic in banding, and that includes everything that you might imagine um church services, summer fates, um school little productions, a whole load of stuff to do with the Jubilee. Um brass bands also do competitions. Many people will have seen the film Brassed Off. Um, and I have done those in the past with the Colchester band as well. But that in theory is all for leisure and enjoyment. So just to bring some bread and butter, I'm also at a school administrator. I work up the road at my daughter's primary school. Um, so there's a real mixture of things going on.
SPEAKER_02Fantastic. And then working within a younger people's brass band? Yes.
SPEAKER_01Well, my daughter now, I'm really pleased to say she plays the Cornet. Um, and she just started a year or so ago, and she plays with a group called First Class Brass, and that is a community ensemble, so it really is open for everybody. Um, a lot of children learning different instruments, and also adults who are learning, or those people who are returning to music after a long break. Um, and first class brass is fantastic because it's all inclusive. If you play a trumpet, which wouldn't normally be allowed anywhere near a brass band, you can go, or if you play a French horn, which you can play in an orchestra or a wind band, but not in a brass band, you can play a French horn in first class brass. That's absolutely fine.
SPEAKER_02Brilliant, fantastic. The person the perfect person to talk about brass bands. I think a nice place to start off, if you don't mind, is to give us a little bit of an insight into the history and current sort of culture of brass bands. Bearing in mind we have a lot of listeners across the globe as well. So just understanding it from you know, I guess quite a British perspective as well, um, would be really interesting.
SPEAKER_01So the brass band tradition in England really comes out of industry, uh, whether that's mining in the north or mining in Cornwall, um, and a little bit later on, Industrial Revolution in Victorian times, around factories and things to keep your workers um engaged in useful social and um just really anything to keep them out of the pub. Um so if they could go to a brass band rehearsal two nights a week, maybe on the weekend, um, they would do that. So you would have um that's why in Yorkshire uh there are so many bands which either were or are associated with the different mining communities. Um so around that, then obviously uh the wives, the children would go to the events, the big open days. It's all about people making people feel good. Um, and even when obviously last century the mines closed down, you've still got this band and this community spirit. Um the bands that weren't attached to the miners might have been attached to particular bits of the industry. So um I'm just trying to think there's a source, a band even now called the SourceWorks band, Hammond's factory. Um, so you get weavers, um, car mechanics. In Colchester, we had a company that made um air, they're called air movement, but they made air handling units. Um, any kind of industry, there would be a group attached to that. And as I say, really it was to keep the men out of the pub and engaged in something. And then as that evolved, it was a lot of PR around doing really positive things in the community. And the larger the bands, and I expect this is something we'll talk about later, the larger the bands they would then start the youth ensembles, the training ensembles, and to try and start getting the children um into it as well. So a lot of the stuff that you actually see in that film, Brass D off, which is of course all about uh the mind closing down, the the community stuff, the stuff around the brass band is kind of piercingly accurate um in how the band transcended that industry and reached out to the community. Um, and that's the history of it, and that's why you have so many bands now with slightly curious names.
SPEAKER_02Amazing, thank you. So I all these bands were generally associated with, if you like, working class um parts of society as well. So we're not we weren't there's not like a I don't know a barrister's brass band, for example, a cult it's quite specific to workers, right?
SPEAKER_01Very specifically to that, and and the other um areas that grew and carried the movement forward, I think the most significant one is the Salvation Army. Um for a long time, um, although huge numbers of bands, you know, every town almost would have a Salvation Army citadel, and if they had a citadel, they would have a band within it. Whether it was a wind band or a brass band, there would be one. And for a long time, those two things ran parallel. Um and the church music that went on in the Salvation Army was separate to the brass band world. Um, their music wasn't published, it wasn't publicly available, and that changed at the very end of last century. They also opened up their music library as well. So all of their um music, which was based on hymns or worship songs, that all became available to everybody as well. So you you wouldn't trace um the history of brass bands back very far before you started to see these two um streams of activity um interlinking, really. Um so I think it's important to say that yes, it did come from industry and it did come from the working class background, but that um trait through the Salvation Army has always been extremely strong and in fact produced some of the best brass players um of the last century.
SPEAKER_02Wow, okay.
SPEAKER_01And then um linking it then to the the army army, the military army, what's the sort of is there much of an offshoot from that um into sort of uh civilian society or I think I mean my experience of that is more uh more of the challenging side because although um historically and we're only sort of talking last 30 years or so in my knowledge, but the um the armies and the officers and they they come and go and their first priority is always to whichever forces they're serving. So let me kind of give you an example of what I mean by that. We live in Colchester, it's obviously a military town, um, and for a long time we've had um the band of the parachute regiment based here. Um, but if ever they had to go off and do something else, they had to go off and do something else. There was no um no negotiation, you know, they are soldiers, they are in the army.
SPEAKER_02So although paratroopers aren't known for negotiating, are they?
SPEAKER_01No, exactly. So they they could, and they did, um, when I was younger in the band, they could join one or more of the local bands at whatever level or wherever the spaces were. But if something happened and you happened to have your competition next month or whatever, they might go to Afghanistan for three weeks and you've just lost your coordinate section.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01So, yes, the relationship with the military musicians is there, but it's a challenging one. It's a very because they will never be permanent and you will never be their first port of call. Um, and as you will have seen if you have watched that brass off movie, yeah, you know, band comes top of everybody's list. Wife, kids, job, no, there's band. So to actually be serving, well, king now, king and country rather than brass band, there's an obvious tussle there for power.
SPEAKER_02Um, okay, okay. Now, before we drift into you know more sort of present times, and hey, we could we should even cover the future if we've got time. Uh you mentioned the fr from coming the brass bands that are formed within different industries and then becoming almost like a PR thing, where they but then opening up to young people. Are these the first sort of youth ensembles that we saw in the country, perhaps?
SPEAKER_01Or um quite possibly. I mean, the bands, let's take the bands up north as the shiny example because they are still doing it better than we are. And and I would say Wales, um, because Corey won't be happy if I don't mention Wales. Um, but in the bands up north that I might be um attached to a town because they are attached to a mine or even a beer factory, some of them, um they will have eventually given birth to a youth ensemble and even a children's ensemble. Um I'm thinking, uh oh, the name's gonna it's gonna it'll come back to me the name. But when I went in the summer to watch the Whit Friday, oh Delft, when I went in the summer to watch the Whit Friday marches in Delft, um they have their town band, which is the Delft band, and then they have a community band, which is open to everybody, then they have a youth band, which is probably from 10 upwards, sort of teenage, and then they have a children's band as well. So out of what appears to be a very small and unassuming uh Saddleworth town, there are four brass bands. Now that uh it's got to be a hundred people, probably. There'll be some overlap, um, but that's how strong the banding community is, even 10% of the town is in one of the bands. Is in one of the bands, and if if you've not been up there um for Whit Friday, um yeah, the film provides a good example, but it talks a lot about how these people get on and off their coaches and go to the pub. But actually, the whole town comes to a standstill. Um, the roads are shut off within a certain range of the town, and for an for an entire afternoon and evening, we're talking sort of 3 pm until 12:30 a.m. All that happens is a brass band walks down the street playing a tune, and then at the bottom of the street it plays a march, and everybody sits and watches. And I actually have sat and watched for eight hours 73 brass bands go past. That's a pretty extreme geeky brass band nerd example. Um, but within that, you've probably got children who are as young as seven or eight, perhaps, with their cornets, through to old boys who've played their tuber for 60 years, um, and somebody actually carries the tuber for them, and then they play it for the competition, and then somebody carries the tuber off. Um for the first time this summer, um, there are actually two or three people who use a wheelchair as well, and they also have people helping them. It's it gives me goosebumps. It's community like you hardly ever see it anymore. Um, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_02That's so cool. Really, really is. I don't know what Whit Friday is though. What is it?
SPEAKER_01Okay, so Whit Friday is um a competition in Saddleworth, and it takes place on this um it day. Whit Friday is a movable feast in the Christian calendar, it depends where Easter is, so it's usually late May, June time. Um and the marches started off historically to bear witness uh to the Lord. So you would do um a march and you'd carry a big banner at front at the front representing wherever you were from, and um you would march up the hill and praise God at the top of the hill, and then you'd march back down and have your competition. So it is, and that is not a salvation army, that's based on the villages, the churches, and all of that kind of life, community life, really. Um, and for some reason, the the element of that which has continued is the brass band competition. They do also have um services as well, but I'll be honest, it's much more about the competition and it attracts people, um, brass bands from Norway, from France, um, and other places across Europe and Holland, I think, was the other one this year.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So that and that's an interesting element there. So it's obviously formed from a religious root, and and particularly a time when uh religion was the heart of the community, I suppose.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, because I think there's a very strong link there, um, especially from the working men's point of view, you would be at work during the week, um, you would probably have band practice in the evening. On Saturday, if you weren't required on the mines, you you would be doing whatever was going on, be it the school fate or the Christmas fate or something else like that. And then on the Sunday, you would all be in church. You know, everybody went. That that was what you did. Um, and whether the band was playing for the church or they they weren't, um, it's it's grown out of that. So if there was a March event or a competition event at the weekend, everybody would go, and it definitely wouldn't take place on a Sunday um because you'd be in church. And whether that's why these events take place on a Friday, I don't know. But I do know that even now the schools all close early. I mean, I can imagine trying to get my daughter out of school. So, oh yeah, we're going to a brass band competition. That wouldn't be a thing down down here in sunny Essex. Um, but up north, that the children are all there from four o'clock onwards, so most likely those schools have closed to let the children out early to watch what's going on.
SPEAKER_02Fascinating. And I mean, what when I asked you about the the sort of uh youth elements to them, where when did that start to come about out of interest? Do you know?
SPEAKER_01Oh no, I mean not with any sense of accuracy.
SPEAKER_02Um I don't worry, it's the internet, you can just say it now and everyone will go, oh that's true. Oh right, yeah, or look it up, yeah. Um okay, well that yeah. Uh really excited to just be talking about something that seems so authentically community music, um, basically, and actually sort of part of well, British culture anyway. Um so sort of fast forward to to now, where where is it at? I know I know like competitions, for example, are a big deal. Um, you know, I is is that alive and kicking or you talk about it?
SPEAKER_01I think it's I always want to give you two answers. I want to give you the if COVID had never happened answer, and I want to give you the reality. Now, the the if COVID had never happened or just before it, you know, I think it's very dependent on where you happen to be. And I think this is what will link in quite closely uh with your arts council, your music hubs, all everything that's going on in music education. Um, because where we are in Colchester, which is part of Essex, and up in Suffolk, um, I think the provision is quite good. Um, but what it what I say about the difference between up north and here and these um big bands in Yorkshire with all their training bands and their youth bands, um if you happen to have a band down here that is doing that work, then the opportunities are plentiful for children to learn from the very young age. As I mentioned earlier, my daughter plays in First Class Bross, which is a community band locally, um, and you can join that band from learning about five notes. You know, the lady who runs it, um, and she's done parts where you might just play one note or a long note in every bar. Um, but you can straight away, after seven or eight weeks maybe, feel like you're part of a band and you're playing that music. And there's no greater encouragement than being able to sort of go home and say, Oh, I can play happy, or I can play whatever it is that the children will recognise and your peers at school will recognise. Um, and I know just out on the Tendring Peninsula, there's the Tendring Brass Band, and they also have a community group and a youth band and all everything going on there. The same as you would find up north, they have an academy where they have a, I think it's one night a week where they're just open for all the different age groups. Um, but if you don't happen to have people doing that work in your community, then you I don't know where you would go. Uh perhaps it's just because I'm geographically I'm in this corner of the world, so I know what's happening around here and I know it happens up up north. But I speak to friends in other places who've got youngsters starting out and they're just not sure where to go. I think um one of the things, you know, how does this link in? Well, one of the things is where is the signposting? You know, where do you start? If a kid sees an instrument, they think, oh, I might like to have a go at that, where do they go? You know, your parent, the your parent these days is essentially lazy, so they want to just pick up their phone and write into Google uh cornet lessons or where can I learn the trumpet or whatever. Now we've got to be very careful at that point because you want to be able to catch that inquiry. Um, one of the things I do worry about is if that inquiry takes you to a music hub, um, which is how the arts council disseminates its funding now, um is there something there to grab somebody who's never picked the instrument up? Or does it say, join this ensemble, join this ensemble? But actually, you don't know, you might not be a musical parent. You don't know what any of those join brass ensemble. Well, do you necessarily know that the trumpet your child wants to play, which is plastic because that's what they've been given at school, is a brass ensemble. There's all this stuff that you don't necessarily uh we're within the industry, but we don't always see it from the point of view of somebody who's outside the history. And this is why I think what you're saying about the link between um the community and the grassroots music and the sort of education side, we've got to really make sure those links are there, and as you can see, I'm I'm quite passionate about it. I I never want somebody to get lost. How do you grab that interest? Now, from what I've found, people Within the brass band community could not be more excited about bringing young people on board. Um, friends of mine in brass bands, as I said, it's a lot of older people, but friends who acquire instruments from other people are always saying, and you'll see on Facebook, oh, I've got this cornet, or I've got this trombone. Does anyone know anyone who's interested? And you want to try and bring those people in, maybe show them how to um play the instrument, um, just try and grab their interest. Um, but it's it's it's a difficult thing to do. Um, I think children at the moment seem to have more opportunities than ever before. Um, but that equals more challenges and more sort of demands on their time. So even the young people that I say, oh, really glad you're interested, or how are you getting on with that cornet that you borrowed six weeks ago? Oh, yeah, they they love it. And you sort of think, well, what does love it mean? Does love it mean you want to come along to band for an hour every Friday evening? Or does love it mean you quite like that you can play happy birthday now every six months? And you it's all about the pathways, I think, and um that that can be a challenge, just getting people on that pathway and keeping them going. There's a lot of chat there.
SPEAKER_02Because that there's a real difference, or from what I'm picking up from our conversation, anyway, and I think this has been in the back of my head for a while, anyway. There's a real difference, isn't there, between a authentic music community, ensembles and groups that are real, and that uh musicians, be them young or old, feel that they're part of something beyond just the sounds that they make, and then there are those ensembles which feel like something that is there just to make a sound, I suppose. I know I know I know from my personal experiences as a musician, I think aside from the obvious, again, I just love making music and losing myself in sound. Actually, it is the the human element that is what is the sort of driving force. And again, to not wanting to overuse that term as well, it's those sort of authentic interactions, those music making situations that are being done for the love of it rather than anything else, I suppose.
SPEAKER_01I I think there's a huge amount in what you've just said, and the it reminds me of what I've said to our audiences since coming back to giving concerts this side of the pandemic. Um if you are a musician, um not just if you've trained for it your whole life, but if you go to a band instead of going to a bowls club or a nitna or whatever you might do, but the band is the thing that gives you your community time, your human time, you two use the expression that you use, then to not have that and to just have it taken away, and to never know if you were going to be allowed to play in an ensemble again. I mean, for me personally, because music has also been my career, that was terrifying. You know, that stripped the the life and soul out of you to the point that I became the best homeschooler and home cook that there was just to try and reinvent myself. Um that that that was difficult. I think human beings, generally speaking, want to be together. And so if you find people who enjoy the same passions as you, and that passion is making music, then you're on to a winner. Um my main band, which is um Boxtead Methodist Silver Band, that came obviously from a Methodist background, and it was a Wesleyan ensemble of clarinets, cornets, basses from about 1896 or so. Um, but it's in a village three miles north of Colchester, which doesn't have a post office anymore, doesn't have a pub, um, has lost all of this other stuff, but it still have a has a brass band, which next year is 125 years old. Now, there are members of the band, of course, that will tell you that.
SPEAKER_02So they are 125 years old.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, no, no, no, no, uh 89, I think, and 90 on Christmas Day is our oldest our tuber player job. Um, and you know, there are members of the band who will tell you that that is God's work because it's a Methodist band. Uh, and there are other members of the band whose arms I have to twist every time we have to go and do a Sunday service. So, you know, we all muck in together regardless of what our personal beliefs are. Um, but something has kept that group going all of that time through two world wars when there were only perhaps four or six members of the band left, um up to the present day. Um, when you know our membership at the moment goes from age 15 up to 89. Um, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_02All playing in the same band together.
SPEAKER_01All playing in the same band together. Yeah. Um, we did used to have a youth band as well, but there just hasn't been that there stopped being the uptake from the young people to take that. But fortunately, we work very closely with first class brass. It's our principal cornet player, Anne Raddock, is their conductor, so um we work closely with them. Um it's an amazing thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, so again, a present and sort of maybe taking a sneaky peek into the future, we can see that some of those original grassroots, authentic community music things are being maybe tested a bit because of COVID, and then I suppose what you're talking about with uh the responsibility relying with hubs, it's not the same as a a band that's been part of the community for 150 years, it's not so ingrained in society. So there's obviously those challenges there. Um, I'm interested to know yeah, what's what's going to happen, what maybe you think needs to happen, but also there's this element of brass band music that I've been sort of almost unconsciously listening to for a while now, which is like the the young blood brass band, and I've seen at a couple of festivals, like small brass band on souls quite often with a jazz drummer and that sort of thing. Seems to be bubbling up a little bit as well, doesn't it? This sort of different approach on it. Do you do you think that's gonna help? You know, is that a positive thing? Is that starting to come into the original British brass band sort of culture as well? Or a lot of questions there. Go for it, talk for an hour.
SPEAKER_01A huge amount of um what needs to happen now is continuing to engage the young people. Um, we all know what the many pressures are on our own uh lifestyles and never mind society, um, the cost of everything, how hard everybody has to work, etc. etc. So it becomes more difficult to get um adults to give up their time to engage with young people. Um, so that's one thing. There are also barriers to doing that, like um criminal disclosure, CRB checks. Of course, they're really, really important, but I couldn't take a brass band into a primary school to share an afternoon of music with them because my brass band wouldn't be DBS checked, and how long it would take to get them DBS checked beforehand, you know, that's really challenging. Um, for the Jubilee, we did play at um a couple of different school fates outdoors, um, but there's no interaction with the students, there's no way of um getting them really excited, up close, um, looking at these, of course, with COVID, you can't let them blow on your instruments anymore because that isn't safe, and all this kind of stuff. Um, so we really need to think about how we engage the young people and how we make um any musicians at all. But brass is great for kids because it's loud and it's shiny. So, how how can we get that into their um mindset? And I think one of the things that's been really, really good, and God bless the BBC at the ripe old age of 100, but uh strictly come dancing, you think that's a strange link. Okay, where does strictly come dancing link to brass bands? Well, they have used a c a couple of um pieces of music which for whatever reason are in the brass band canon that we would play every year at a Christmas at a fate, for example. Um, there's a piece called Amparita Roca, and you're thinking, what? And I'm telling you, it's a pasadoble, and that last year uh Tom, Fletcher, and Amy on Street Come Dancing danced their Pasadoblo to this piece called Amparita Roca. And brass band musicians up and down the country were going, Oh my gosh, it's Amperita Rocker. Because we're not used to seeing our culture on mainstream television. Now, if you can go into a primary school as we did then for the Jubilee shortly after that, and play that same piece of music, the children are going to recognise it. And if you have the opportunity as I did to speak to them and say, Oh, do you remember Tom and Amy when they did their Spanish dance and they wore their costumes? This is the piece of music, and they're gonna go, really? And listen, and you never know, they might recognise it, but they know what strictly come dancing is. So we have to um reconnect or connect our culture with cultural references today that those young people will understand, and then really just keep banging on the door to to find these roots in and to get them going. It is not easy because I'm doing it at at a grassroots level, at a volunteer level, um, trying to engage with young people, and there are there are those challenges there. I mean, never mind um the other challenges on their curriculum, the amount of maths, English, and so forth that they have to do. Um you've got to find a way to keep the music in there.
SPEAKER_02I'm sorry to be massively negative, but is there a reality that actually that kind of stuff, that kind of um completely community-led stuff is actually just going to disappear because of all these barriers and complications? I mean, you you mentioned at the beginning talking about parents and um you know the way that they look through the things that their kids can do or or the the complexities of a of a kid's diary. It's just it's just wild, isn't it? I mean I know that from running ensembles myself. It's like you know, you can't get upset if they don't come to your your whatever rehearsal because they've got a swimming competition and and then uh exams that they're being told, don't fail this because your life will be ruined, you know. So it's it's just all all these things coming together, and it does feel a little bit like, well, maybe this can this actually coexist? Can it?
SPEAKER_01Um that is definitely a horror story kind of question that I think we're very close to having to address. I think the counter to that is that you are talking about musicians. So you are talking about people who did feel like they'd had their right arm chopped off when Boris closed us down in March 2020, and who would do anything to ensure that that doesn't happen. Um, I've never met a musician who wasn't absolutely passionate about young people coming in to enjoy what we all enjoy, um, and would move heaven and earth to make that happen. So I think that working in music, you're with creative people, and as such, we will continue to find creative ways to work around that problem. Um I think uh when we had um Prince Philip's funeral on television and the musicians performed there, there was a huge amount of backlash immediately after that saying, Hey, if we'd have all done what we were supposed to do and retrained, you wouldn't have had those musicians. If we don't somehow invest in the young people learning music, this thing that people around the globe switch their televisions on to watch the pomp and circumstance of Britain, that will go because music is an inherent limb on the what makes this country what it is. I I don't think that we'll be prepared to let that go, any of us.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, just a perfect place to end. Thank you so much, Victoria, for the awesome chat.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it's really nice to see you, Chris.