Introducing our Junior Band.
At present the Barn Brass is thriving and our twelve youngsters (aged 6 to 14) are making excellent progress. We have just held the first sitting of our ‘homemade’ Proficiency Tests (details listed below) designed to make sure that all children are progressing well in terms of note reading, musical understanding and caring for the equipment.
Seven of our youngsters have just taken the first cohort of progress tests and all passed with flying colours. We are really pleased with the amount of work the children put into the preparation of their pieces and scales. Bronze level certificates were presented to Trudy, Abbie, Alyx, Jodie, Kathryn and Nicola and a Gold level certificate was awarded to solo cornet player April. The certificates were presented by the Mayor, Councillor Alan Jackson, at our Spring Concert on 6th April. All are now working towards the next Proficiency Test session which will take place in September.
We invite you to watch the video of a recent Junior Band rehearsal - we are always looking for new juniors to join us.
The Proficiency Test: - Each level of test in divided into five sections:
This piece is of a fast tempo and tests the candidate's knowledge of rhythm and dynamics - there are also tricky finger co-ordination sections!
This piece is slow in tempo and tests the candidate's ability to control his/her breathing and also the production of tone quality.
For each level of the test there are two scales to learn - these help to test the candidate's musical understanding - the scales become increasingly more difficult as the grades progress.
This is one of the most important tests as it shows us that candidates can read music accurately and understand what they are playing!
Candidates are expected to know musical terms in both English and Italian - this will be important when they progress to the Senior Band in the future!