Banding eh?

This is a story I’ve been thinking about committing to text for a while. The hesitation has been that the banding community where I live is quite small and pretty much everybody knows everybody. However, plenty of time has passed now, one of the main players has moved away, life has gone on and, as Pool Supervisor Keith Mandemant famously said, "no one died".

Last year, a few days after the areas, I left the band I was playing in. I'd had no plans to leave, it wasn't something that had been on my agenda. They were an enthusiastic and welcoming band who only rehearsed once a week which at the time I joined them worked well for me. We'd had a decent result at the contest and I was looking forward to our upcoming Spring Concert. I’d spent much of the day with our MD. We got on well, and I genuinely considered them a friend. They were relatively new in post and had taken over a solid band that had been built over a few years. Good, committed players who were almost always at rehearsal. There had been a couple of changes here and there which had caused a few conversations, but nothing particularly untoward.

Then, a few hours before our first rehearsal back, I got a text message from the MD. I had to read it twice before I really understood what it was saying. It started off explaining that they were looking to make further changes and that they’d had interest from an exceptionally capable horn player they were keen to bring in as principal. 'Fine' I remember thinking, but what's that got to do with me?

The second read through allowed that information to sink in properly. The horn player would only join if another member of their family came in, and that family member played bass trombone. I wasn't being asked for my thoughts on the situation. I was being told, by text message, that I was losing my seat and there wasn't anything I could do about it. There was a vague offer of perhaps, maybe playing second when the other second wasn’t there (a very capable player, by the way) but otherwise, I was surplus to requirements. A seat warmer. A contingency plan.

There are ways of doing things and that wasn't it.

People management matters in all walks of life, but in a movement which is struggling to survive at the moment there are surely better ways of addressing this. Yes I understand that having four trombone players, all of whom were strong at the level and capable of playing any part is a nice idea, but to do it in a text message with no discussion, no conversation was, lets say, an interesting creative choice.

The message asked me to think about the offer, but there wasn't really an offer to consider. It was an ultimatum which I rejected. I thought long and hard before responding - I'm not one for firing from the hip and as old as I am I still run tricky messages past my Dad first. So I was comfortable enough to respond politely declining the offer, and then sharing the news in the band chat. It was at this point the messages from band members and committee members came flooding in expressing shock and sympathy. I hold no grudge against anyone involved by the way as still consider them all friends.

At the same time, I was, and still am involved with a local concert band. They don’t contest, they play and have players of all levels including some who’ve competed in the Championship Section in other Regions. They have over 30 players when they are all there, and regularly get 25 players at rehearsals. No drama about numbers, no panic about seats. No politics. Just music.

It made me wonder why contesting bands make it so hard for themselves. I think that's for another blog though.

What’s desperately sad is that in the months that followed, the MD took the same approach with other players, some who had been there a very long time. These players left as I did and it also then caused other players to leave in protest. Eventually, the MD resigned and relocated, leaving the band with no MD and half a band gone (including the two who had unwittingly caused my departure and who, as it turned out, never had any intention of registering for the band in question) a matter of days before a contest. It was sad to see because the band members are lovely people who had worked hard to reach the level they were at. If a positive has come out of it, it's the doors it opened for their younger players to play. I wish them nothing but the best for the future.

Life is strange though and the unplanned departure couldn't have worked out better for me. The enforced break allowed me to focus on other things for a while and it was not very long before another band heard about my situation and asked if I could help them out. I ended up joining them full time in the autumn, played some amazing concerts over Christmas and claimed my maiden contest victory in March beating, among others, my old band and the player who replaced me.

None of this would have happened if not for the former MD and that unexpected text message. So if you’re reading this, thank you. You gave me the push I didn’t know I needed.