News

Connie Natrass: International Traveller
 
Connie Natrass, 2nd cornet with the band from 2004 to 2007 kindly wrote this article describing her international travels helping to spread the brass banding word.

Brass bands and Africa are not traditionally associated with one another, but there is one in particular thriving in Uganda. The Jinja Nile Brass band was started by a friend of my parents about 5 years ago and has accumulated an assortment of 2nd hand instruments from the UK of varying states of repair. Intrigued, I travelled with a school friend to Jinja between October and December 2007. I'd graduated form York University in July and didn't want to face the gloomy prospect of full time employment.

We met Paul, the leader of the band, just before our first rehearsal (he was over an hour late: Uganda O'clock) in centre of town and we made our way to his house on boda bodas. These are dodgy mopeds which you sit on the back of side saddle. Paul had a huge white board balanced on his knee and we set off in tandem weaving through traffic and avoiding the plethora of pot holes/other vehicles/chickens. This is the method of transport we used most of the time and it was pretty handy.

Band rehearsals were held outside Paul's house under a tree after school until it got dark, complete with long suffering but supportive neighbourhood audiences. During the daytimes we travelled around a bit (public transport being an experience in itself: 25 people in 14 seated minibuses, literally sitting on the laps of strangers) and offered our help in schools and orphanages.

The rehearsals were the most frustrating and rewarding things at the same time. They write and teach music by using Doh, Ray, Mee. At the top of the page it would say Doh = B flat, and then twinkle, twinkle little star, say, would be written: ddsslls,ffmmrrd. It's a good system for writing simple tunes, but awful for anything more complicated than that. Most rehearsals started with writing out a stave and getting individuals to come up and draw notes and label them. We'd then go through a simple nursery rhyme tune and think about how to write it out: "so, we need a G that is 2 beats long, who can come and write that?" We'd then split up into sections and then come together to play at the end. Audrey Brown had kindly photocopied a few pieces from the Shepherd's training band library which were a great success. It was a big breakthrough when they appreciated the fact that when you are able to read music, everything you need to know is on the page in front of you and you don't have to make it up or memorise it, or know how it goes before attempting to play it together. There were moments when I really felt we'd made a difference, like when one boy would point on the music where they were up to to another who was lost, and then the latter would resume playing. I took over some recordings of the senior band (at Selby Abbey and our latest release: Aces High) and they couldn't believe that a band could sound so good. I tried to persuade them that that standard wasn't as far beyond their reach as they imagined.

They had developed a system which we tried to discourage, of beginners starting off playing tenor horn and then when they were good enough moving onto trumpet/cornet. The things that they usually play follow the same formula of the trumpets improvising question and answer phrases and everybody else um-pahing underneath them. This meant that the sections were unbalanced in standard and there was a stigma associated with horn playing. All the good players regardless of their lips, played trumpet/cornet and got bored quickly during rehearsals.

We really felt like we got to become friends with the kids. To start with they talked to each other in their local language called Lusoga, but by the end they were talking together in English and letting us in on their jokes. Some white people came to their school one day and were handing out sweets, and upon discovery that white people initially find them difficult to tell apart they went from classroom to classroom and got sweets five times over. We earned the status of local celebrity; people would even come up to us in the street and ask us if we were the ones helping with the band. The band played in a wedding and we were promoted to the head table and asked to give a speech on behalf of the groom, who we'd never met.

Since my return, Tim Oldroyd has very generously donated 3 cornets which will be taken to Uganda this February. Paul was overjoyed at this news. I have also given presentations about my experiences and opinions to various committees and groups at home. Raising money for Uganda is now the lent project for St Peter's Church in Hale (Greater Manchester) involving the congregation, 'committee for mission', scouts and guides.

I would definitely recommend a trip out there to anyone, and if you feel you could help the band, I'm sure they'd welcome you! Being witness to the happiness and hospitality of the people, who just get on with whatever challenges face them everyday and don't seem phased by them was pretty humbling and inspiring. At first I didn't understand why they put up with the sheer inefficiency of everything, but by the end I realised that part of the charm of the place is that they do. It was a shock leaving that and going to Dubai on the way back where there is just so much wealth and glamour in comparison, but people have road rage and don't look you in the eye and seemed so much less content with life.