from those conversations was the courage of the political leadership here. how they put their political career on the line to do the right thing in the end. i am really hopeful that can happen again. the sound of a brass band can be pretty rousing but one charity representing them says the number of community bands across the uk is falling. brass bands england has been working with young people to try to revive the tradition, and say it s paying off, with record numbers now taking part in competitions. steve knibbs reports. brass bands facing recruitment problems isn t really anything new, although the reasons are very different. here in 1962, the city of gloucester band told the bbc that it was the royal gloucestershire hussars, no less, that had poached its best players. why do you think your players have gone to the army band rather than stay with yours? well, it may be because they get paid for the rehearsals,
which are treated as parade. 61 years later, the flowers band in full rehearsal. currently the sixth best band in the world, according to the rankings, and ironically formed after the disbandment of the royal gloucestershire hussars. the band is thriving. but after the pandemic, others folded, while some bands lost huge numbers of musicians for very modern reasons. these days, children have all sorts of distractions, and they want instant gratification. they want to turn on a computer game and be an expert on a guitar or something like that or a game like that. so i think it s much harder work to take up a musical instrument and to stick with it and to persevere with it because the results take a long time to master. musicians say that brass bands are often misunderstood and the reality, and what keeps people playing, is very different.
The bouncing tunes of brass bands are intrinsic to getting any marriage procession going. Even as electronic disc jockeys have threatened to eclipse them in recent wedding seasons, three brass band musicians from Mumbai's East Indian community talk about the joy of ensemble performances, changing tastes, and the pandemic's harsh effect