Posted by Gary Swart on June 11, 2002 at 00:54:00:
In Reply to: townband revival posted by Good gigs on June 10, 2002 at 23:52:15:
That's great. I'm a long time community band musician too. You're right, we aren't all professional caliber, (actually none of us) but we make music, we enjoy ourselves, and we provide music for our community to enjoy. We had a concert tonight, and we bid farewell to a wonderful man who had 48 years in the band. He pointed out that there were three members present that had him beat. On the other end of the age bracket, we have several high school students. We have members who are retired, who are millionaires, who a hourly warehouse workers, housewifes, teachers, farmers, students, and office workers. That's what a community band is about. We do play fairly well, and we've travelled abroad twice in the last 6 years. I don't think we hold any claim to the oldest, or anything else, but we have been around for 85 or 90 years.
You know, lots of folks that frequent Sean's BBS are up and coming professional players who are concerned about who auditioned for this or that symphony opening. And that's fine. But most of us do not have that talent or direction. We play for fun. And I think there's more of us doing that than playing professionally. (But playing professionally should be fun too.)