March 8, 2024 • 51 mins
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Welcome to another stimulating episode of Brassbannedcast. This episode is all about cherishing the vibrant world of brass bands and the colourful personalities that bring them to life. We meet Haylen, a skilled musician known widely in the band community for his enchanting euphonium prowess. From mischievous backstage tales to a chat about the charm and eccentricity of the band's uniforms, this episode is as much a journey through Haylen's memorable experiences as it is about the beautiful chaos of music itself.
Prepare to be enthralled as Haylen shares the adrenaline-filled narrative of his unexpected role as a drum major. From the electric anticipation caused by his ambitious mace throw to his notable performances on the national stage, his amusing tales unfurl against the backdrop of enthusiastic in-band camaraderie. The episode unfolds further, bringing forth Haylen's impressions on various roles within a band and amusing incidents which punctuate the band's performances, creating a vivid picture of the sector.
The episode continues to enthral with captivating reminiscence of past adventures. The rollercoaster that is national band performances, the thrill of an unexpected double tube play to the hilarious tale of a euphonium solo, this episode is filled with humor and a rich tapestry of experience that paints a broad and lively picture of the world of brass bands. The episode culminates with quick-fire questions focusing on our guests' favourite brass band pieces, enlightening the audience about the depth and breadth of their musical interests.
Unfold the complexities of a musician's life in this engaging episode that beautifully encapsulates the trials, excitement, and triumphs of band practices and performances. With fascinating real-life stories from concerts, auditions, and rehearsals, we take you backstage into a perfectly harmonious chaos. Join us as we delve into tales of bandmate camaraderie, cheerful contests, and the binding sense of family that inevitably forms in every band.
This enthralling episode concludes with heartwarming stories of balancing personal life with music, the joys of adopting 'extra babies' during lockdowns, and an impish dream of becoming a drum major. In an exciting, inspiring, and utterly entertaining ride filled with pure love for all things brass, this is one musical journey you wouldn't want to miss.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, loyal viewers. Hello, loyal listeners. Welcome to Brass Bandcast.
This is the podcast about love, life, music, food, drink, bands, and performance art.
Tonight, because it's evening- Are we doing that? It's like that,
you know, the game where you add the vegetables in primary school?
You're doing that. You keep adding more. And cucumbers. You've got to take some away, Tim. Anyway.
(00:23):
Anyway. Yay. Hi, Robyn. How are you?
I'm good. Tim's very tired. But, Robyn, you look very bubbly, full of energy.
Oh, I have been at the pub. No, I just had one drink at the pub. I was at Trivia tonight.
It's my night off band rehearsal, so hanging out, music, Trivia.
I don't know any of the questions.
Someone's like, I thought you were a musician. Like, I don't know anything about,
(00:46):
I don't know. So there were no euphonium questions tonight at the pub.
There were no euphonium questions. Unexpected.
There's nothing about even like, I don't know, like hymns, Welsh choirs.
I don't know. I know lots of them, but didn't know any answers.
But we have Halen here tonight. Hello.
Hi, Halen. Welcome. Hi, Tim.
(01:06):
Welcome, Halen. Now, Halen was in the waiting room, the Zoom waiting room.
Tim and I were just chatting. I didn't realize there was a Zoom waiting room.
Where's our special guest? I was like, where's Halen? What's going on?
But now you're here, and it's wonderful to have you joining us. Yes, he's come along.
It's a bit awkward on Zoom. Haylen is not in Victoria.
(01:29):
We need more non-Victorian people. It's true. So I'm like, I know this guy and
he's awesome. It is, and it's quite cold today in Victoria.
And, Haylen, you were mentioning that it's quite warm where you are and cold
is no longer a part of your life.
Yeah, no. Tell us about where you are. Well, I moved to somewhere slightly warmer.
From Burundara Band, I decided, you know what, What, Cairns Brass has a nice ring to it.
(01:53):
And I ended up here, up in Far North Queensland.
And yeah, there's just no such thing as a winter.
Like we call it winter, but for us, winter is like, oh my God,
it just dropped below 20 degrees at night.
I've got to find a woody. Right now is the hottest time of year.
Yeah, it's hard because wearing a polo shirt is extreme.
(02:16):
It's extreme. Oh, yeah. My sympathy levels are so low, so low.
But, Halen, it's lovely to meet you, Halen.
How long ago were you playing with Burundara and how long ago did you move up
to Cairns? Look, I left Melbourne in 2019.
(02:36):
So, yes, I was playing with Burundara. Good timing, good timing.
Through those years and then it was immaculate. I ended up, yeah,
in January 2020 and I've been playing with Cairns Brass since then.
As much as we all have been playing music since 2020. Wonderful.
And did you know anyone in Cairns, Bruss, before you went up and joined or you
(02:59):
just sort of, I'm in Cairns now, I'm going to go and say g'day to the band?
Well, not specifically as such. You see, I've done so many. I was playing with
a Navy band full-time on Euphonium up until 2020.
So I found myself in my first couple of years with the Navy,
I did like a dozen trips to Cairns in a couple of years.
Years so over 12 years
(03:21):
13 years of navy i did so many trips
to cans and i when we're when we're
there on band night you drop up to band you did yeah say hello and so yeah i
kind of knew a few people yeah beautiful you know just from those trips yeah
yeah i'd love to know how you got into playing euphonium like how did it all
start off for you is euphonium your main instrument or a bit of a whatever the brass is, you blow it.
(03:45):
Well, that in itself is a story because, you see, I was moving around schools
a lot when I was younger, in primary school.
And then I got to high school and my parents had bought a home.
So, I decided I want to do music.
So, there was music at school. I went up to the school music teacher and said, I want to play violin.
(04:10):
In i said we don't have
violins but here is a euphonium
oh lovely and i got my yeah i got my first le fleur euphonium and yeah that
was just a special moment and i rode home and i put the euphonium on my handlebars
of my bicycle did you have a case or just like a euphonium old wooden Oh,
(04:34):
beautiful, yeah. With a plastic handle.
Yeah, I didn't realize how precarious that was at the time, but yeah,
I rode my bicycle home. Yeah.
Quite a few, I don't know, about a K and a half, and then half Ks.
It's pretty much all downhill on the way to school.
And then, yeah, I mean, I played school brass band.
I joined Southern Shire Silver Band.
(04:55):
I progressed from Moeller Fleur to Boozey and Hawks. And then when I went to
high school, I discovered it.
Trombone is probably where, you know, a future might be.
So I was in about year 10, year 11. I was year 11 when I started picking up the trombone.
(05:17):
And I was obviously playing euphonium. For sure.
But I was, yeah, that's where I picked up trombone. And then 2006 was when I
got the job with Navy on euphonium. Cool.
So for those years, from 95 to 2005, there was like no euphonium.
(05:41):
And then, yeah, I'd given it away. It was like it didn't exist.
I was like, yes, I'm a trombone player. That never happened.
Yeah, trombone for life. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then one of my best friends, Marcus, was playing.
He got a job with the Navy. He was playing with the Navy, soprano player,
(06:01):
well-known, and we were great buddies.
And I went to visit him at work one day on Friday afternoon drinks,
and his boss was like, hey, Marcus Tisbury, you used to play euphonium.
I'm like, yeah, used to play. That was a while ago. She says, we've got an opening.
You should audition. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What I'm hearing is you were headhunted
(06:22):
specifically as a euphonium player. Not quite. Oh.
Yeah, I thought the premium jobs in the Navy were quite difficult to get.
Are they not quite difficult? Depends how good you are, doesn't it?
You have to audition. And you have to do push-ups, right? That's quite hard.
That's hard to do the audition. That's a force of security.
You pass the audition first and then you think, yeah.
(06:45):
Then you have to pass the push-ups, sit-ups, and all the rest of it.
And like running and getting up early and stuff?
Yeah. I do that already. Oh, okay, okay, okay. That's fine. Understandable.
Oh, so you came back? Came back to the euphonium after. Back to the euphonium after a decade.
(07:07):
And in that decade, were you playing with community bands or playing trombone,
playing music around the place?
I was basically avoiding brass bands that knew me euphonium-wise and I was trying to do trombone.
So basically I played with Gunnedah on bass trombone for a few years.
I played with Holroyd first on principal trombone and then on bass trombone.
(07:30):
So, yeah, I was doing the rounds of the Sydney Brass Bands.
I've played in most of the uniforms of Sydney Brass Bands.
Which uniform was your favourite, just fashion-wise?
Fashion-wise? Wow. That is a very tough decision.
It is. So many great fashion-wise. You can give top three. Top three.
(07:54):
That's all right. That's like your favourite cask wine.
It's tough, isn't it? There's so many good ones. Yeah. Yeah,
look, the bottle green Bankstown band was like, when I first saw that,
there was like a system shock, which was pretty ignited.
There was the moment where a friend was reminding me about this concert we did
(08:19):
in Canberra, and I was like, are you telling me that I've actually worn a Willoughby uniform?
I don't remember that. and you know
i've played with so many bands like so many
bands so many fashions it's it's tough do you ever just
like see photos of yourself and you're like oh i must
have been there that must that must be me must have sounded great yeah yeah
(08:41):
every time i go to a band contest and like marcus pulls up photos yeah or i
meet somebody from whole road they're like do you remember 97 when we did this
and i'm like no i have no recollection and if i don't remember it didn't happen
it didn't It didn't happen, does it? It didn't happen.
Speaking of things you remember from the past, what was your first Nationals?
(09:03):
What was that? Do you remember? Oh, geez. It was definitely in the 90s. Yeah.
It was in Newcastle. Beautiful. I was playing with Sutherland Band. Mm-hmm. And it was...
I actually know though, it was probably nationals before that one.
Okay. In juniors. But the one I remember was when, our first one in seniors,
(09:25):
in fact, because suddenly it was like a big step up.
And before that, we were one of the three junior A grade bands. Yep.
There was Willoughby, Warringah and Southerland Shire. Yep.
Three junior bands playing in A grade for every nationals, every states.
And there was the same picking order for all those years. Really?
(09:48):
You know, because- Didn't change.
Always Willoughby at first and then Warringah and Sutherland taking turns at
playing second and third.
Yeah, yeah. And there'd be the after party, the juniors after party.
It was always, you know, Warringah and Sutherland.
And Willoughby was kind of not part of our little, you know- Not part of the clique. I think.
(10:09):
No, no. Because we were all just, you know, happy to just be whatever,
You know, first, second, second, third, doesn't matter, whatever.
It can be lonely at the top. It can be lonely at the top, I've heard. Yeah.
But, you know, having said that, I have worn the Willoughby uniform, so.
They're like a red, aren't they? Do they have a bow tie? It's a burgundy.
(10:30):
It's a burgundy. Oh, okay.
And I think at these nationals they've got bands in the C grade and the A grade, I'm pretty sure.
Dominic Longhurst conducting. That's nice. Yes. Yes, fine musician. Yes.
So, yeah, but Cairns is a quite electric green, isn't it? They have a vest.
It's a vest, isn't it? Oh, it is.
(10:51):
Electric lime. It's like an electric lime. Oh, it is really intense. Yeah, cool.
Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Like when they introduced the polo t-shirts,
I was like, oh, it's black.
And then there was this piping, little stripes, which were even more iridescent. I could not believe it.
I thought there's a bandage that I could wear out. Yeah, absolutely.
(11:12):
I could wear that to the pub. And then I saw the like extremely iridescent striping.
And you thought, forget the pub, we're going straight to the club.
Take it all the way. Neon. That's, yeah.
And it's like a safety vest on a motorcycle or something.
It's so standout. I know Burundera is redoing our uniform this year and they've
got like a colour pack. They're like, which is the orange, the shade of orange?
(11:35):
You know, you could get in. People into colors, they're like hex codes,
pantones. And we had this like color palette and everyone's like,
the brightest one. Yeah.
Pick the absolute most like offensive to your eyes orange you can. No.
Subtle. Subtle. So someone did that at Cairns. They would have had the palette
and gone, what's the brightest? What's the greenest?
Yeah, yeah. I want the greenest. Put that palette. The greenest green.
(11:57):
I'll do like a whole suit.
Like make the whole suit that color so people don't tile it down.
It's great. It's great because you want to be a band, you want to be recognised,
you want to be seen, and it is hard getting uniforms together, isn't it, Robin?
But you also want to be proud. Of the green. Be proud of your line. Yeah.
(12:19):
You're very recognisable. I like it. We are. But, I mean, yeah.
At a Brass Band contest, that's where there's like almost no shame. You're like, yeah.
Almost no shame at a Brass Band contest. I like that. Almost. Almost. Yeah.
Until you go to the cafe down the road, you know, and it's like Pitt Street
in Sydney, and you're like, I'm just going to leave the jacket on because I'm cold.
(12:41):
Yeah. Even though it's got these stripes.
Have you ever worn like a hat, like a band hat in a community band?
Yes. Yes. I've worn a few. Yeah. Yes.
The range Wow Mostly the You know The white How would you call it The white vinyl With the pie being,
(13:04):
Yeah It's cool I love it We've all Oh that's for the Navy right Do they The
Navy wear the like Navy hats Everybody has The police The worst The worst I
had When I was How old was I I don't know how old I was It was my,
Oh 17, 18 When I was playing For Army Reserve reserve vans, and they had a pith
(13:24):
helmet, just like a British police officer hat with this gold spike.
Oh, wow. Yeah. Gold spike and everything. That's so cool. It was unbelievable.
That is so cool. And it was like, it had these trailing wreaths of everything.
It was just gold buttons that you had to put in individually.
It was insane uniform. So good.
(13:47):
Have you ever drum majored? Have you ever drum majored, like,
out the front with a mace?
Just once. And funny enough, yes. Why just once? Why not more?
Yeah. Well, see, it wasn't supposed to happen in the first place.
How much notice did you have? Yeah, tell the story. Story time.
Yeah, we like story time. Story time with Halen. Let's go.
(14:09):
Look, it was the Nationals. It was Sydney, my hometown. Everything was awesome.
I'm playing with Bankstown Band and...
Our good friend, Marcus Soma. So we had two friends, Marcus's.
Oh, I was like, you already told us about Marcus. You got two friends. That's very confusing.
Okay. So Marcus Soma was supposed to be the drum major for this event.
(14:31):
And what happened is the committee looked at me and looked at Marcus and we kind of looked similar.
And I kind of got a little confused somewhere along the line.
And so my name was put down officially to
the band association as drum major so i'm
the conductor of the junior band not the
(14:53):
drum major and so we got like i don't even know it would have been two or three
days out and and so i had like that one reversal you know remember that those
days we had to dress the band yeah okay you still do yeah report the band and
all that. Things in the eyes of right stuff. Yeah.
(15:13):
And so I had to like memorize my script.
And then it was the day of the contest before I ever knew.
Now, there was a couple of things that had to my advantage because me and Marcus
had spoken about the whole drum majoring. That helps. A bit of context.
I played with the drum major staff a few times. Did you throw it?
(15:35):
My biggest dream was to throw it. Yes. I wanted to do something fancy.
That is the coolest thing. That's like my dream.
Oh, yeah. It's like, yeah.
So, you know, I was like in the playground just practicing with his grass. Yeah, absolutely.
Throw it up and I'd be like two hands chasing it trying to catch it.
(15:55):
Did it have like a metal end with a spike on the end?
Oh, yeah. That's why you need the helmet.
That's why. Why? But on the day, it's crowds of people.
You're on major streets of Sydney. Absolutely.
So there's a lot of pressure. You're not going to try anything crazy.
(16:17):
At the same time- You could be a hero. I'm thinking- You could be a hero.
There's nothing to lose.
There's only one chance. There is a lot to lose. There's people's eyes to lose. Is there not?
No. Yeah, but I had a plan. Public liability. I had a plan. No.
See, in my mind, this plan was awesome. I love it. Tell me. In my mind.
(16:39):
So, I thought to myself, the band's going to do the wheel.
Yeah. Now, it takes the time for the band to do the wheel.
So if I just march ahead while they're doing that, put some space between me
and the band. Safety first.
I'm going to have a go at this throwing of the stick fit while there's a clearance, right?
(17:01):
That's a great idea. That was in my mind. I thought it was great,
except for I was stepping out, getting my clearance, throwing the stick up.
It's up in the air. It's up. I can see it. I can see it.
Time is slowing I'm there with you And I'm thinking Oh my god,
There's like two breaths And my hand is going up And then My hand is going up
(17:23):
And I notice The band is coming up Behind me They think that They have to keep
The five paces They're going to chase you They're going to chase you They're
looking after you Yeah At the same time As that's happening,
The mace isn't going You know Forward with me So I have to step short Because
it's pretty much Going to land Where I'm standing Yeah yeah So I'm not marching anywhere.
(17:47):
I'm marking time. The band's coming up behind me. They're catching up.
And I'm just, now I'm like trying to concentrate in two directions.
Oh, wow. My hand goes up. Slow motion. And it's that moment where you're like, I can't see anymore.
You don't need to. I have to hope. Just believe. Just hope. Believe in the mace.
When it hits your hand and you close around it, I'm like.
(18:13):
I'm waving that thing everywhere. Like, oh my God. I was so fucking happy that
I caught it. The band was right behind me.
I'm pretty sure there's a drama section there that's put their dramas down like,
oh, my God, it's lost. I can't believe you've only drummated once.
Why just once? I want to see more of this.
There was plenty of fear in that moment. I learnt my lesson.
(18:36):
I hear joy. I hear excitement. I think it sounds fantastic.
Yeah, what a story. That wasn't my sign. Hey.
Quit when you're ahead. My goodness. You can't beat that story.
So, like, do you have a favourite between drum majoring, conducting,
playing trombone, playing bass trombone, playing euphonium?
(18:57):
What's your favourite thing to do in a band?
Oh, look. Treasurer. Ooh, that's tough. Secretary.
Nah, nah, nah, nah. Kick me off the committee. Oh, my goodness.
I have loved everything playing-wise. Yep.
I have enjoyed my conducting of junior bands.
Especially getting kids you know they're fresh but I must say my favourite performance moment like,
(19:25):
over all those years was 2018 Nationals Melbourne Cup,
And it was not an euphonium or trombone. Yeah, you played percussion, right?
Did you drop something? Yeah. No, you didn't drop something.
Oh, you did drop something? Yes.
This is why I got this story. Yeah, because we had three euphoniums.
(19:45):
So Haylen could have, you had to play percussion, right?
I was offered.
And I was like, yeah, can you play euphonium for one song, for one of the tracks?
I'm like, yeah, sure. Sure.
And next rehearsal, I'll rock up.
Cool. So which euphonium am I playing and what do you want to play percussion for?
(20:10):
So it's the A grade nationals, Melbourne.
2018, can you play percussion for the Tespies? Time machine.
I'm thinking that sounds really intense as a percussion. Percussion,
I was thinking March, Hymn, maybe for their own choice.
(20:32):
Because, you know, their own choice is, yeah, little ting.
It's going to, you know, yeah, it's fun. A bit of fun. Time Machine?
Classic bait and switch, hey? Like, come play euphony. Percussion, yeah.
So how is this your favorite thing? Tell us why it's your favorite.
Keep going. Tell me the best bit of the story.
Well, no, no. Before I get to the best bit, I want to tell you.
The reason why it's my favorite is because, you know, I've done so many nationals.
(20:57):
I played my various instruments.
At this stage, I was playing euphonium every day.
And so I was now finally absolutely challenged as a musician in a completely different way.
I went from nothing to playing at A grade national standard.
(21:17):
Tubular bells. Huge. That is insane. That really is.
And on the day, on the day, I'm so glad that that was one of the bits that I nailed.
Now, I mean, the journey was, you know, one of growth.
I mean, you get to the week out, you know, one week from nationals and you realize that the,
(21:38):
The tom-tom part you were playing with two toms is actually three toms.
Wow. The tom-tom-tom. Oh.
Oh, no. Hang on a second. That means I have to cross-stick. Is it different?
Is a percussion section, is it feel different in terms of camaraderie in a percussion
section to like a brass section?
I feel like everyone's running around in a bit of chaos, panic.
(22:00):
Like you've got each other's backs, yeah?
See, in the brass section, you're just passing to each other.
In the percussion section, you're flying past in your socks and you've got to
grab these mallets, right?
It's like a relay. It's like a relay. Yeah. And then you've got to put these
mallets in a particular order on a tiny little table and then run past and grab
(22:22):
a different pair of mallets which somebody else has just placed in that particular
order and grab them as you perfectly time the next stroke on the next instrument.
And if one of you puts them in the wrong place, you're screwed.
It's like performance art. It really is performance art.
It is. I feel like synchronised swimming at the Olympics, you could just have
like percussion section changeovers.
(22:43):
Absolutely. Wow. Degree of difficulty. Timpani are over here now.
And by the way, here's the third time. Go.
So I have to tell you this.
This bit is probably my favourite bit of banding and probably my most amusing
bit of banding. These tubes.
(23:03):
Flexi-tube. And when you swirl them, you have this wind sound, yeah?
Yeah, the whirlies. Whirly, whirlies. Whirly, whirlies. Yeah,
swirly, whirlies. Yeah. Yeah, whirly, whirlies. Whirly, whirlies. Yeah.
Yeah. But see, in a band room, you try swinging those things around,
smack, and every now and again you may hit something.
(23:23):
So I was trying to do it with two, except I kept hitting something.
I mean, like there wasn't a rehearsal where I actually did not hit something.
And so that hits something like a cymbal or xylophone or things that make noise.
(23:44):
Chomp, chomp, xylophone, tim, tim, you name it.
And just for context, because people will be listening, so people can get a
good visual idea of what was going on.
Were you standing with your arms above your head twirling sort of that way or
was it by your side twirling more vertical? What's going on?
You see, you've got instruments in front of you and instruments behind you.
(24:07):
So you've got to be careful whatever you do. And so if you're going above your
head, you tend to sort of helicopter down on an angle and then you can't go
further up because you've only got ceiling above you.
If you're doing it next to you, you've got a very narrow window either side.
So you've got to stay in your little lane.
(24:29):
Stay in your lane, yeah. So you've got to stay, yeah, you've got like a metre
and a half and you've got to try and keep it in this middle.
It's like the impossible task And they do what they want. Once you start,
you can't stop it in a hurry.
And so I found myself learning the dynamics of this instrument over a very long period of weeks.
(24:49):
I thought I was getting close, closer and closer to getting this,
but the last rehearsal, and I'm talking now, we're at the contest.
There's a band from, I don't know what state, waiting outside the Borough Air Band Hall.
And so I'm like, okay, I've got this now found a little mind, a little gap.
(25:11):
I've moved the Tom Tom's a little bit and I'm like, and then as I start winding
up, I get really confident and the wearing sounds going up and yes, I've got this.
But then I just, I just see that I've just like, wow.
Picked a little bit of the rim of the tom-tom. No noise. Fine.
Cool. Just take a step back, Alan. Just take a step back. Yeah,
you got this. You got this.
(25:32):
Except I took a step back into the Tantrum.
So there's a big frame and this
sound of this gong crashing was just too much. The band was like gone.
There was people crying with laughter.
The conductor, he's trying.
(25:52):
Look, he was literally trying his best. He was trying to conduct.
But the sections, one by one, crumbled. I'm trying to pick it up.
As you do. The more I try, the more it's ringing. I'm picking it up,
and it's like, it's ringing.
It's ringing. I should have left it on that floor. No.
No. No. Just a rep. The band, that was it. It just crumbled.
(26:17):
It was musically, you'd love to have heard it. It's a recording.
It just makes me wonder if there's a recording around somewhere that we can release alongside the.
No, but so this wasn't the concept. This was the, so in the gig,
you didn't hit anything because there's more space on the stage, right?
That, no, that's even more entertaining because I got to the gig and I stepped
(26:42):
on stage and I was like, yes, thank you.
Because behind the band was the cushion section. And behind the percussion section,
there were these tiers of stages that were empty.
So I knew that I had plenty of room. So what I did on the day in the national
contest is I walked in my socks and grabbed those tubes. I walked two stages back.
(27:06):
I was not going to hit anything. And I grabbed my arms. I was like,
I'm going to go hell for leather. And I just swung my arms as big as I could.
I just went absolutely hell for leather.
A lot of the other percussionists, they used one tube. No, me.
No. Two stages back, two tubes. Wow. Just going like this.
But the thing is, I failed to mention to any of my friends who knew me as a
(27:28):
euphonia player that I was actually playing percussion.
So there I was, my friends like- Marcus and Marcus? Marcus and Marcus. Yeah.
Yeah, Marcus, Jason Katsakaris.
They're all watching online the national contest, and then out of nowhere,
the camera decides to zoom. She does percussionist at the back.
(27:49):
Are we zooming in on the percussion doing weird stuff, Tim? Yeah. Exactly.
And, of course, Marcus and Matt are absolutely loving it. They're like, what?
Hell's my percussion? What's going on?
It was my drowning moment, really. That's magical. I actually really got so
(28:10):
much joy out of that moment. Yeah. So much.
The rest of the contest, you know what? I can't remember what I played.
Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Have you played the Whirlies again since, or is that...?
You played them, you put them down. Thought about them. Had a few dreams about them, but no. Yeah.
That's about it. Maybe in your future, the Whirlies will return. Oh, no.
(28:32):
Your phony section's pretty solid. Trauma section's pretty solid.
But the percussion section in Cairns Grass is pretty good.
So I think I'll step back and just keep that a little secret.
Actually, yeah, I noticed that. Yeah, we were on, Dan and I were on after Cairns
at the last Nationals, And we were sitting in that back going,
(28:52):
oh, these guys are really good.
Like you can hear when they're like, I don't know, they're very tight on the
stair with their march. I was like, oh.
It's quite intimidating, isn't it? Because you're waiting, the wings,
the percussion waits and I can hear the band before you.
And I remember thinking you were very nice and had very nice vests.
And I'm like, oh, it's Haylin. I didn't know you moved to Cairns.
(29:13):
Yeah. Sorry, Tim. I'm like, how did you?
I was going to say, I wonder if there's like a solo for like whirlies and band.
I wonder what you could do with that.
Because is it true that, like, you can get different pitches,
like the different harmonics, the faster you swing it, you can go.
You go faster and they go up, like a brass harmonic, right? And then you can get them in the pitches.
They're not in very many charts. I feel like it would be a really cool solo
(29:36):
to come out and play whirlies with band.
You need a lot of tubes, though. Yeah, but, like, when you get the things with
the hand bells where you pick up the different bell to play from,
now you can have different whirlies to go between. Yeah.
It would be cool. I'm sure there will be some. Let's look on YouTube.
Someone can look on YouTube, send us a.
Well, yeah, someone else can look on YouTube and tell us. Yeah,
there you go. An actual rally. Yeah. Loyal listeners.
(29:59):
Man, what a story. All right. Well, we skipped our structure.
Oh, sorry, everyone. We have a structure. We had the own choice before the hymn.
We were going to reflect on our. Wait, so we released a podcast only on Monday,
and Tim and I were saying, oh, there won't be much to reflect on in three days.
But so much has happened in three days. So much has happened.
(30:20):
We're both like, oh, my God. It's been chaotic.
Oh, my goodness. It's prep for nationals for everybody. It's prep for nationals.
Well, it's actually, I've heard there's some, Robin, I don't want to like,
you know, steal your thunder, but I'm going to anyway.
I hear that there's big, big drama in the euphonium section.
With Bura and Dara, I hear that there might have been a bit of sabotage going on.
(30:43):
A bit of sabotage. Do you want to enlighten us? All right.
All right, principal euphonium of Berendara Brass, B-grade defending champions,
national and state champions, principal euphonium, the backbone of our band,
Doug Lewis has suffered an accident that has damaged his arm, his left arm. No.
He's still able to play, but I don't know. Only three buttons.
(31:04):
Was he pushed? Was he pushed? So he's got a broken arm? Left. Broken, broken?
I think it's, I don't know. I didn't ask. Is that terrible? Anyway,
he can't wiggle his arm, but he can use his right hand so he can still use his
vowels, but he's got one of those fancy euphoniums that moves the tuning slide
and he can't put his newt in and out.
(31:27):
He's chucked a philippa, as we like to say in Victoria.
Philippa has often broken her arm and had to conduct a band with only one arm,
but harder to play the euphonium with only one arm. So, Robyn,
does that mean that you're in now? Are you taking over?
I have to. Now I have to play bumper third euphonium.
I was trying to get out of it. I have to go to too many rehearsals and then
(31:50):
practice and stuff. So now I actually have to practice.
You know what you could do? You could fly somebody from Cairns to actually do
the tuning slide and put them in.
Yep, cool. He just needs, I don't think that, like, I think you'd have to be
registered to go on stage and be like, you know, like a patron of a piano,
put Doug's music in and out. But I'm not playing an instrument, am I?
(32:13):
I know. Am I playing percussion? Am I playing trombone? Am I playing, I'm not.
You're not coming to nationals this year. Stagehand. Stagehand, available. I know.
Yeah. We could have got you in. Yeah. That's a great solution. I like that. Yeah.
Big goss. We all love Hayden. A lot's happened in the last couple of days,
Robin. It's, yeah, huge news. Big goss.
(32:33):
And I was like, yeah, somebody sabotaged Doug and made him, and my husband's
like, maybe it was you, Robin, so that you'd get to go and play bumper third
euphonium. Yeah. It's like, oh, my God.
Everyone's been saying that. Everyone's been saying that. How did that arm get hurt?
Robin pushed him over. No. How did you get that euphonium solo?
(32:55):
And he gave me full permission i was like doug do you mind if i
talk about your poor injury on the podcast for content he's
like lol yeah go ahead i have that in writing from doug
he's just a lovely guy isn't he so he's he's too lovely poor doug poor doug
i hope your arm's feeling better soon doug because we care about you we care
about you doug and we hope you're okay you're not just amusing content for us
(33:16):
and then you can't play the bassoon you actually do need two hands Fenceball, do you?
I don't know much about the Fenceball. Because Doug also plays the bassoon with the Knox Winston.
He also plays the bassoon with the Knox Winston. Just the context for everyone
listening. That's why we're talking about the bassoon. That would definitely be a two-hands.
It's like, why are people falling over two weeks before Nationals?
That shouldn't be allowed.
(33:37):
That's why there's like the emergency permits or whatever those things are for
when something goes wrong and you can get a helper. The helper.
Well, luckily the permits weren't on Friday. Can you get an emergency permit from your own band?
Yeah, I was just on the list. So I am actually already registered with Burundi
because I could just play with them.
So I could just go and do it. I just didn't want to go to the rehearsals.
That's not even wasting your emergency permit.
(33:58):
You could actually. No, yeah, they probably could have got one.
Robin, you could push someone else over. Are you saying?
You could push someone else over, Robin, if someone can't play their part.
You could just get there and be like, oh, whoops.
Watch out, Burundi. You need a percussion player? Watch out.
Yeah, Halen really wants to calm down. Guys, if you need an emergency permit
and you want to find out from Cairns, we could pimp him out.
(34:20):
Totally. Can we take a cut? Yep. Done. Sweet. Totally available.
So why is Cairns not going? Is it a bit far?
Oh, look, we had actually arranged a group booking for flights and just basically
changed their mind. They reneged on it.
(34:40):
Yeah, they're like, oh, the court's out of date. Here's the new court.
And it jumped up like astronomically and so it was just not good and then you
try to look for different dates and all the rest of it.
It just wasn't going to happen. I should have sent that to the media.
That could have been my current affair. We are the media.
(35:03):
We're all struggling with it. We're all struggling with the costs of.
And I'd just like to say we see cans come down to like different competitions
and know it's a long travel, like wherever the contest is, always really appreciate
the bands that travel a long way and recognise it is a really big cost sometimes to come.
(35:23):
When you see the bands from Western Australia coming across the east coast or
the bands from up north coming down south, it's a big commitment and it's really
great to see the bands play and perform when they can make it.
So, yeah, good on you, Cairns. I do have something to say about Cairns,
Bryce, and it's a culture thing. And so my first culture shift from brass banding
(35:44):
was when I went to Gunnedah Band.
And back then we were playing in C grade, I think it was.
But I'd play with like A grade brass bands my whole life as a young musician.
And I was playing in orchestras and doing all the rest of the commercial gigs.
Now, at Cairns, the minimum attendance is like around the mid-80s, 80%.
(36:13):
Most rehearsals, everybody's there. Yep. Everybody.
Like you've got a full section everywhere around you.
And that's like through the quiet months when there's nothing going on,
there's no concert coming up, every single day. Everyone's there.
That's wonderful. That's an annual percentage. So what you find is,
yeah, that there's this commitment.
(36:35):
So things like going to nationals or doing something what the band is actually
about, people are actually really committed because they've rocked up every
single day for a year to do these things. Yeah.
And that's what you love about Cairns. Like, yeah, people who have been up here,
when you see that they've come to a contest, know that there's way more commitment
(36:58):
than any of those cine bands that I've played with or anything.
Like, the commitment has been, yeah, solid, really solid.
Everyone's putting in solid effort week in, week out.
And then, yeah. Yeah, I really appreciate it.
I love hearing Cairns. I love hearing Cairns on stage. It's great.
(37:20):
Look forward to it. Great work ethic. Yeah.
It is really, really nice to be in a band where everyone's committing to being
there and to playing their best and to making something special,
which is such a different mindset to someone who's sort of rocking up to band
and the band's lucky to have me because I'm very busy and important and it's
like, you know, it's a different, If you get the right community vibe in,
(37:40):
it's such a wonderful, special thing.
Go Cairns. Go Cairns. I definitely agree with that. I love it.
When I first got up here, I decided no euphonium.
What's your issue with giving? You have some weird love-hate thing with the
euphonium. What's up with that?
Yeah. No, you're right. You're right. I do.
You're visual. Why do you keep giving it up? Euphonium's awesome.
(38:02):
You should play it forever. I love the sound of trombone.
Trombone's a cool. It's a tough choice. It's a tough choice.
Well, we all have that. Have you ever tried a cornup?
Yes Tenorhorn No Oh no I've tried Tenorhorn There's a whole story there There's
probably a whole podcast on it Yeah Marcus,
Marcus probably has a recording That would go with it And so we will have to
(38:24):
leave it There We'll leave it there Okay We'll leave that out Post in the comments Thanks Marcus,
This is going back to the 90s This recording Oh my goodness Okay Now I think
I think Robin We've got some questions Do we have quick fire questions?
Yeah We better move on to questions Tim's really tired it
well it's earlier
(38:46):
for halen there's a time difference i was like oh can we
do seven before rehearsal and it's like that's like 6
p.m for me that's too early so oh my
questions oh well i always have to i have to unlock my phone well the questions
we've talked about uniforms already uniforms oh i sometimes edit things we heavily
have you ever played halen this is probably a silly question because i bet you
(39:09):
have have you ever played year of the dragon and how many times,
my goodness it was like how many times year of the dragon was my favorite brass
band piece ever was was what what changed what is it now is it not anymore.
Oh it's tough call see i'd like to say it still is but i played it like all
(39:33):
through my youth in brass bands.
Yeah. All through uni, growing up, in all the concert bands I played.
And then I played it with Navy a few times.
Played it, yeah, in my later years. Yeah, I played it, I don't even know how
many times. Year of the Dragon. What, like more than 20?
I would say around, that's pretty close. Yeah, around 20 times.
(39:55):
Oh, yeah. That'd be close.
A lot of Dragon. And I played on bass trombone and euphonium.
And euphonium brass band and euphonium concert band. and bass trombone in both as well.
So, yeah, I played it quite a lot.
And I was born in Year of the Dragon. Hey.
We could work out your age based on that. Written for you.
(40:17):
So, yeah. Love Year of the Dragon. What a piece. It is the Year of the Dragon this year.
So, in my audition for the Navy, I had to do some side reading in bass clef.
Being a treble clef euphonium player I was like okay I could do this and start
reading it one of the side pieces is,
(40:38):
I'm not going to sing it for you, but I was like, this is a beautiful soaring line. What is it?
And then as I get about four notes in, I realize it's Year of the Dragon.
Yeah.
I think we were like four or five notes before I was like, yes,
proper sight reading. Now it's time to soar. Proper sight reading. Yeah.
Well, that's not real sight reading. They're getting Year of the Dragon as sight reading.
(41:01):
I didn't know my favorite. Okay. Okay.
Maybe they were just trying to, they headhunted you and then they gave you a
piece that they knew you already played. They just really wanted you in that band, didn't they?
No, if they headhunted it, they would have gone straight to Ben Emmerich,
straight off and gone straight to him. But no.
They got you first. Year of the Dragon. Have you got any stolen band things in your house?
(41:26):
You've just moved, but like. Acquired things that you've kept from a band?
Yeah. I used to, like, acquire things by default because they'd be like, here's my band uniform.
I'll give it back. They're like, keep it in case you play with us again.
At my parents' house, I used to have a wardrobe which was just band uniforms.
And I was like, I'm moving into state. I need to empty this wardrobe.
(41:50):
So I had to, like, go to different bands, like, handbag uniforms,
which some of them I haven't seen them for, like, years.
And I do, like, contests too. So I was like, oh, I haven't seen Holroyd in like- Hey, Holroyd.
I haven't seen them in contests for the last five years. Have a jacket. Here you go. I'm sorry.
But yeah, I'm moving into state. Yeah.
So, yeah, every now and again, I find a little bit of something.
(42:12):
I'm like, oh, that's right. And it goes both ways, goes both ways.
I had one of the guys from Navy call me up and go, Halen, is this yours?
And he holds up my euphonium mute. I'm like, yeah.
I forgot about that. Where is that? They're like 300 bucks.
(42:33):
Yeah. So, yeah. That's why you've got to scratch your name on it. Yeah.
Oh, dear. Well, what's on for the next, if you're not going to nationals,
what's on next week, this week? What are your coming up events?
Are your cans doing anything else? We're looking at the concert schedule coming
up, and we are looking at doing New South Wales States.
(42:57):
Yeah. Possibility. Yeah, do it.
That's a possibility. Well, I hope, I hope that I, because I'll be at New South
Wales States, so fingers crossed to see cans on stage. Yeah.
That'd be fun. Definitely.
That'd be fun. That'd be good. That'd be awesome.
Robin, what are you doing this week? What's on for you this week,
Tim? No, I asked first. What am I doing?
(43:20):
Going in now, there's B grade rehearsal that I'm going to have to try to learn this bloody part.
Danny's like, I'll send you the music. I said, don't bother.
Have you not been listening to my podcast? I won't practice it.
He's like, well, just have a look at the test piece. I'm like,
no, I won't practice it. I'll rock up to band and I'll go to.
Do you have rehearsal every night? Oh, son.
Because you've got your band, you're playing a concert band with me. I've got, yeah.
(43:44):
Yeah, absolutely. Grange. Well, Grange
has got a concert the week before Nationals, so that's not the same.
So do you have one, two, three, four?
Four? And I do have three kids as well.
My husband's like, hello, their mother, they have missed their mother because
you're constantly at work full time and then go to bed, feeling like a very
neglectful bit, getting some mum guilt.
(44:07):
But no, yeah, just going to endless amounts of rehearsals now.
Just take them to rehearsal.
No, they're terrible. terrible i've done that they like
to run around the kids they they love it too much
like the baby he'll just run up to a gong and say loud and
just smash it and if you can take all the sticks off him he'll find more he'll
just bash his head against it loud wind chimes he goes yay noisy and plays it
(44:30):
and then just like i just bribe him i used to take them to burundara right i
used to drive them to burundara it's an hour drive to get there an hour 15 and
then i used to say okay girls If you're really good,
we'll go for Churros after rehearsal.
Oh, yeah. There is a good Churros place there. If you're not,
I'm not going to say anything, but we're going to drive past the Churros all
(44:52):
the hour and 15 home. Okay?
So they never knew whether they were going to get it or not.
They had to just be good and hope.
And so every time you saw them at Burundara, they were the angels mostly because
it was Churros on the line.
Makes all the difference Yeah, a little bit older I had an extra baby in lockdown
(45:14):
So now he's like quite Yeah Had an extra baby in lockdown Extra baby I just
accidentally We just had an extra baby Yeah.
We had an extra Yeah,
Like I literally went, we went into lockdown and I wasn't pregnant and we came
out of lockdown and I was like, I had a baby.
Like what? Yeah, I was gone. I had this entire pregnancy in lockdown.
(45:35):
Oh, it was fun. Melbourne lockdown.
How about you, Tim? What's your week looking like?
The week ahead. I think, no, actually, no, I am. I'm going to New Zealand next
week for their bagpipe championships.
So that'll be live streaming on the internet for their bagpipes.
And New Zealand bagpipes are like really, really good. You know how New Zealand
brass bands are surprisingly good?
(45:57):
Not surprisingly good, but there's a much smaller population,
but somehow everyone is really good at playing in brass bands.
Their pipe bands are really super cool as well, and they often go over to Scotland
for the World Championships and do really well over there.
So it'll be two great days of bagpipe bands, including a street march.
And, oh, Halen, I think maybe you need to watch, because on the Saturday afternoon,
(46:20):
they've got a specific competition for drum majors all about how high they throw the mace.
And it's like they have a scratch band on an oval, and it's just whoever I think
like a band has chosen, you're going to just follow.
And they'll have five or six different drum majors, and they have to start the
band off, then like walk up and back and do cool tricks.
(46:40):
Why am I not at New Zealand Nationals? It's going to be in Auckland. With a bagpipe.
A bagpipe. That's your next one. Bagpipes sound really cool. Yeah.
And the mace, the mace throwing, and they, they do the thing where like they
can twirl the mace around their neck while they're walking. Have you ever seen that one?
It's like, it's outrageous. I've seen that. Yeah. I used to practice when I
(47:01):
was a kid, like practicing, balancing the mace on one foot without no hands.
I was like, yeah, look at this. No hands.
Just balancing it on the foot, balancing it on a knee.
I feel like this, this story is really evolving. Broomstick. The truth is coming out.
Broomsticks are like the ultimate mace. You get a broomstick, it's a mace.
(47:23):
I feel like, you know, you had to be a drum major on, you know,
two days' notice, but secretly, ever since you were a kid, you were only training
for that. It was your life calling.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was like a dream come true sort of, except for the whole stress factor.
The stress, yeah. They accidentally put your name on the list.
Interesting. The plot thickens. Yeah. Someone pushed your drum major so they
(47:46):
broke their arm and couldn't do it. You have to do it. Common story threads.
I think something suspicious happened there.
Look, if there wasn't so much limelight, it definitely would be my call.
All right. We better finish up. It's like 11 p.m. for us. Okay. Time for bed.
(48:06):
Yay. We've got a singer. Yeah. We might have to get you one again.
I feel like you still have more story. There's more to give. Reserve.
You know what we should do is get little teams in. Get that,
there's a couple of guys in Cairns Brass, John Crystalides and Andrew Eater,
basically puts a corner and conductor.
(48:27):
Off from different roles over the years, but they went to uni together and stuff.
They would be an awesome pair to get on. Oh, you want to meet some pairs.
Question them, pit them against each other.
Oh, I like that. Maybe offer a few questions to throw at them.
Yeah, you could definitely have a good one with that. I have one final question for you.
(48:48):
Would you be interested in watching our brand-new reality TV show called Bandy Wants a Lady?
We're thinking while we're waiting for results, we're going to do a little bit of matchmaking.
We're going to see who wants to come up on stage.
Maybe they can show their special skill, play their highest note,
(49:10):
whatever that might be, and just see who in the audience might be attracted
to that and might want to go out for a little bit of getting to know each other later.
That should be a live concert series at contests. I would be there. I would be there.
Excellent. We all thought this was a great idea, but the problem was getting
people who wanted to do it.
We're like, we have single friends, and when I ask them, they're like, I don't want to do that.
(49:30):
Yeah, the only problem is, like, we already all know each other.
Brass band family is already known, like, Australia-wide.
It's true. It's like, okay, East Coast Australian brass bands,
yep, we pretty much all know each other.
Nah, there's some people, there's some shy people in there who need to be pushed
out of their shell, right? Robin, whenever you talk about pushing,
(49:53):
Robin, I just think about Doug's poor arm.
Yeah.
Anyway. He said he had to make. Anyway. I didn't push it.
We should finish up because it's getting quite late. But usually we like to
finish up by singing an outro.
So I was wondering, Haylen, if there's any brass band piece you'd like to sing. We'll sing with you.
(50:16):
Because we were going to get outro music and I haven't gotten around to it yet.
So we've been singing Year of the Dragon a little bit. But if there's another
piece you want us to sing, where?
Which, Movement of the Dragon, where are we going? It's Feeling Gear of the
Dragon, isn't it? I'm feeling like the last move. First movement?
Let's do the main theme, not the like.
(50:38):
No? Yeah.
And the tuba solo.
Thanks for listening, loyal viewers. Bye. bye
(50:58):
bye thanks helen pleasure thank you guys at the start robin was like they've
got to be 20 minute episodes tim they've got to be 20 minute episodes because
no one wants to listen for longer than that and every one we've done since the
first one's just been longer,
i was thinking 40 minutes i was thinking in my mind yeah i've watched a few
(51:22):
podcasts some of of them are like 20 minutes some of them are 40 minutes uh
oh i should stop recording right.
Hello, loyal viewers. Hello, loyal listeners. Welcome to Brass Bandcast.
This is the podcast about love, life, music, food, drink, bands, and performance art.
Tonight, because it's evening- Are we doing that? It's like that,
you know, the game where you add the vegetables in primary school?
You're doing that. You keep adding more. And cucumbers. You've got to take some away, Tim. Anyway.
(00:23):
Anyway. Yay. Hi, Robyn. How are you?
I'm good. Tim's very tired. But, Robyn, you look very bubbly, full of energy.
Oh, I have been at the pub. No, I just had one drink at the pub. I was at Trivia tonight.
It's my night off band rehearsal, so hanging out, music, Trivia.
I don't know any of the questions.
Someone's like, I thought you were a musician. Like, I don't know anything about,
(00:46):
I don't know. So there were no euphonium questions tonight at the pub.
There were no euphonium questions. Unexpected.
There's nothing about even like, I don't know, like hymns, Welsh choirs.
I don't know. I know lots of them, but didn't know any answers.
But we have Halen here tonight. Hello.
Hi, Halen. Welcome. Hi, Tim.
(01:06):
Welcome, Halen. Now, Halen was in the waiting room, the Zoom waiting room.
Tim and I were just chatting. I didn't realize there was a Zoom waiting room.
Where's our special guest? I was like, where's Halen? What's going on?
But now you're here, and it's wonderful to have you joining us. Yes, he's come along.
It's a bit awkward on Zoom. Haylen is not in Victoria.
(01:29):
We need more non-Victorian people. It's true. So I'm like, I know this guy and
he's awesome. It is, and it's quite cold today in Victoria.
And, Haylen, you were mentioning that it's quite warm where you are and cold
is no longer a part of your life.
Yeah, no. Tell us about where you are. Well, I moved to somewhere slightly warmer.
From Burundara Band, I decided, you know what, What, Cairns Brass has a nice ring to it.
(01:53):
And I ended up here, up in Far North Queensland.
And yeah, there's just no such thing as a winter.
Like we call it winter, but for us, winter is like, oh my God,
it just dropped below 20 degrees at night.
I've got to find a woody. Right now is the hottest time of year.
Yeah, it's hard because wearing a polo shirt is extreme.
(02:16):
It's extreme. Oh, yeah. My sympathy levels are so low, so low.
But, Halen, it's lovely to meet you, Halen.
How long ago were you playing with Burundara and how long ago did you move up
to Cairns? Look, I left Melbourne in 2019.
(02:36):
So, yes, I was playing with Burundara. Good timing, good timing.
Through those years and then it was immaculate. I ended up, yeah,
in January 2020 and I've been playing with Cairns Brass since then.
As much as we all have been playing music since 2020. Wonderful.
And did you know anyone in Cairns, Bruss, before you went up and joined or you
(02:59):
just sort of, I'm in Cairns now, I'm going to go and say g'day to the band?
Well, not specifically as such. You see, I've done so many. I was playing with
a Navy band full-time on Euphonium up until 2020.
So I found myself in my first couple of years with the Navy,
I did like a dozen trips to Cairns in a couple of years.
Years so over 12 years
(03:21):
13 years of navy i did so many trips
to cans and i when we're when we're
there on band night you drop up to band you did yeah say hello and so yeah i
kind of knew a few people yeah beautiful you know just from those trips yeah
yeah i'd love to know how you got into playing euphonium like how did it all
start off for you is euphonium your main instrument or a bit of a whatever the brass is, you blow it.
(03:45):
Well, that in itself is a story because, you see, I was moving around schools
a lot when I was younger, in primary school.
And then I got to high school and my parents had bought a home.
So, I decided I want to do music.
So, there was music at school. I went up to the school music teacher and said, I want to play violin.
(04:10):
In i said we don't have
violins but here is a euphonium
oh lovely and i got my yeah i got my first le fleur euphonium and yeah that
was just a special moment and i rode home and i put the euphonium on my handlebars
of my bicycle did you have a case or just like a euphonium old wooden Oh,
(04:34):
beautiful, yeah. With a plastic handle.
Yeah, I didn't realize how precarious that was at the time, but yeah,
I rode my bicycle home. Yeah.
Quite a few, I don't know, about a K and a half, and then half Ks.
It's pretty much all downhill on the way to school.
And then, yeah, I mean, I played school brass band.
I joined Southern Shire Silver Band.
(04:55):
I progressed from Moeller Fleur to Boozey and Hawks. And then when I went to
high school, I discovered it.
Trombone is probably where, you know, a future might be.
So I was in about year 10, year 11. I was year 11 when I started picking up the trombone.
(05:17):
And I was obviously playing euphonium. For sure.
But I was, yeah, that's where I picked up trombone. And then 2006 was when I
got the job with Navy on euphonium. Cool.
So for those years, from 95 to 2005, there was like no euphonium.
(05:41):
And then, yeah, I'd given it away. It was like it didn't exist.
I was like, yes, I'm a trombone player. That never happened.
Yeah, trombone for life. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then one of my best friends, Marcus, was playing.
He got a job with the Navy. He was playing with the Navy, soprano player,
(06:01):
well-known, and we were great buddies.
And I went to visit him at work one day on Friday afternoon drinks,
and his boss was like, hey, Marcus Tisbury, you used to play euphonium.
I'm like, yeah, used to play. That was a while ago. She says, we've got an opening.
You should audition. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What I'm hearing is you were headhunted
(06:22):
specifically as a euphonium player. Not quite. Oh.
Yeah, I thought the premium jobs in the Navy were quite difficult to get.
Are they not quite difficult? Depends how good you are, doesn't it?
You have to audition. And you have to do push-ups, right? That's quite hard.
That's hard to do the audition. That's a force of security.
You pass the audition first and then you think, yeah.
(06:45):
Then you have to pass the push-ups, sit-ups, and all the rest of it.
And like running and getting up early and stuff?
Yeah. I do that already. Oh, okay, okay, okay. That's fine. Understandable.
Oh, so you came back? Came back to the euphonium after. Back to the euphonium after a decade.
(07:07):
And in that decade, were you playing with community bands or playing trombone,
playing music around the place?
I was basically avoiding brass bands that knew me euphonium-wise and I was trying to do trombone.
So basically I played with Gunnedah on bass trombone for a few years.
I played with Holroyd first on principal trombone and then on bass trombone.
(07:30):
So, yeah, I was doing the rounds of the Sydney Brass Bands.
I've played in most of the uniforms of Sydney Brass Bands.
Which uniform was your favourite, just fashion-wise?
Fashion-wise? Wow. That is a very tough decision.
It is. So many great fashion-wise. You can give top three. Top three.
(07:54):
That's all right. That's like your favourite cask wine.
It's tough, isn't it? There's so many good ones. Yeah. Yeah,
look, the bottle green Bankstown band was like, when I first saw that,
there was like a system shock, which was pretty ignited.
There was the moment where a friend was reminding me about this concert we did
(08:19):
in Canberra, and I was like, are you telling me that I've actually worn a Willoughby uniform?
I don't remember that. and you know
i've played with so many bands like so many
bands so many fashions it's it's tough do you ever just
like see photos of yourself and you're like oh i must
have been there that must that must be me must have sounded great yeah yeah
(08:41):
every time i go to a band contest and like marcus pulls up photos yeah or i
meet somebody from whole road they're like do you remember 97 when we did this
and i'm like no i have no recollection and if i don't remember it didn't happen
it didn't It didn't happen, does it? It didn't happen.
Speaking of things you remember from the past, what was your first Nationals?
(09:03):
What was that? Do you remember? Oh, geez. It was definitely in the 90s. Yeah.
It was in Newcastle. Beautiful. I was playing with Sutherland Band. Mm-hmm. And it was...
I actually know though, it was probably nationals before that one.
Okay. In juniors. But the one I remember was when, our first one in seniors,
(09:25):
in fact, because suddenly it was like a big step up.
And before that, we were one of the three junior A grade bands. Yep.
There was Willoughby, Warringah and Southerland Shire. Yep.
Three junior bands playing in A grade for every nationals, every states.
And there was the same picking order for all those years. Really?
(09:48):
You know, because- Didn't change.
Always Willoughby at first and then Warringah and Sutherland taking turns at
playing second and third.
Yeah, yeah. And there'd be the after party, the juniors after party.
It was always, you know, Warringah and Sutherland.
And Willoughby was kind of not part of our little, you know- Not part of the clique. I think.
(10:09):
No, no. Because we were all just, you know, happy to just be whatever,
You know, first, second, second, third, doesn't matter, whatever.
It can be lonely at the top. It can be lonely at the top, I've heard. Yeah.
But, you know, having said that, I have worn the Willoughby uniform, so.
They're like a red, aren't they? Do they have a bow tie? It's a burgundy.
(10:30):
It's a burgundy. Oh, okay.
And I think at these nationals they've got bands in the C grade and the A grade, I'm pretty sure.
Dominic Longhurst conducting. That's nice. Yes. Yes, fine musician. Yes.
So, yeah, but Cairns is a quite electric green, isn't it? They have a vest.
It's a vest, isn't it? Oh, it is.
(10:51):
Electric lime. It's like an electric lime. Oh, it is really intense. Yeah, cool.
Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Like when they introduced the polo t-shirts,
I was like, oh, it's black.
And then there was this piping, little stripes, which were even more iridescent. I could not believe it.
I thought there's a bandage that I could wear out. Yeah, absolutely.
(11:12):
I could wear that to the pub. And then I saw the like extremely iridescent striping.
And you thought, forget the pub, we're going straight to the club.
Take it all the way. Neon. That's, yeah.
And it's like a safety vest on a motorcycle or something.
It's so standout. I know Burundera is redoing our uniform this year and they've
got like a colour pack. They're like, which is the orange, the shade of orange?
(11:35):
You know, you could get in. People into colors, they're like hex codes,
pantones. And we had this like color palette and everyone's like,
the brightest one. Yeah.
Pick the absolute most like offensive to your eyes orange you can. No.
Subtle. Subtle. So someone did that at Cairns. They would have had the palette
and gone, what's the brightest? What's the greenest?
Yeah, yeah. I want the greenest. Put that palette. The greenest green.
(11:57):
I'll do like a whole suit.
Like make the whole suit that color so people don't tile it down.
It's great. It's great because you want to be a band, you want to be recognised,
you want to be seen, and it is hard getting uniforms together, isn't it, Robin?
But you also want to be proud. Of the green. Be proud of your line. Yeah.
(12:19):
You're very recognisable. I like it. We are. But, I mean, yeah.
At a Brass Band contest, that's where there's like almost no shame. You're like, yeah.
Almost no shame at a Brass Band contest. I like that. Almost. Almost. Yeah.
Until you go to the cafe down the road, you know, and it's like Pitt Street
in Sydney, and you're like, I'm just going to leave the jacket on because I'm cold.
(12:41):
Yeah. Even though it's got these stripes.
Have you ever worn like a hat, like a band hat in a community band?
Yes. Yes. I've worn a few. Yeah. Yes.
The range Wow Mostly the You know The white How would you call it The white vinyl With the pie being,
(13:04):
Yeah It's cool I love it We've all Oh that's for the Navy right Do they The
Navy wear the like Navy hats Everybody has The police The worst The worst I
had When I was How old was I I don't know how old I was It was my,
Oh 17, 18 When I was playing For Army Reserve reserve vans, and they had a pith
(13:24):
helmet, just like a British police officer hat with this gold spike.
Oh, wow. Yeah. Gold spike and everything. That's so cool. It was unbelievable.
That is so cool. And it was like, it had these trailing wreaths of everything.
It was just gold buttons that you had to put in individually.
It was insane uniform. So good.
(13:47):
Have you ever drum majored? Have you ever drum majored, like,
out the front with a mace?
Just once. And funny enough, yes. Why just once? Why not more?
Yeah. Well, see, it wasn't supposed to happen in the first place.
How much notice did you have? Yeah, tell the story. Story time.
Yeah, we like story time. Story time with Halen. Let's go.
(14:09):
Look, it was the Nationals. It was Sydney, my hometown. Everything was awesome.
I'm playing with Bankstown Band and...
Our good friend, Marcus Soma. So we had two friends, Marcus's.
Oh, I was like, you already told us about Marcus. You got two friends. That's very confusing.
Okay. So Marcus Soma was supposed to be the drum major for this event.
(14:31):
And what happened is the committee looked at me and looked at Marcus and we kind of looked similar.
And I kind of got a little confused somewhere along the line.
And so my name was put down officially to
the band association as drum major so i'm
the conductor of the junior band not the
(14:53):
drum major and so we got like i don't even know it would have been two or three
days out and and so i had like that one reversal you know remember that those
days we had to dress the band yeah okay you still do yeah report the band and
all that. Things in the eyes of right stuff. Yeah.
(15:13):
And so I had to like memorize my script.
And then it was the day of the contest before I ever knew.
Now, there was a couple of things that had to my advantage because me and Marcus
had spoken about the whole drum majoring. That helps. A bit of context.
I played with the drum major staff a few times. Did you throw it?
(15:35):
My biggest dream was to throw it. Yes. I wanted to do something fancy.
That is the coolest thing. That's like my dream.
Oh, yeah. It's like, yeah.
So, you know, I was like in the playground just practicing with his grass. Yeah, absolutely.
Throw it up and I'd be like two hands chasing it trying to catch it.
(15:55):
Did it have like a metal end with a spike on the end?
Oh, yeah. That's why you need the helmet.
That's why. Why? But on the day, it's crowds of people.
You're on major streets of Sydney. Absolutely.
So there's a lot of pressure. You're not going to try anything crazy.
(16:17):
At the same time- You could be a hero. I'm thinking- You could be a hero.
There's nothing to lose.
There's only one chance. There is a lot to lose. There's people's eyes to lose. Is there not?
No. Yeah, but I had a plan. Public liability. I had a plan. No.
See, in my mind, this plan was awesome. I love it. Tell me. In my mind.
(16:39):
So, I thought to myself, the band's going to do the wheel.
Yeah. Now, it takes the time for the band to do the wheel.
So if I just march ahead while they're doing that, put some space between me
and the band. Safety first.
I'm going to have a go at this throwing of the stick fit while there's a clearance, right?
(17:01):
That's a great idea. That was in my mind. I thought it was great,
except for I was stepping out, getting my clearance, throwing the stick up.
It's up in the air. It's up. I can see it. I can see it.
Time is slowing I'm there with you And I'm thinking Oh my god,
There's like two breaths And my hand is going up And then My hand is going up
(17:23):
And I notice The band is coming up Behind me They think that They have to keep
The five paces They're going to chase you They're going to chase you They're
looking after you Yeah At the same time As that's happening,
The mace isn't going You know Forward with me So I have to step short Because
it's pretty much Going to land Where I'm standing Yeah yeah So I'm not marching anywhere.
(17:47):
I'm marking time. The band's coming up behind me. They're catching up.
And I'm just, now I'm like trying to concentrate in two directions.
Oh, wow. My hand goes up. Slow motion. And it's that moment where you're like, I can't see anymore.
You don't need to. I have to hope. Just believe. Just hope. Believe in the mace.
When it hits your hand and you close around it, I'm like.
(18:13):
I'm waving that thing everywhere. Like, oh my God. I was so fucking happy that
I caught it. The band was right behind me.
I'm pretty sure there's a drama section there that's put their dramas down like,
oh, my God, it's lost. I can't believe you've only drummated once.
Why just once? I want to see more of this.
There was plenty of fear in that moment. I learnt my lesson.
(18:36):
I hear joy. I hear excitement. I think it sounds fantastic.
Yeah, what a story. That wasn't my sign. Hey.
Quit when you're ahead. My goodness. You can't beat that story.
So, like, do you have a favourite between drum majoring, conducting,
playing trombone, playing bass trombone, playing euphonium?
(18:57):
What's your favourite thing to do in a band?
Oh, look. Treasurer. Ooh, that's tough. Secretary.
Nah, nah, nah, nah. Kick me off the committee. Oh, my goodness.
I have loved everything playing-wise. Yep.
I have enjoyed my conducting of junior bands.
Especially getting kids you know they're fresh but I must say my favourite performance moment like,
(19:25):
over all those years was 2018 Nationals Melbourne Cup,
And it was not an euphonium or trombone. Yeah, you played percussion, right?
Did you drop something? Yeah. No, you didn't drop something.
Oh, you did drop something? Yes.
This is why I got this story. Yeah, because we had three euphoniums.
(19:45):
So Haylen could have, you had to play percussion, right?
I was offered.
And I was like, yeah, can you play euphonium for one song, for one of the tracks?
I'm like, yeah, sure. Sure.
And next rehearsal, I'll rock up.
Cool. So which euphonium am I playing and what do you want to play percussion for?
(20:10):
So it's the A grade nationals, Melbourne.
2018, can you play percussion for the Tespies? Time machine.
I'm thinking that sounds really intense as a percussion. Percussion,
I was thinking March, Hymn, maybe for their own choice.
(20:32):
Because, you know, their own choice is, yeah, little ting.
It's going to, you know, yeah, it's fun. A bit of fun. Time Machine?
Classic bait and switch, hey? Like, come play euphony. Percussion, yeah.
So how is this your favorite thing? Tell us why it's your favorite.
Keep going. Tell me the best bit of the story.
Well, no, no. Before I get to the best bit, I want to tell you.
The reason why it's my favorite is because, you know, I've done so many nationals.
(20:57):
I played my various instruments.
At this stage, I was playing euphonium every day.
And so I was now finally absolutely challenged as a musician in a completely different way.
I went from nothing to playing at A grade national standard.
(21:17):
Tubular bells. Huge. That is insane. That really is.
And on the day, on the day, I'm so glad that that was one of the bits that I nailed.
Now, I mean, the journey was, you know, one of growth.
I mean, you get to the week out, you know, one week from nationals and you realize that the,
(21:38):
The tom-tom part you were playing with two toms is actually three toms.
Wow. The tom-tom-tom. Oh.
Oh, no. Hang on a second. That means I have to cross-stick. Is it different?
Is a percussion section, is it feel different in terms of camaraderie in a percussion
section to like a brass section?
I feel like everyone's running around in a bit of chaos, panic.
(22:00):
Like you've got each other's backs, yeah?
See, in the brass section, you're just passing to each other.
In the percussion section, you're flying past in your socks and you've got to
grab these mallets, right?
It's like a relay. It's like a relay. Yeah. And then you've got to put these
mallets in a particular order on a tiny little table and then run past and grab
(22:22):
a different pair of mallets which somebody else has just placed in that particular
order and grab them as you perfectly time the next stroke on the next instrument.
And if one of you puts them in the wrong place, you're screwed.
It's like performance art. It really is performance art.
It is. I feel like synchronised swimming at the Olympics, you could just have
like percussion section changeovers.
(22:43):
Absolutely. Wow. Degree of difficulty. Timpani are over here now.
And by the way, here's the third time. Go.
So I have to tell you this.
This bit is probably my favourite bit of banding and probably my most amusing
bit of banding. These tubes.
(23:03):
Flexi-tube. And when you swirl them, you have this wind sound, yeah?
Yeah, the whirlies. Whirly, whirlies. Whirly, whirlies. Yeah,
swirly, whirlies. Yeah. Yeah, whirly, whirlies. Whirly, whirlies. Yeah.
Yeah. But see, in a band room, you try swinging those things around,
smack, and every now and again you may hit something.
(23:23):
So I was trying to do it with two, except I kept hitting something.
I mean, like there wasn't a rehearsal where I actually did not hit something.
And so that hits something like a cymbal or xylophone or things that make noise.
(23:44):
Chomp, chomp, xylophone, tim, tim, you name it.
And just for context, because people will be listening, so people can get a
good visual idea of what was going on.
Were you standing with your arms above your head twirling sort of that way or
was it by your side twirling more vertical? What's going on?
You see, you've got instruments in front of you and instruments behind you.
(24:07):
So you've got to be careful whatever you do. And so if you're going above your
head, you tend to sort of helicopter down on an angle and then you can't go
further up because you've only got ceiling above you.
If you're doing it next to you, you've got a very narrow window either side.
So you've got to stay in your little lane.
(24:29):
Stay in your lane, yeah. So you've got to stay, yeah, you've got like a metre
and a half and you've got to try and keep it in this middle.
It's like the impossible task And they do what they want. Once you start,
you can't stop it in a hurry.
And so I found myself learning the dynamics of this instrument over a very long period of weeks.
(24:49):
I thought I was getting close, closer and closer to getting this,
but the last rehearsal, and I'm talking now, we're at the contest.
There's a band from, I don't know what state, waiting outside the Borough Air Band Hall.
And so I'm like, okay, I've got this now found a little mind, a little gap.
(25:11):
I've moved the Tom Tom's a little bit and I'm like, and then as I start winding
up, I get really confident and the wearing sounds going up and yes, I've got this.
But then I just, I just see that I've just like, wow.
Picked a little bit of the rim of the tom-tom. No noise. Fine.
Cool. Just take a step back, Alan. Just take a step back. Yeah,
you got this. You got this.
(25:32):
Except I took a step back into the Tantrum.
So there's a big frame and this
sound of this gong crashing was just too much. The band was like gone.
There was people crying with laughter.
The conductor, he's trying.
(25:52):
Look, he was literally trying his best. He was trying to conduct.
But the sections, one by one, crumbled. I'm trying to pick it up.
As you do. The more I try, the more it's ringing. I'm picking it up,
and it's like, it's ringing.
It's ringing. I should have left it on that floor. No.
No. No. Just a rep. The band, that was it. It just crumbled.
(26:17):
It was musically, you'd love to have heard it. It's a recording.
It just makes me wonder if there's a recording around somewhere that we can release alongside the.
No, but so this wasn't the concept. This was the, so in the gig,
you didn't hit anything because there's more space on the stage, right?
That, no, that's even more entertaining because I got to the gig and I stepped
(26:42):
on stage and I was like, yes, thank you.
Because behind the band was the cushion section. And behind the percussion section,
there were these tiers of stages that were empty.
So I knew that I had plenty of room. So what I did on the day in the national
contest is I walked in my socks and grabbed those tubes. I walked two stages back.
(27:06):
I was not going to hit anything. And I grabbed my arms. I was like,
I'm going to go hell for leather. And I just swung my arms as big as I could.
I just went absolutely hell for leather.
A lot of the other percussionists, they used one tube. No, me.
No. Two stages back, two tubes. Wow. Just going like this.
But the thing is, I failed to mention to any of my friends who knew me as a
(27:28):
euphonia player that I was actually playing percussion.
So there I was, my friends like- Marcus and Marcus? Marcus and Marcus. Yeah.
Yeah, Marcus, Jason Katsakaris.
They're all watching online the national contest, and then out of nowhere,
the camera decides to zoom. She does percussionist at the back.
(27:49):
Are we zooming in on the percussion doing weird stuff, Tim? Yeah. Exactly.
And, of course, Marcus and Matt are absolutely loving it. They're like, what?
Hell's my percussion? What's going on?
It was my drowning moment, really. That's magical. I actually really got so
(28:10):
much joy out of that moment. Yeah. So much.
The rest of the contest, you know what? I can't remember what I played.
Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Have you played the Whirlies again since, or is that...?
You played them, you put them down. Thought about them. Had a few dreams about them, but no. Yeah.
That's about it. Maybe in your future, the Whirlies will return. Oh, no.
(28:32):
Your phony section's pretty solid. Trauma section's pretty solid.
But the percussion section in Cairns Grass is pretty good.
So I think I'll step back and just keep that a little secret.
Actually, yeah, I noticed that. Yeah, we were on, Dan and I were on after Cairns
at the last Nationals, And we were sitting in that back going,
(28:52):
oh, these guys are really good.
Like you can hear when they're like, I don't know, they're very tight on the
stair with their march. I was like, oh.
It's quite intimidating, isn't it? Because you're waiting, the wings,
the percussion waits and I can hear the band before you.
And I remember thinking you were very nice and had very nice vests.
And I'm like, oh, it's Haylin. I didn't know you moved to Cairns.
(29:13):
Yeah. Sorry, Tim. I'm like, how did you?
I was going to say, I wonder if there's like a solo for like whirlies and band.
I wonder what you could do with that.
Because is it true that, like, you can get different pitches,
like the different harmonics, the faster you swing it, you can go.
You go faster and they go up, like a brass harmonic, right? And then you can get them in the pitches.
They're not in very many charts. I feel like it would be a really cool solo
(29:36):
to come out and play whirlies with band.
You need a lot of tubes, though. Yeah, but, like, when you get the things with
the hand bells where you pick up the different bell to play from,
now you can have different whirlies to go between. Yeah.
It would be cool. I'm sure there will be some. Let's look on YouTube.
Someone can look on YouTube, send us a.
Well, yeah, someone else can look on YouTube and tell us. Yeah,
there you go. An actual rally. Yeah. Loyal listeners.
(29:59):
Man, what a story. All right. Well, we skipped our structure.
Oh, sorry, everyone. We have a structure. We had the own choice before the hymn.
We were going to reflect on our. Wait, so we released a podcast only on Monday,
and Tim and I were saying, oh, there won't be much to reflect on in three days.
But so much has happened in three days. So much has happened.
(30:20):
We're both like, oh, my God. It's been chaotic.
Oh, my goodness. It's prep for nationals for everybody. It's prep for nationals.
Well, it's actually, I've heard there's some, Robin, I don't want to like,
you know, steal your thunder, but I'm going to anyway.
I hear that there's big, big drama in the euphonium section.
With Bura and Dara, I hear that there might have been a bit of sabotage going on.
(30:43):
A bit of sabotage. Do you want to enlighten us? All right.
All right, principal euphonium of Berendara Brass, B-grade defending champions,
national and state champions, principal euphonium, the backbone of our band,
Doug Lewis has suffered an accident that has damaged his arm, his left arm. No.
He's still able to play, but I don't know. Only three buttons.
(31:04):
Was he pushed? Was he pushed? So he's got a broken arm? Left. Broken, broken?
I think it's, I don't know. I didn't ask. Is that terrible? Anyway,
he can't wiggle his arm, but he can use his right hand so he can still use his
vowels, but he's got one of those fancy euphoniums that moves the tuning slide
and he can't put his newt in and out.
(31:27):
He's chucked a philippa, as we like to say in Victoria.
Philippa has often broken her arm and had to conduct a band with only one arm,
but harder to play the euphonium with only one arm. So, Robyn,
does that mean that you're in now? Are you taking over?
I have to. Now I have to play bumper third euphonium.
I was trying to get out of it. I have to go to too many rehearsals and then
(31:50):
practice and stuff. So now I actually have to practice.
You know what you could do? You could fly somebody from Cairns to actually do
the tuning slide and put them in.
Yep, cool. He just needs, I don't think that, like, I think you'd have to be
registered to go on stage and be like, you know, like a patron of a piano,
put Doug's music in and out. But I'm not playing an instrument, am I?
(32:13):
I know. Am I playing percussion? Am I playing trombone? Am I playing, I'm not.
You're not coming to nationals this year. Stagehand. Stagehand, available. I know.
Yeah. We could have got you in. Yeah. That's a great solution. I like that. Yeah.
Big goss. We all love Hayden. A lot's happened in the last couple of days,
Robin. It's, yeah, huge news. Big goss.
(32:33):
And I was like, yeah, somebody sabotaged Doug and made him, and my husband's
like, maybe it was you, Robin, so that you'd get to go and play bumper third
euphonium. Yeah. It's like, oh, my God.
Everyone's been saying that. Everyone's been saying that. How did that arm get hurt?
Robin pushed him over. No. How did you get that euphonium solo?
(32:55):
And he gave me full permission i was like doug do you mind if i
talk about your poor injury on the podcast for content he's
like lol yeah go ahead i have that in writing from doug
he's just a lovely guy isn't he so he's he's too lovely poor doug poor doug
i hope your arm's feeling better soon doug because we care about you we care
about you doug and we hope you're okay you're not just amusing content for us
(33:16):
and then you can't play the bassoon you actually do need two hands Fenceball, do you?
I don't know much about the Fenceball. Because Doug also plays the bassoon with the Knox Winston.
He also plays the bassoon with the Knox Winston. Just the context for everyone
listening. That's why we're talking about the bassoon. That would definitely be a two-hands.
It's like, why are people falling over two weeks before Nationals?
That shouldn't be allowed.
(33:37):
That's why there's like the emergency permits or whatever those things are for
when something goes wrong and you can get a helper. The helper.
Well, luckily the permits weren't on Friday. Can you get an emergency permit from your own band?
Yeah, I was just on the list. So I am actually already registered with Burundi
because I could just play with them.
So I could just go and do it. I just didn't want to go to the rehearsals.
That's not even wasting your emergency permit.
(33:58):
You could actually. No, yeah, they probably could have got one.
Robin, you could push someone else over. Are you saying?
You could push someone else over, Robin, if someone can't play their part.
You could just get there and be like, oh, whoops.
Watch out, Burundi. You need a percussion player? Watch out.
Yeah, Halen really wants to calm down. Guys, if you need an emergency permit
and you want to find out from Cairns, we could pimp him out.
(34:20):
Totally. Can we take a cut? Yep. Done. Sweet. Totally available.
So why is Cairns not going? Is it a bit far?
Oh, look, we had actually arranged a group booking for flights and just basically
changed their mind. They reneged on it.
(34:40):
Yeah, they're like, oh, the court's out of date. Here's the new court.
And it jumped up like astronomically and so it was just not good and then you
try to look for different dates and all the rest of it.
It just wasn't going to happen. I should have sent that to the media.
That could have been my current affair. We are the media.
(35:03):
We're all struggling with it. We're all struggling with the costs of.
And I'd just like to say we see cans come down to like different competitions
and know it's a long travel, like wherever the contest is, always really appreciate
the bands that travel a long way and recognise it is a really big cost sometimes to come.
(35:23):
When you see the bands from Western Australia coming across the east coast or
the bands from up north coming down south, it's a big commitment and it's really
great to see the bands play and perform when they can make it.
So, yeah, good on you, Cairns. I do have something to say about Cairns,
Bryce, and it's a culture thing. And so my first culture shift from brass banding
(35:44):
was when I went to Gunnedah Band.
And back then we were playing in C grade, I think it was.
But I'd play with like A grade brass bands my whole life as a young musician.
And I was playing in orchestras and doing all the rest of the commercial gigs.
Now, at Cairns, the minimum attendance is like around the mid-80s, 80%.
(36:13):
Most rehearsals, everybody's there. Yep. Everybody.
Like you've got a full section everywhere around you.
And that's like through the quiet months when there's nothing going on,
there's no concert coming up, every single day. Everyone's there.
That's wonderful. That's an annual percentage. So what you find is,
yeah, that there's this commitment.
(36:35):
So things like going to nationals or doing something what the band is actually
about, people are actually really committed because they've rocked up every
single day for a year to do these things. Yeah.
And that's what you love about Cairns. Like, yeah, people who have been up here,
when you see that they've come to a contest, know that there's way more commitment
(36:58):
than any of those cine bands that I've played with or anything.
Like, the commitment has been, yeah, solid, really solid.
Everyone's putting in solid effort week in, week out.
And then, yeah. Yeah, I really appreciate it.
I love hearing Cairns. I love hearing Cairns on stage. It's great.
(37:20):
Look forward to it. Great work ethic. Yeah.
It is really, really nice to be in a band where everyone's committing to being
there and to playing their best and to making something special,
which is such a different mindset to someone who's sort of rocking up to band
and the band's lucky to have me because I'm very busy and important and it's
like, you know, it's a different, If you get the right community vibe in,
(37:40):
it's such a wonderful, special thing.
Go Cairns. Go Cairns. I definitely agree with that. I love it.
When I first got up here, I decided no euphonium.
What's your issue with giving? You have some weird love-hate thing with the
euphonium. What's up with that?
Yeah. No, you're right. You're right. I do.
You're visual. Why do you keep giving it up? Euphonium's awesome.
(38:02):
You should play it forever. I love the sound of trombone.
Trombone's a cool. It's a tough choice. It's a tough choice.
Well, we all have that. Have you ever tried a cornup?
Yes Tenorhorn No Oh no I've tried Tenorhorn There's a whole story there There's
probably a whole podcast on it Yeah Marcus,
Marcus probably has a recording That would go with it And so we will have to
(38:24):
leave it There We'll leave it there Okay We'll leave that out Post in the comments Thanks Marcus,
This is going back to the 90s This recording Oh my goodness Okay Now I think
I think Robin We've got some questions Do we have quick fire questions?
Yeah We better move on to questions Tim's really tired it
well it's earlier
(38:46):
for halen there's a time difference i was like oh can we
do seven before rehearsal and it's like that's like 6
p.m for me that's too early so oh my
questions oh well i always have to i have to unlock my phone well the questions
we've talked about uniforms already uniforms oh i sometimes edit things we heavily
have you ever played halen this is probably a silly question because i bet you
(39:09):
have have you ever played year of the dragon and how many times,
my goodness it was like how many times year of the dragon was my favorite brass
band piece ever was was what what changed what is it now is it not anymore.
Oh it's tough call see i'd like to say it still is but i played it like all
(39:33):
through my youth in brass bands.
Yeah. All through uni, growing up, in all the concert bands I played.
And then I played it with Navy a few times.
Played it, yeah, in my later years. Yeah, I played it, I don't even know how
many times. Year of the Dragon. What, like more than 20?
I would say around, that's pretty close. Yeah, around 20 times.
(39:55):
Oh, yeah. That'd be close.
A lot of Dragon. And I played on bass trombone and euphonium.
And euphonium brass band and euphonium concert band. and bass trombone in both as well.
So, yeah, I played it quite a lot.
And I was born in Year of the Dragon. Hey.
We could work out your age based on that. Written for you.
(40:17):
So, yeah. Love Year of the Dragon. What a piece. It is the Year of the Dragon this year.
So, in my audition for the Navy, I had to do some side reading in bass clef.
Being a treble clef euphonium player I was like okay I could do this and start
reading it one of the side pieces is,
(40:38):
I'm not going to sing it for you, but I was like, this is a beautiful soaring line. What is it?
And then as I get about four notes in, I realize it's Year of the Dragon.
Yeah.
I think we were like four or five notes before I was like, yes,
proper sight reading. Now it's time to soar. Proper sight reading. Yeah.
Well, that's not real sight reading. They're getting Year of the Dragon as sight reading.
(41:01):
I didn't know my favorite. Okay. Okay.
Maybe they were just trying to, they headhunted you and then they gave you a
piece that they knew you already played. They just really wanted you in that band, didn't they?
No, if they headhunted it, they would have gone straight to Ben Emmerich,
straight off and gone straight to him. But no.
They got you first. Year of the Dragon. Have you got any stolen band things in your house?
(41:26):
You've just moved, but like. Acquired things that you've kept from a band?
Yeah. I used to, like, acquire things by default because they'd be like, here's my band uniform.
I'll give it back. They're like, keep it in case you play with us again.
At my parents' house, I used to have a wardrobe which was just band uniforms.
And I was like, I'm moving into state. I need to empty this wardrobe.
(41:50):
So I had to, like, go to different bands, like, handbag uniforms,
which some of them I haven't seen them for, like, years.
And I do, like, contests too. So I was like, oh, I haven't seen Holroyd in like- Hey, Holroyd.
I haven't seen them in contests for the last five years. Have a jacket. Here you go. I'm sorry.
But yeah, I'm moving into state. Yeah.
So, yeah, every now and again, I find a little bit of something.
(42:12):
I'm like, oh, that's right. And it goes both ways, goes both ways.
I had one of the guys from Navy call me up and go, Halen, is this yours?
And he holds up my euphonium mute. I'm like, yeah.
I forgot about that. Where is that? They're like 300 bucks.
(42:33):
Yeah. So, yeah. That's why you've got to scratch your name on it. Yeah.
Oh, dear. Well, what's on for the next, if you're not going to nationals,
what's on next week, this week? What are your coming up events?
Are your cans doing anything else? We're looking at the concert schedule coming
up, and we are looking at doing New South Wales States.
(42:57):
Yeah. Possibility. Yeah, do it.
That's a possibility. Well, I hope, I hope that I, because I'll be at New South
Wales States, so fingers crossed to see cans on stage. Yeah.
That'd be fun. Definitely.
That'd be fun. That'd be good. That'd be awesome.
Robin, what are you doing this week? What's on for you this week,
Tim? No, I asked first. What am I doing?
(43:20):
Going in now, there's B grade rehearsal that I'm going to have to try to learn this bloody part.
Danny's like, I'll send you the music. I said, don't bother.
Have you not been listening to my podcast? I won't practice it.
He's like, well, just have a look at the test piece. I'm like,
no, I won't practice it. I'll rock up to band and I'll go to.
Do you have rehearsal every night? Oh, son.
Because you've got your band, you're playing a concert band with me. I've got, yeah.
(43:44):
Yeah, absolutely. Grange. Well, Grange
has got a concert the week before Nationals, so that's not the same.
So do you have one, two, three, four?
Four? And I do have three kids as well.
My husband's like, hello, their mother, they have missed their mother because
you're constantly at work full time and then go to bed, feeling like a very
neglectful bit, getting some mum guilt.
(44:07):
But no, yeah, just going to endless amounts of rehearsals now.
Just take them to rehearsal.
No, they're terrible. terrible i've done that they like
to run around the kids they they love it too much
like the baby he'll just run up to a gong and say loud and
just smash it and if you can take all the sticks off him he'll find more he'll
just bash his head against it loud wind chimes he goes yay noisy and plays it
(44:30):
and then just like i just bribe him i used to take them to burundara right i
used to drive them to burundara it's an hour drive to get there an hour 15 and
then i used to say okay girls If you're really good,
we'll go for Churros after rehearsal.
Oh, yeah. There is a good Churros place there. If you're not,
I'm not going to say anything, but we're going to drive past the Churros all
(44:52):
the hour and 15 home. Okay?
So they never knew whether they were going to get it or not.
They had to just be good and hope.
And so every time you saw them at Burundara, they were the angels mostly because
it was Churros on the line.
Makes all the difference Yeah, a little bit older I had an extra baby in lockdown
(45:14):
So now he's like quite Yeah Had an extra baby in lockdown Extra baby I just
accidentally We just had an extra baby Yeah.
We had an extra Yeah,
Like I literally went, we went into lockdown and I wasn't pregnant and we came
out of lockdown and I was like, I had a baby.
Like what? Yeah, I was gone. I had this entire pregnancy in lockdown.
(45:35):
Oh, it was fun. Melbourne lockdown.
How about you, Tim? What's your week looking like?
The week ahead. I think, no, actually, no, I am. I'm going to New Zealand next
week for their bagpipe championships.
So that'll be live streaming on the internet for their bagpipes.
And New Zealand bagpipes are like really, really good. You know how New Zealand
brass bands are surprisingly good?
(45:57):
Not surprisingly good, but there's a much smaller population,
but somehow everyone is really good at playing in brass bands.
Their pipe bands are really super cool as well, and they often go over to Scotland
for the World Championships and do really well over there.
So it'll be two great days of bagpipe bands, including a street march.
And, oh, Halen, I think maybe you need to watch, because on the Saturday afternoon,
(46:20):
they've got a specific competition for drum majors all about how high they throw the mace.
And it's like they have a scratch band on an oval, and it's just whoever I think
like a band has chosen, you're going to just follow.
And they'll have five or six different drum majors, and they have to start the
band off, then like walk up and back and do cool tricks.
(46:40):
Why am I not at New Zealand Nationals? It's going to be in Auckland. With a bagpipe.
A bagpipe. That's your next one. Bagpipes sound really cool. Yeah.
And the mace, the mace throwing, and they, they do the thing where like they
can twirl the mace around their neck while they're walking. Have you ever seen that one?
It's like, it's outrageous. I've seen that. Yeah. I used to practice when I
(47:01):
was a kid, like practicing, balancing the mace on one foot without no hands.
I was like, yeah, look at this. No hands.
Just balancing it on the foot, balancing it on a knee.
I feel like this, this story is really evolving. Broomstick. The truth is coming out.
Broomsticks are like the ultimate mace. You get a broomstick, it's a mace.
(47:23):
I feel like, you know, you had to be a drum major on, you know,
two days' notice, but secretly, ever since you were a kid, you were only training
for that. It was your life calling.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was like a dream come true sort of, except for the whole stress factor.
The stress, yeah. They accidentally put your name on the list.
Interesting. The plot thickens. Yeah. Someone pushed your drum major so they
(47:46):
broke their arm and couldn't do it. You have to do it. Common story threads.
I think something suspicious happened there.
Look, if there wasn't so much limelight, it definitely would be my call.
All right. We better finish up. It's like 11 p.m. for us. Okay. Time for bed.
(48:06):
Yay. We've got a singer. Yeah. We might have to get you one again.
I feel like you still have more story. There's more to give. Reserve.
You know what we should do is get little teams in. Get that,
there's a couple of guys in Cairns Brass, John Crystalides and Andrew Eater,
basically puts a corner and conductor.
(48:27):
Off from different roles over the years, but they went to uni together and stuff.
They would be an awesome pair to get on. Oh, you want to meet some pairs.
Question them, pit them against each other.
Oh, I like that. Maybe offer a few questions to throw at them.
Yeah, you could definitely have a good one with that. I have one final question for you.
(48:48):
Would you be interested in watching our brand-new reality TV show called Bandy Wants a Lady?
We're thinking while we're waiting for results, we're going to do a little bit of matchmaking.
We're going to see who wants to come up on stage.
Maybe they can show their special skill, play their highest note,
(49:10):
whatever that might be, and just see who in the audience might be attracted
to that and might want to go out for a little bit of getting to know each other later.
That should be a live concert series at contests. I would be there. I would be there.
Excellent. We all thought this was a great idea, but the problem was getting
people who wanted to do it.
We're like, we have single friends, and when I ask them, they're like, I don't want to do that.
(49:30):
Yeah, the only problem is, like, we already all know each other.
Brass band family is already known, like, Australia-wide.
It's true. It's like, okay, East Coast Australian brass bands,
yep, we pretty much all know each other.
Nah, there's some people, there's some shy people in there who need to be pushed
out of their shell, right? Robin, whenever you talk about pushing,
(49:53):
Robin, I just think about Doug's poor arm.
Yeah.
Anyway. He said he had to make. Anyway. I didn't push it.
We should finish up because it's getting quite late. But usually we like to
finish up by singing an outro.
So I was wondering, Haylen, if there's any brass band piece you'd like to sing. We'll sing with you.
(50:16):
Because we were going to get outro music and I haven't gotten around to it yet.
So we've been singing Year of the Dragon a little bit. But if there's another
piece you want us to sing, where?
Which, Movement of the Dragon, where are we going? It's Feeling Gear of the
Dragon, isn't it? I'm feeling like the last move. First movement?
Let's do the main theme, not the like.
(50:38):
No? Yeah.
And the tuba solo.
Thanks for listening, loyal viewers. Bye. bye
(50:58):
bye thanks helen pleasure thank you guys at the start robin was like they've
got to be 20 minute episodes tim they've got to be 20 minute episodes because
no one wants to listen for longer than that and every one we've done since the
first one's just been longer,
i was thinking 40 minutes i was thinking in my mind yeah i've watched a few
(51:22):
podcasts some of of them are like 20 minutes some of them are 40 minutes uh
oh i should stop recording right.
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