Dear Mrs Blackford,

 

Thank you for your kindness in paying for me to go into the National Children's Brass Band of Great Britain. It is so kind of you to give children the opportunity to change their lives there.  This is my story of the National Children's Brass Band 2007.

 

I arrived with my brother and my mum.  I had a long wait for my audition with David Childs.  I walked into the room and thought “I hope I get a good place - I'm going to try and play my very best.”  My audition piece was Badinerie by Bach.  All went OK.

 

After the audition I met up with my best buddy from last year 'Alex'.  It was really cool to catch up - I hadn't seen him for a whole year.  We played footy for a while, till I fell into a puddle covering my whole back in muddy slop.  I did not have time to change as we had a meeting with parents and tutors.  I got some strange looks from the parents.  Not a good start.  After the meeting I got changed and it was time to say goodbye to mum.  My adventure had started.

 

The rehearsals were great and we learned lots of new pieces and other things.  One of the pieces, Bandology I had played before – phew! - at least I knew something.  Zulu was the story of a battle.  It was low and percussive.  Dream Catchers was written for us by one of the tutors, Paul Lovatt Cooper.  There are lots of solos.  It was a great piece, which was split into sections.  Some fast and the others slow.  It was great.  Hot Canary is a euphonium solo and was dead funny.  I have been practising making some of the funny sounds.  David Childs tried to make me play some of them in front of the band, but I was too embarrassed.  Other euphonium solos were Carrickfurgus, Little Prayer and Varied Mood.  I have driven my whole family up the wall by singing Varied Mood all the way round Canada on holiday for three weeks.  My mum is going to buy it for me to play.  We also played Little Suite for Brass Band.  It was split into three sections.  My favourite was the last section because it was the fastest. Our one last piece was the Academic Festive Fanfare.

 

We had loads of fun practising our singing for the concert.  “Coops” (Paul Lovatt Cooper) was great fun.  He can do an amazing dance to the letters based on the dance YMCA for the Mickey Mouse Dance.  Doh a Deer was from the Sound of Music. Some of the naughtiest children had to sing solo.  I am proud to say I was not quite naughty enough to take part in it.  I had so much fun singing and by the end of the week I had lost my voice.

 

David Childs taught me a technique where you put two pencils into the sides of your mouth and lift them up.  It stretches some of the muscles in your mouth and it helps you get a bigger sound and higher notes.

 

One evening we went to Pizza Hut and then to bowling.  I came last in my team and what was even worse was that my brother came first out of the children in his team. Still, it was a fantastic evening.  We all sang the songs we had been learning in the band on the way back.  I sang at the top of my voice with one of my friends 'Bengie'.

 

In recreation I generally played football which is my favourite sport.  Some of the other players were pretty good seeing as they are brass players.  We also did some swimming.  Dr Nick bombed into the water.  We were amazed to see water hitting the ceiling.  I had a handstand competition with Dr Nick and beat him.

 

My biggest disappointment of the week was to find out Dr Nicholas Childs is a Manchester United fan and that he has never heard of Aston Villa Football team.

 

The best part of the week was the concert.  There was a huge audience and the band played really well.  My parents and Grand Parents were very proud of me.

 

Thank you for letting me have one of the best experiences of my life.

 

Paddy Clark (euphonium player)