March 14, 2024 • 49 mins
Welcome to another fun episode. 2 weeks out from Nationals, we chat with Jade, who plays flute with Unley Concert Band, an A grade wind band. Enjoy!!
Jump right into 'Brass Bandcast' episode, a harmonious encounter with the music world. Engage in a captivating conversation on rehearsals, banding, and the unassuming joy of music. This session stars Robin, Tim, and their special guest, Jade, a flute player from Unley Concert Band, South Australia. Dig deep into Jade's musical journey, challenges of performing on stage, and the unique aspects of playing a woodwind instrument.
Get an insider's perspective on adjusting tunes, managing a diverse team, and confronting the unique challenges faced by visually impaired musicians. Enjoy anecdotes about section leadership, hardships and joys of playing the flute and piccolo, coupled with the interesting dilemmas associated with varying weather conditions while performing.
Delve into the South Australian tradition of the Christmas pageant, amusing band marching stories, and explore the fascinating moments of being part of a band. Listen to tales of memorable performances, rapid music learning, a feathered cello performance, stolen band belongings, and more.
This episode is a rollercoaster ride of laughter, strange finds and invokes the raw love for music. A must-listen for band lovers, music buffs or anyone seeking a behind-the-scenes glance at the life of a musician.
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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, banding, food, drink, and intonation.
Great to have you here. Robin, how are you?
I am good. I am good.
Left rehearsal early tonight. I was very naughty. Had to get home to the kids.
(00:24):
And I'm getting messages that apparently they ran the whole program before Nationals
and so I wasn't there. So I left my poor number two in the lurch.
I feel very bad for him. Other than that, I'm good. How are you, Tim?
Yeah, I'm pretty good. I've just been at another rehearsal. I'm in the Footscray
storeroom again because rehearsal finishes at 9.30. Again, that's three podcasts
in a row we've recorded from the Footscray storeroom and not from our beautiful studio.
(00:48):
I know the Brass Landcastle studio has been just like left abandoned the past
couple of weeks. We'll have to get back there sometime soon.
And this evening we're joined by Jade.
Hello, Jade. How are you? I'm good, thank you. Thanks for having me.
It is such a pleasure to have someone from South Australia.
Much of us, I think, want interesting than this. Oh, no, no,
(01:09):
no. This is interesting.
We love interesting people. We get too many of, you know, the people on the
top. We need more of the average guy. Man, lady.
Yes, the mundanady. I'm here to bring the mundanady. I know.
We need some more unique perspectives.
Because you know what? Other conductors are probably not listening to our podcast.
It's like it's the normal people. We're the podcast of the people, right? The band people.
(01:32):
Yeah, we want this podcast to be about people who play in bands all over Australia.
And the last couple of weeks we've been sort of quite brass band heavy.
So brass band. So it's great to have someone from a concert band and someone who's not in Victoria.
And Jade, you play the flute with the Unley Concert Band, right?
That's right. I don't know if that's right. I've been with the Unley Concert
(01:54):
Band for, I want to say, 17 years now.
17 years. Wow. Wait, so since before – oh, no, my math is 2003. Yeah, 2003. Yeah.
Did I have a seven? Oh, okay. Yeah, that's really bad. That's okay.
It's okay. Well, that's a long time. I'm here for you. That's awesome.
Have they given you a badge or something? Have you got a life membership? Yeah.
(02:17):
No, not a life membership. I think you have to be a little bit more important for that.
But I have a 15-year badge and actually I'm membership. I'm an awards coordinator.
So basically next time I get my next badge, I'll be giving it to myself.
Yeah, give it to yourself. Can we nominate you? Can we nominate you for life
membership of Unley Concert Band for 17 years of fine floating?
(02:38):
I think of the current life members, and I don't think I'm quite up to scratch,
to be honest, but maybe one day.
How many people play in Unley Concert Band? Yeah.
Ask Tim's question. Sorry, we talk over each other when we're on Zoom.
I was going to say how many people have been there longer than 17 years.
That's a better question than Tim's question. well there's maybe
(03:01):
two members that have been there since the band started so that i don't know
26 years now and then like varying degrees all the people that were in the band
when i joined is still in the band so some long haul members there and at the
moment i reckon we've got about,
(03:21):
out I don't don't quote me on this but like 45 at
least 45 for nationals but like
literally don't quote me because I never count anybody yeah they
come and go don't they yeah oh that's nice that's fun 46 yeah so it's much bigger
than a brass band and you don't play a brass instrument what's that like not
(03:43):
at all what's that like I don't know I guess stamina wise apparently it's better I don't You know.
Let's just say that we can still keep going after all the brassies are chopped.
Yeah, that would be nice. That would be nice. Woodwind stamina.
Woodwind stamina. Yeah. Yeah.
And, Jade, how did the flute come to you or how did you come to the flute? What's the origins?
(04:08):
So this was a long time ago, but when I was five, my brother wanted to learn
the instrument and he wanted to learn clarinet, but the clarinet teacher said
that he was too young and he was about eight at the time.
And the only teacher that would take him in
was the flute teacher and then obviously sibling rivalry
I was supremely jealous and basically begged
to be able to play and my
(04:31):
brother who's always been the same bit competitive but also a little bit of
a like to place bets and things so he said oh if you can get a proper sound
out of this head joint in like a week then surely I'll make sure that you can
play he's eight he has no control over with my parents to pay for lessons or
not, but I did, and somehow,
I think it was completely unrelated that they let me, but he likes to think
(04:53):
that it was thanks to him.
He's such an enabler, such an enabler of you on flute.
He's made a beautiful thing. Oh, this is the same guy that used to get me to
do his, like, year 10 maths homework when I was in year 7, so there's, like, really no...
They're just siblings. That's just how we are.
Sibling life and does does your brother still play an instrument
(05:14):
in a band or he he does not he
lost a lot of passion for it in school because he went to a private school
and did a music scholarship and they said that he couldn't quit the flute or
the piano when he was there and because of that like pressure he was like no
i'm not actually keen anymore so he stopped in year 12 and i kept going because
my mom signed me up for only hunter band yay yay yeah she's like Like,
(05:38):
I'm not going to lose two of you.
I've paid all this money for your instrumental lessons and one of you has already stopped playing.
So I found this ad in the local paper and you're going to rehearsal on Wednesday.
Wow. So your mum found Unley Concert Band in the newsroom.
That's like, wow. Because I wasn't going to do music at school and she's like,
well, you're not going to give it up.
(05:58):
You've already given up piano and you've already given up viola so you can't give up flute.
Parents get very disappointed when kids give up. I say give up in inverted commas.
Because it's like you get a lot out of music even if you decide not to go into community band.
Like kids who learn it in school go through to Year 12. They've obviously,
I don't know, developed their brain and learnt about the arts and blah, blah, blah.
(06:21):
And there's lots of other things you kind of, you do ceramics in school and
you might not become an artist and that's not called giving up.
But parents get very disappointed. They're like, I paid so much money for your
music lessons and you didn't become some musical star.
But just getting enjoyment out of it is enough.
I think. But it is nice if you can keep going. Yeah.
(06:41):
I don't know what they expect, like, for you to become a tennis star.
I was going to say we're really lucky because Jade is actually a musical star
and she still has the passion for the flute.
It's great to still have a passion. Isn't that right, Jade? Yeah.
Yes, I do definitely still have a passion. So it's a success story.
And is your mum still proud of you? Yeah, she still comes to our concerts.
I mean, like, she'll hate me saying this, but she's getting on now.
(07:03):
She still turns up, so that's good.
I think she's proud of me. The band is the least. She's glad that I kept it up.
I think the band is probably a small portion of why she's proud of me,
I hope, considering the cliche is that the Asian tiger mom forces you to practice.
She was never really like that but managed to keep our interest alive anyway,
(07:23):
maybe just by reminding us how much everything costs.
But, you know, happy for the opportunity.
Oh, yeah. Do you remember the first time that you played flute in a band?
In a band. In your first rehearsal?
First rehearsal. I remember my first performance in a flute quartet playing
fourth part of 22 Little Star on my bendy flute head joint.
Nice. I know, because I couldn't reach the end of the flute,
(07:45):
so they had to give me the bendy head joint. It was... Oh, yeah,
that curvy thing. Somewhere.
Yeah. As far as band is concerned, I think when I was maybe seven or eight,
I joined the Primary Schools Band Ensemble, which is run by the Department of
Education here in South Australia.
Earlier and actually the conductor at the
time carrie hewitt is actually playing
(08:08):
with unleaf nationals this year so some good nostalgic
memories for us there yes i even found
his recommendation for me for high school recently when
i was packing so i think
i still remember you have to audition for that band and how stressful
it was being seven and having to do and prepare for an audition and
it wasn't it wasn't like they weren't harsh or anything
(08:30):
thing but it's still a different experience altogether when
you haven't ever done that before and yeah it was
a it was a great ensemble to be and i actually met a lot of people i went to high
school with eventually and in that ensemble so
yeah i love it well that sounds
amazing is that kind of band still running do they
still do that primary school thing i actually don't i don't know they also did
(08:52):
primary school string orchestra i don't know if they still run i would i would
hope that they do it went for a long long long time and there's just like all
sorts of people that went through Primus because we know Ensemble Wind in South Australia.
You still have the jumper that has everyone's names on it. Oh, cute.
I remember when Brian Griffiths used to be conductor for a while,
(09:12):
we realised that we were both in Primus because we knew Ensemble Wind at the
same time and his name is on my jumper.
That's pretty cute. He's actually the adjudicator for the A-grade section. Oh.
Oh, yeah. Conflict. Conflict. No, they're behind a screen.
That's fine. You won't know who he's who. I'm sure. I'm sure this is getting
off topic, but I'm sure they can tell which band's which, can't they? Do you reckon?
(09:35):
You would think so. I reckon they sound so different. And like,
yeah, it's all a little bit of shouting, like standing behind a screen. No, it's all anonymous.
I can't see. It's all anonymous. Trust the process. Trust the process.
I've seen the screens the adjudicators sit behind and like, you know,
light doesn't get through.
Oh, I know they can't see out. Trust the process. Light doesn't get through.
My point is it seems mean to make them sit there for like eight hours and like
(09:58):
not even look at anything.
Like just let them look at the band. I'm sure they'll still be impartial.
So I'm saying trust their professionalism to like be able to see you and still be impartial, right?
And then they can judge the uniforms.
You'd recognise them too. Like soloists, you'd recognise that.
You'd hear like every, you'd recognise their tone and stuff if you were like
a professional. I'm not. I don't have the ear for it, but I imagine you'd be
(10:21):
able to pick something out. Yeah.
Yeah, I often think when I play
Juba, gee, I sound really, really good and everyone must know it's me.
In your section of like. Something like that. Yeah, it's important that you're positive too.
Someone's got to believe me. Oh, that we're not doing. Yeah, yeah.
So, Jade, you mentioned that you felt it was quite nerve-wracking,
(10:42):
I guess, as a seven-year-old sort of preparing for your first thing.
Do you still get nervous when you're playing?
If you're going on stage at Nationals, will you feel nervous? Yeah. Okay.
And is that like an excited, nervous looking forward to it or like nervous,
can't wait until it's over?
A little bit of both. I actually get really chronic stage fright.
Okay. I've always had it. When you were a kid, people don't tell you about,
(11:06):
like, theatre blockers. Yeah, obviously.
Here's the thing now. I've never managed to take any.
But I can't actually play unaccompanied without wanting to vomit.
So generally bands are good for me.
Piano accompaniment is good. I once did the Stedford when I was,
like, I don't know, 14, unaccompanied in the study section. and I felt like
(11:29):
I was going to faint the entire time.
Apparently people can't tell. Only I can tell, but I know how it feels.
So, yes, terrified every time.
Some of it's adrenaline, some of it's just fear.
But you push through. Yeah, and I think that's a really, really great thing
about bands is you're playing with other people like almost all the time and
(11:49):
it's so much more fun than just playing by yourself.
Says the tuba player yeah i agreed well you know yeah i know i feel like there
was some guy in high school that played tuba and he played this a really cool
rendition of the swan for one of his solo performance.
Exercises that would have been nice did he dress up as a swan as well i feel
(12:09):
like that would always be the finishing touch for that piece honestly i i never
felt disappointed about that performance until now and as you mentioned that
i wish i could go back in time and request it but But unfortunately,
no, we all had to wear a performance uniform.
So if anyone's listening out there and it has the SWAN program coming up,
don't forget, you can just like take a pillow apart, stick the feathers on,
there you go, instant SWAN.
(12:30):
It's just tar and feathered before you even have a chance to perform. Exactly.
The audience would love it, except for the adjudicators who couldn't see it. All right, all right.
Are you in the section of the flutes? I don't know that much about the flutes.
How many flutes are in the band and, like, how do you work together?
Because it's like tuning and they're all very high, aren't they?
How does your flute section work? It is a difficult instrument to tune for sure.
(12:54):
We've got a good section this year. At the moment we have three firsts,
two seconds and our piccolo player, which who I think has the hardest job,
I think she'll agree with me.
And as far as the structure, as Kim said, I'm section leader and principal,
but I would love to have both and things to one of my first flutes,
but she just won't take things off me.
(13:16):
Do you get to sit on the end do you sit on the end yes
get to sit on the end unfortunately featured a lot of
tim's close-ups which i feel like he does just to annoy me
but you look so good on camera and you
sound so good on microphone i think it's nice because the the flute goes the
other way it's a good yeah angle yeah yeah we do need to sit further apart from
(13:37):
each other than other parts of the section otherwise we do tend to you know
spite each other in the head and hit the backs of chairs and things like that
but But all of us are pretty blind, so we have separate stands.
I mean, a lot of, like, flute sections, when they're a bit bigger,
they tend to share stands. We just can't do that. All of us are like,
even the ones that look like they're not blind are wearing contacts.
So we need our space. We need our own stands. We do have sectionals,
(14:00):
and we've been having lots of woodwind sectionals as well as a bigger group.
So we had one on Sunday, oh, yesterday morning.
So, yeah, lots of practice. And everyone plays differently, so everyone's tuning
is different, which makes it hard for tuning.
And then the temperature of the room, as per any other player, is quite challenging.
Is it going to be a heat wave in Adelaide when Nationals is on?
(14:22):
Like as a local, what do you reckon? I really hope not. I hope not.
I hope we're getting it out the way now. It's been pretty temperate so far this
summer. Now we're into autumn now, at least technically.
So I would love for it to not be hot, but, you know, knock on wood.
Probably will be. No, I love it. I love the heat. Bring it on.
A whole lot of stinky band people in our room. Oh, it's good.
(14:45):
But we train. We often do Australia Day in Corowa and it's always like 40 degrees
and it's like the band's now used to the like extreme temperatures.
It's like training when you go running in the desert or something.
Altitude training. And now if we ever have to play on stage at like 35 degrees,
we'll be able to do it, I reckon.
Sweat just dripping down. Yeah.
(15:06):
But no, I'm sure it will be fine. Jade, I've got another question for you. Yeah.
Have you ever played an instrument other than flute?
Have you dabbled? Are you a doubler naturally or is flute your one and only?
Oh, I started playing piano. You did mention viola early on.
Yeah, I played piano when I was – I started when I was seven and I played that
until, you know, maybe 10 years and I wasn't very good at it.
(15:29):
I really don't have the hand span.
I have all these like – you know the episode of The Simpsons when they say stumpyness
runs in the father's side of the family?
That is definitely me i'm lucky enough that i can play
the flute to be honest and i did play viola for a
bit because they so you're a piccolo piccolo specialist oh i'm
awful at piccolo it's actually it is actually quite
a joke in only concert band how bad i am at piccolo
(15:49):
so i do not touch the i have one it is not it needs repair and i'm leaving it
that way for now because it's a great excuse to never have to play it and i
have a great people for my piccolo players throughout the years that have been
very willing to take on the piccolo part because it is challenging and I just frankly suck at it.
(16:10):
I guess that's the perks of being section leader as well, right? Yeah, right.
You're going to sound great on piccolo on this bit. You can play that bit.
I'm going to play this bit.
When they've heard me play piccolo, it's kind of been like a little pitiful,
like pitied eyes looking at me being like, put it down now. That's enough. Yeah.
Well, you play the nice pretty solos, the pretty flute solos.
(16:33):
Piccolos have to, like, play all those high bits. Yeah.
It sounds hard. Different ombasho, to be honest. I'm sure if I actually cared
enough to do it, I would probably be able to practice my way back into it because
I did play it when I was a kid.
But nowadays I just never really have an opportunity to pick it up,
except one time we were playing kind of all the animals for an orchestra I was
in and the piccolo player was playing piano, so I had to play the piccolo part.
(16:56):
But other than that no but i
played viola because everyone had to learn a third instrument when
i started in high school but that was a requirement at our school and i
wanted to play violin but they told me they promised me viola be easier
but it was a lie i could not read alto clef the entire time i played viola for
three years and the whole time i didn't even read notes i'll be like that that
(17:19):
spot this finger like didn't even learn it yeah yeah yeah yeah alto clef's a bitch.
And i'm never going to play in the orchestra middle
c's like on the line like it was
convenient for like year 12 exams but other than that there
was an absolute no bit of a shout out to my high school string teacher who put
(17:41):
up with me never practicing but other than that no i haven't really dabbled
in other instruments i mean apart from like the odd paradiddle when i've asked
like my partner leave my place percussion i'll ask him to like teach me a few things and then,
every now and then people will be like oh why try playing this trumpet for fun
and i'll be like okay but i can't actually play anything except i can get a
(18:04):
sound out that's about it right,
That's pretty good. Yeah. That's pretty good. But maybe there's a picture for
you in like, you know, playing paradiddles in a percussion section.
I can imagine that. Do some vibes. I don't know about that.
I don't know. I already had to stay back until the end with all the percussion
stuff. I feel like that's enough.
Leave it to the professionals to play all the difficult stuff.
(18:24):
Maybe crash cymbals. Maybe that's what I'll draw the line. Crash cymbals. That's pretty fun.
So Unlead Band loves a good street march, right? Yes, we do.
Ordinarily. I think this year we are. Ordinarily. Yeah, this year we're not going to compete.
Oh, it's optional, right? Well, it is optional. It was always optional for Wimbledon. Yeah.
(18:45):
Where I was going with my question is I would love to see you play Crash Symbols on a march. Oh, my God.
I feel like that would just be, that would be totally amazing.
I'm actually not a great marcher. For many years I worked retail jobs,
so I didn't have the capacity to take time off. For now, I'm just, like, not good at it.
But it is pretty funny. I think we do the pageants and stuff every year here
(19:09):
in South Australia. I don't know if it's such a big thing interstate.
It's really not. But the pageant's huge.
Yep. But the Credit Union Christmas pageant obviously has, like,
hundreds of thousands or something people come out to watch it. Can we just pause?
Because I feel like there aren't any pageants anywhere else in all of Australia
except for South Australia.
So would you mind just explaining what the pageant is like and what it's all
(19:30):
about? I don't even know what you're talking about, this pageant.
Yeah, tell me. Oh, don't come for me on the data because I'm not across the
stack. That's okay. That's okay. Just impression.
What's the impression? In South Australia, every year there's Christmas,
like basically Christmas parades,
and each local community tends to have like
all the suburbs around it
(19:52):
have a local pageant where like it's
just local businesses will have floats and then
like there'll be Father Christmas at the end essentially eventually and there'll be
bands marching and playing for music and there'll be dancers but
the biggest one is the credit union well not pretty anymore sorry
it's i think it's is it national pharmacies now i don't know they keep changing
the sponsors but it's a big the big sponsor sorry to the sponsor i've already
(20:15):
forgotten i think there might be national hello sponsor hello and they they
sponsor it might be the people's choice credit union now i have no idea i mean,
Like I said, sorry, guys, but they basically have this huge.
Money well spent sponsorship. Adelaide CBD.
So they close off the whole, basically most of the CBD.
And this pageant goes for, I want to say like one and a half to two hours.
(20:41):
It's about a four kilometre, five kilometre walk to do the pageant.
So how is it different to a parade?
Isn't it just a parade? Why is it a pageant? Yeah, it is a parade.
But it's a Christmas pageant. They just use the term pageant.
Okay. But it's basically they have these floats that they've had.
They have new ones each year, but they've had ones that have been around since it started.
(21:02):
So they just refurbish them every year. And basically you grow up seeing certain
ones. And it's televised as well.
And you have basically most every band that marches in South Australia will
participate, including the armed forces, like Navy band, police band,
army band would all march too.
And you'll have all the dance troops, people dressed as clowns,
(21:24):
interacting with the kids. The kids will get there early and drawn aside the pavement.
It's a big deal. And I rock across to like Mount Gambier some years for their band festival there.
And the band festival is like mid-November. And a big feature of the band festival
is the Christmas pageant, which happens. So I think it's just. It's always November.
Yeah. It's November and it feels to me like it's a very South Australian thing.
(21:47):
Yeah. Definitely doesn't happen in Victoria.
Well, we've got Moomba, but it's not as big. And they used to sell the DVD,
but now they televise it. Oh.
Televised. Oof. that's big yes I know they re-televised it in the afternoon
we can go back and watch it later on too but,
Yeah, so that's probably the extent of it. Where I was going with that story
is I'm so unco at marching, I actually lost one of my march cards halfway through.
(22:10):
And because it's a four-kilometre, five-kilometre march, you have to play some
of these pieces multiple times.
And you also have to repeat a piece when you're going through the TV,
the cameras, because there's obviously the big swooping cameras and they do the close-up.
And I was just hoping and relying on my memory to play a little bit of rock for that entire time.
So by the end, someone's like, I found this like two kilometres back.
(22:33):
I'm like, yeah, that's mine.
I've got a story for you about marching, Jade. If you hate playing the piccolo,
when I played in a marching band in the US and we didn't even have flutes,
no one was allowed to play flute.
They all had to play piccolo. So we had 24 piccolos in the band.
Oh, yeah. And no normal flute. I think they were like, oh, the flutes are too
soft. No one will hear them. And everyone just played loud the entire time.
But 24 piccolos were just like a sight and sound to behold. I tell you that.
(22:58):
I feel like marching bands in the U.S. are like next level, though.
Yeah. Just next level in general. Yeah. For the most part. They're really good ones.
I just think monstrously good. And I could imagine that there's probably a band
in America with 24 piccolos and they're playing like perfectly in tune.
No, they weren't in tune, but that's okay. That's impossible.
Surely that's impossible.
Not that time. Not in your situation. I'm sure there was one somewhere.
(23:19):
It was, yeah, not the main focus of the thing. But they had their little,
do you have the, you hold your march card on your wrist? That's so cute.
Like because there's no space on your instrument? Oh, yes. You have your flutist friend.
Yes, your flutist friend. You better hope that's in the right position when
you put your arms up, otherwise you're stuck with it there until you get a chance to sneakily adjust it.
(23:40):
Hey, Robyn. Yeah. What was the name of the band that you played with?
It was the University of Illinois Marching Illini.
Yeah, it was one of the big ones. It was a Midwestern university band.
Yeah, it was awesome fun.
It was the best. And then we went to St. Patrick's Day. That was fun too.
With 24 piccolos the real important question is did you
wear did you wear the hat with the feather in it yeah
(24:02):
i did have a jet it was a called a plume plume but they
only gave them they only gave them to you like you had
the hat on and then like right before you went out they're like they had
a special box they're like you put the feather in you they don't trust you with
the plume you did your march and then as soon as you're off someone's like snatching
them all back yeah well they're very fluffy they're very very special i imagine
(24:24):
they're not cheap and i can Imagine like most people would either lose or damage them pretty easily.
Yeah. People were not used to having an additional foot high on their heads.
Yeah, no, we were not trusted with the plumes for any extra amount of time that was required.
Which bird did the plume come from?
It was blue. Oh, it was not a – I think it was quite long.
(24:45):
I'm holding up my – Like an eagle? What's that, like 20 centimetres? It was huge.
No, but it was like – They're fluffy though. They're like ostrich.
It wasn't a real made feather.
It was like straight up and it had like So loyal listeners, loyal listeners,
right now Robin's hand gestures are amazing and just imagine stroking a feather
in the air It's like slush They're giving fluffy vibes It's not hard,
(25:07):
it's got like little bits coming off it so when you move it's like billows with
the wind It's got some flexibility to it.
Yeah. No, but we weren't allowed actually to use music. We had to memorise everything.
They'd give you one week for the next show and say, memorise all this music
in two days and then you had to do the show. It was really full on, I tell you that.
(25:27):
Loved it though. I will say this is a thumbnail for this episode.
I feel like we need to get a picture of Robin wearing said plume to be the thumbnail.
I think that's a great idea, yeah. I was going to suggest as well maybe some
outtakes. We can get like Robin's plume feather hair examples. I don't have enough.
It looks like she's conducting. Yeah, exactly. Great. I don't have enough Canva
skills. It took me enough to remove the background to get our current.
(25:49):
Every time I release an episode, they're like, have you got a new picture for
this episode? I'm like, no, just keep putting the same picture there.
Well, listeners, if you're wondering, if everyone else's podcast has different
pictures, I did give Tim the login to the free Canva account that I made the
thing with and he added one little thing.
It doesn't, it's not amazing how profile picture is it, Tim?
(26:10):
We took it at the pub. We've got very high production standards. standards
when we were convincing people to come production value was
really there yeah we've got great high values we always skip our important our
structure tim oh whoops yeah yeah robin that's okay we got excited talking to
jane well how's your week been oh thanks for asking robin.
(26:36):
It's been good it's been too hot it's been too it has been very hot either but
like i find that if If I really do my breathing practice and my air work,
I think I can play faster in hot weather because, like, the speed of sound is faster in a hot room.
So, like, it helps with the fast notes and the articulations.
Does your band room not have good air conditioning?
What's going on? Just turn the air conditioner on. You've conquered nature with air conditioning.
(27:02):
Yeah. How's your week been, Robyn?
Uh, yep. Okay. In terms of band life.
Yeah, I had to go to this first. So Jade, our euphonium player in another band has broken his arm.
So I have to have now come in two weeks before nationals have to learn all this music for this chart.
But, and I also have to turn his- Just in time for the sign on sheet.
(27:23):
I know it was like he, luckily he fell over the day before permits were due. So that was okay.
They could put me on. I have to turn his pages, the poor guy.
So his left arm's in a sling. He He has to hold his euphonium with one hand
and then so I not only have to play the bits and all his music,
I also have to turn all his pages for him and I've got to write on my music
to turn his page and that's quite stressful.
(27:44):
Never occurred to me that he could still play with one arm. Yeah.
Well, he can't use his fourth vowel but you could get away with three vowels.
He's still better than me even with only one hand. So I'm just making sure I turn his pages for him.
That's the most important part of my job. It's quite stressful.
Well but we'll all be there together at nationals in two weeks right no two
(28:06):
and a half weeks two weeks soon how do you feel having to check my watch because
i have no idea what date it is yeah,
is that enough reflecting tim we didn't have that much reflecting to
do do we that's good reflecting that's okay so jade
do you like it when nationals are in your home state home state
advantage or not really it's great
not having to travel it's quite like it's just a
(28:28):
logistics thing it's quite difficult to
travel with a bear i mean you guys all know that especially with a
percussionist yeah just who's taking what and you know who's taking the marching
drum and what do we need and stuff like that but yeah it's definitely convenient
i'm happy it's um in the cbd this year and not out far away i know that like
(28:50):
sometimes you know venue constraints mean that has to be further out.
The Adelaide Uni in the Con is a good location. It was there in 2011 and it worked quite well.
And Elder Hole sounds really good, which is, I think, where the A grade are.
Especially when Unley's playing in it. It sounds even better.
(29:13):
One can only hope. Oh, I do have a question for you, Jade, though.
Yeah, go for it. So many bands from all over Australia are going to be going to Adelaide.
Do you have any insider tips? Like, how can foreigners to Adelaide come to Adelaide
for Easter when things are closed down?
What are some, like, three do's and a couple of don't do's? What's the best pub?
(29:35):
What's the best pub to go after the pub? You are asking the absolute wrong person. Oh, no. I know.
There's quite a few good ones in, like, Rundle Street, and there's a lot of
small – Adelaide kind of has a lot of small wine bars, cocktail bars now, and gin bars.
So if you need a big area, your best bet would be anywhere along Randall Street,
(29:57):
like Stagg or the Elephant and stuff like that.
If you're after something little, things like Lee Street off Highley Street
and some of those smaller laneways where all the little tiny pop-ups start is probably a good idea.
I'm not really a big drinker. Does Unley Constant Band have an after-party planned?
(30:18):
Oh, I imagine that they do. I'm not social secretary this year,
so I'll leave it in there.
You're looking out to the awards. That's sensible. Yeah. Yeah, that's enough, right?
I imagine that they'll do something on the Saturday night, as usual.
If we don't finish too late, it really depends on the scheduling.
You know, like sometimes a great concert finishes really late.
(30:38):
Or starts after midnight. After midnight.
Unforgettable, Jade. Unforgettable.
Everyone can't forget. After midnight. All the poor kids had to go home.
They couldn't even listen to the results because they all had to go to bed.
Yeah. Well, they're doing all the results together, aren't they?
Don't like all the wind bands, they're going to do all the results at the same time?
(30:59):
Did you say grade last? I have no idea. I don't know.
I think they're doing that. Because I know B grade's on quite early and then
they're in the other hall and then they won't have the results until all the
bands are finished and they're going to do all the results at the same time.
I thought that they would do them separately.
Is this misinformation? It sounds like a misinformation campaign here,
Robin. I'm not sure. Is that a misinformation? I saw it on the list of things.
(31:22):
Oh, it was on Facebook. I don't know.
Oh, am I not supposed to say that in the media? But, yeah, it might be late.
But it's a bit annoying if it's, like, late and then you want to go to dinner
and you want to celebrate and anyway.
I'm very into the social stuff in case you haven't.
And I'm actually helping out on Capringa City Concert Band as well in the afternoon
(31:44):
in B grade. same as you Robin last minute last minute sign on did you break
someone's arm so I've been to one rehearsal sorry guys,
oh no i didn't break anyone's arm i
could i was lucky enough that they could actually get me on a sign on
a sheet as a permit actually the the common joke janet will
kill me for saying this i pray that will kill me but is you get hit
(32:06):
by a bus because a very long time ago janet said
to me she plays flute as well she goes i've been
practicing your solo just in case you get hit by a bus janet it's a very specific
way for me to not be able to play most people would just say in case you get
sick or something i'm like have you recently obtained a bus license so since
then And getting hit by a bus has been kind of the go-to for reasons why you
(32:27):
might not be able to make a concert.
So when you said that, your colleague cut his arm and I was like,
did he get hit by a bus? Did he get hit by a bus?
No. But this isn't the case with Onkaparinga. You're just in there to help out and you're there.
They're lucky that you could sign on. Yeah, that's right. Good.
It's actually quite fun to play B grade again. It's been a while,
(32:48):
but it's because we're playing some of the pieces that I play when we were in
B grade last year. Don't tell us the pieces. Don't tell us the pieces.
Don't tell us the pieces. Can you imagine the outrage online if the pieces were known? Oh, my gosh.
Oh, they have to stop nationals. But everyone knows the test piece.
Yeah. Everyone knows the test piece. Do I remember the test piece name?
(33:10):
It's called the compostatella. I don't know.
Oh, yeah. Compostella? Compost.
Compost. I don't know. or something like that. I'm sure it's not that popular.
It's something like that. It's Teary. It's Teary. It's really pretty.
You know Teary Tim? He does all those pieces. He's the new hot thing.
(33:32):
Yeah. Yeah, he's my Facebook friend. Hi, Thierry. I don't know how to say your name.
You said you were friends with him and could get him on the podcast.
I was like, that's a bit of a tall thing. Yeah, all right.
Yeah, can you? I probably can, yeah.
Probably can. Oh, yeah, just get him on. Oh, man. Anyway, well, yeah, Be Great is fun.
So some people like to watch, like, you know, the bands on the live stream,
(33:57):
and I find quite often that the chat box gets really busy sometimes.
Times until until i don't
know why this is until only takes the stage then it's like
there's no one chatting do you think that's just a coincidence i think
that's a coincidence you might can't confirm what is that the reasons why
that happens okay interesting interesting i
just thought i thought it's not like the years that we haven't competed that
(34:20):
we've um gotten together and actually had a had a watch party and everyone's
been on their phones or anything like i can't say whether that's true or not
sometimes there's a high volume of chats coming through from like a South Australian
IP address. I'm like, hmm, hello, Emily.
Sledging every other band with their own. If we could comment on our own band, we would.
(34:43):
Unfortunately, it's a little bit difficult. While you're playing,
just like, ooh, someone wants to sell a bit of Radville in the chat. Just tap, tap, tap.
That would be hilarious. I wouldn't trust myself to have my phone on the stage
because I'm that person that accidentally sets their music off in rehearsals.
Yeah. It hasn't like alarms and stuff. Oh, yeah, we can't be trusted.
Who's practicing out there, Tim? Is someone practicing? Is that Jamie?
(35:05):
Jamie's practicing. I'm giving Jamie a lift home. I said it would be done by 10.30.
You gave him one lift home and now he's getting all, oh, did he say,
oh, and he's still there. Poor kid. All right.
We're doing pretty well, actually,
for time. I won't say how long it is because I might edit some out.
I don't think I'll have to edit any of your stuff out, Jade.
(35:26):
No, Jade is such a good speaker and so interesting.
I love it. Oh, okay. Very interesting. Oh, okay.
I love hearing you, Nick. I have a comment about my laundering and tea comment
about how fascinating I am because that's like what I do on a public holiday evening.
No comment, but good to know that everybody's clean. We love it.
We love it. All right. Well, maybe I'll ask you some of my questions and then we'll be done. Okay.
(35:51):
If you could play any other instrument, what would it be?
Cello. And it could be anything like. Cello. Great choice. Great choice.
It's just a sexy instrument, is it not? It sure is.
Yeah. You want to go low. You do a lot of high. Or baritone saxophone because
whenever I see baritone saxophone players, like.
(36:12):
They're just hot. My friend. They're just hot, right. I always feel like.
I feel like they look reliable.
They're reliable. She would be an excellent, I always tell her,
she'd be an excellent boyfriend and she'd take care of me.
That's how I feel when I watch her play pedal notes and, like,
in time and, like, repeated passages.
It's just so comforting, right? I just feel like they're so reliable,
they just keep chugging on. So comforting. Yeah, they honk away.
(36:32):
Not like a tuba player, they're not as reliable, are they? The tuba. Never.
But I guess if you played the cello. Gary Sax is always there.
If you played the cello, I think The Swan was originally written for the cello.
So maybe there's a future there. Maybe you could wear the feathers.
Yeah. It's on the cards, right? If I ever get enough money to buy a cello.
(36:57):
We can start a GoFundMe. All right.
GoFundMe for me to dress up in feathers and play the cello.
I don't think you'll get many people putting up their money for that.
You'd be surprised what happens on the internet, Jade. You'd be surprised.
I would be very surprised but you know what if it means i get a chile for free
(37:17):
i'd i'd be willing to slap his feathers on maybe not specifically but,
some things water soluble will do what are
we even talking about i don't know because you've been in your band a long time
do you have any stolen things like is there anything you've just moved house
correct jane in your packing have you noticed any things that may They belong
(37:39):
to actually only bands that have been in your possession for too long. Oh, you got me.
Yes, I have found, well, it's not mine, but I found an original percussion part
for one of the pieces that probably needs to go back.
Just slowly ride to the bus, slowly ride. Yeah.
And I think we also found, I don't know if it's our slapstick or the band's
(38:00):
slapstick, but we found that. Slapstick?
Got a couple of Kensington and Norwood uniforms that we don't know if they even use them anymore.
Vintage. We might have updated their uniforms since then. Yeah, so they're vintage.
We've got those two pairs of pants and a jacket and two ties that we'll need
to find their way home if they still wear those because Levi used to play with
(38:23):
them but doesn't anymore.
What else did I find? I actually found an original, sorry, Brighton Secondary
School, but I found an original copy of one of the pieces I obviously played in high school.
Impressive. Not only concert bands. I feel like they don't play that anymore.
They probably haven't missed it, but sorry nonetheless.
And a quintet flute part that might belong to Adelaide University.
(38:48):
So maybe I'll leave that there at my school.
I'm very sorry to whoever used their card to borrow that It could have been expensive.
I feel like this question could have been different. It could have been,
has there been a band you've played with that you haven't stolen their stuff?
Well, the answer would be no. It would be a much shorter answer, wouldn't it?
(39:08):
I think that's a pretty good record for nine years of hoarding at my old house.
That's fantastic. We're proud of you. Probably not too bad, yeah.
Thank you. Thank you. I feel like setting the bar really low and getting praise
for it is just kind of what I'm all about.
Yeah, at least it's not a tuber. Fenella wins that one. I was a whole tuber
in her house for 15 years. We struck gold with that.
(39:29):
Yeah, an entire tuber. Well, I was thinking when I moved house,
my sister helped me move house and she was shocked and appalled by how many instruments I had.
Like I was like, I don't know. She's like, why do you need three different guitars?
You don't even play the guitar. How many instruments do you reckon you moved
from the last house to this house? Because we were talking about that.
So I don't actually own that many myself. Like I obviously have.
(39:53):
Piccolo, but we don't speak about that. I've got a fife, which I absolutely cannot play.
A recorder, which I can play half-heartedly. A couple of Irish tin whistles.
And some wooden flutes. So that's about all I've got. But Levi,
we had to move for Levi, obviously, his drum kit, and all of his cymbals, hardware.
And then, like, he has some really obscure stuff. Like, my parents got him on
(40:15):
those Irish drums when they went to Ireland. He also has, like – Bodron.
Yeah, Bodron, that's right. All right. He also has a saxophone,
a trumpet, a bass clarinet, a normal clarinet, a key cornet,
face guitar, electric guitar. I think we got rid of the bass guitar actually because it was broken.
Electric guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboard.
(40:37):
He's mixing desks, all of his mics and stuff. Yeah.
So a lot of things, music things we had to move for him. And he can't even move in that room right now.
He's busy trying to, like, set it up so that he can be shelving back up.
So he actually has homes for all this. But, of course, all the auxiliary percussionists
because percussionists can't stop, can they?
They see something that makes a noise and they must buy it. At one point,
I think we moved a bag that had just two metal pieces of metal,
(40:59):
like a flywheel and something else in it.
Why do you have this? That would sound so good. They sound good,
yeah. That would sound so good when you get it.
You don't have any twirly-whirlies? No, but they're actually at the band hole
because we made them for Angels in the Architecture many years ago.
We played to Kelly. and then other bands borrow them from us.
(41:20):
So it's... You hire them out. Yeah, they're available for hire.
They're tuned quite well. They're
tuned exactly for Angels in the Architecture and nothing else. Yeah.
But yes, they do exist. Levi also made, we did a piece that was by an Australian composer.
I'm really sorry, I don't remember his name. But there was like a part for,
and I don't remember what it's called, but it's like a stick with bottle caps
(41:41):
on it. Oh, the Larga phone.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Larga phone. So Levi had to make a Larga phone and we
finally threw out the remainder of the bottle caps that were drilled but not used.
But yeah, that Larga phone also I think lives at the band hall.
It's an excuse to drink a lot of beer. That's okay. It's just beer caps on a
stick. I think they just bought bottle caps from a brewery.
What? Because the ones that you use, you bend them to open them, right?
(42:05):
So, like, unless you have screw tops. It wrecks the tone. Exactly.
Yeah. Couldn't even imagine a lager phone with bent bottle caps.
That would just be terrible.
They're twisties, like Simon's. No, no, no. Not at all.
If all the caps are the same, if you bought them in a packet,
(42:26):
they'd all be the same there. You need an eclectic lagaphone.
I'm imagining this lagaphone looking way too uniform and I'm disappointed.
It actually looks really impressive, like to the point that it looks like we
bought it, but it was just like handmade.
It had like a stick to hit it and everything.
I want one of those now. And it was quite comical. I think one of our percussionists
(42:47):
didn't come to a couple of rehearsals and he turned up and then he was told,
you're playing this thing, and he put his hand at the lagaphone with no context. Yeah.
Did he come back? Oh, yeah. Well, that was it. Oh, that's nice.
Okay, good. He's definitely come back.
But I think it should be an appeal, really. Like, you get to hit this with a
stick. So, you know, I feel like the cash is like that kind of thing.
(43:09):
That's the whole premise.
Yeah. Whack it. Yeah. The whacker.
All right. So, you guys coming for the whole weekend? The whole weekend?
Of course. Well, Tim has to stream the whole thing. Yeah, like Thursday.
Yeah, we get there Thursday. I'm going to get there on Wednesday.
Yeah. No, I don't stay. I don't do solos anymore. I've got to set up. I'm too old.
(43:32):
I'm going to stream solos. I'm going to stream solos. Are you?
Yeah. I used to do everything.
Sorry, Emily. Yeah, I've got too many children at home.
I'm pawning them out to, like, separate grandparents so that one set doesn't
have to look after them all.
They have to do a divide and conquer, so we have to come back ASAP.
(43:53):
To be honest. yeah yeah they're a handful that's all right yeah well what's on for the week guys,
other than rehearsals how many rehearsals are you up to jay do you do two a
week we've been doing an extra on the weekend i think this weekend coming we
actually were right no we do have one,
(44:14):
so this just the three yeah two five three if we go okay yeah i don't know concert
bands don't listening to a rehearse is not your brass band.
It's like a two-a-week standard for brass bands. I don't know.
I was saying just the three as in that seems like a lot, doesn't it?
That's just half my week taken up by band, yeah. Yeah, that's all right.
(44:38):
Oh, well, we're nearly there. Yeah, it's only once a year, right?
We don't do extra rehearsals like this for stage. Oh, okay. Never.
Never? No? Rehearsals for stage. Boo!
What's on for your week, Robin? What's on for your week?
Um, yeah, just rehearsing. Oh, so this weekend is our weekend rehearsal and
(45:01):
we're going to do like a invite people to, I just said, invite your mums.
So we're having a, like an open rehearsal, like at the end of the rehearsal, we'll run our program.
We won't do a proper concert, but, um, like it's always a couple of people's mums come.
That's nice. The ones that can't, you know, they're not coming with us to travels
and, you know, the mums that don't like watching the stream,
(45:21):
no offence, Tim, because, you know, technology.
And they're like, I want to hear your band play in real life.
So it's like everyone bring your mums and we have like five mums,
including my mum because she has to watch my children.
How about you, Tim? You've got a concert this weekend, don't you?
Are you doing that? I'm actually flying to New Zealand on Wednesday for the
New Zealand Pipe Band Championships.
(45:42):
You talked about that last week. I'm flying.
Well, now it's happening. It's the thing about the future, it happens.
And then I'm flying back on Sunday morning.
And then I've got to land at the airport and then I've got to go to my Footscray
concert because Footscray is doing a concert with Weston Bruss and Darabin and
we're all going to play our own choices and hymn and march.
(46:07):
I saw that. Footscray and Darabin are like technically against each other, aren't they?
You're being like friendly rivals. It's called Frenemies. Oh,
Frenemies. Yeah, okay. Yeah, Frenemies.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why you're not playing the test piece though.
You don't want to reveal all your cards. Exactly. We don't want to give away the test piece. Yeah.
Okay. What we've actually done with the test piece is we've put it all up a
semitone to make it sound a bit brighter.
(46:30):
I know. It might be the edge you need because I only once came second on the
count back on the test piece, so you just never know.
You might need the extra half a point on that test piece. That semitone.
No one will notice. They'll never know. So it's going to be a great week.
Yeah. What a great week ahead. We'll have fun at the pipe bands.
(46:51):
Yeah, pipe pens. And then hopefully my plane isn't delayed to flying back in
on Sunday morning and I get to the concert. Yay. It would be great.
Who are you flying with? I feel like you've distinct yourself already.
Yeah. Wait, is it Air New Zealand's all right? Is it other ones are not too
good? Air New Zealand's great. Yeah, yeah, okay.
I mean, they're not sponsoring us. They should give us money.
No, I don't know. Hello, Air New Zealand. Hello.
(47:15):
These AI transcripts don't write themselves. I've got to pay like five bucks
a month extra for my AI transcripts. Then they put the subtitles.
If anyone wants to listen to the pod with subtitles, it seems like an oxymoron,
like don't you listen to a podcast because you don't want to look at something? I don't know.
But it puts on subtitles if everyone wants to listen. Are there subtitles? Yeah.
Well, if you click subtitles, it'll pop up. The AI listens to our thing and
(47:38):
then generates the subtitles.
Yeah. Can you get them to write in the gestures as well so that everyone can
really enjoy the plumage?
Audio description, like feathers, feathers, feathers.
Yeah, I might do the feathers. Or hand gestures to indicate fluffy feathers. About this long.
Fluffiness maximum. I don't know. Yeah.
(47:59):
All right. Well, Jade. Thank you, Jade. Thank you so much. Thank you so much
for joining us. That's okay. It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me, I guess.
Whether or not this was great for you, I don't know. We haven't talked about
any pieces, wind band pieces to sing an outro.
Oh, yeah. So, Jade, at the end of every podcast, We sing part of our favourite,
(48:20):
like, you know, band piece all together, all three of us, because we don't have any outro music.
Should we do – Do you guys have a favourite? Because I know what's been in my
head all week. What's been in your head? What's been in your head?
Is it Holst's Sweet in E-flat?
No, it's Festival Variations.
Oh. It's such a banger. By Claude T. Smith. Claude T. Smith.
(48:40):
I told you I don't know anything about music.
I warned you before this. I am the worst bandie ever. But, yes.
Can you hum it to us? Can you sing it to us? I think I've done it.
It's the one that's like.
Oh, yeah, that one.
(49:01):
Come on, Robin.
Robin's not singing.
I'm sure there's a crash. This is so chaotic. This is the worst outro ever.
Crash bye everyone thanks for listening bye.
Hello, loyal viewers. Hello, loyal listeners.
Welcome to Brass Bandcast. This is the podcast about love, life,
music, banding, food, drink, and intonation.
Great to have you here. Robin, how are you?
I am good. I am good.
Left rehearsal early tonight. I was very naughty. Had to get home to the kids.
(00:24):
And I'm getting messages that apparently they ran the whole program before Nationals
and so I wasn't there. So I left my poor number two in the lurch.
I feel very bad for him. Other than that, I'm good. How are you, Tim?
Yeah, I'm pretty good. I've just been at another rehearsal. I'm in the Footscray
storeroom again because rehearsal finishes at 9.30. Again, that's three podcasts
in a row we've recorded from the Footscray storeroom and not from our beautiful studio.
(00:48):
I know the Brass Landcastle studio has been just like left abandoned the past
couple of weeks. We'll have to get back there sometime soon.
And this evening we're joined by Jade.
Hello, Jade. How are you? I'm good, thank you. Thanks for having me.
It is such a pleasure to have someone from South Australia.
Much of us, I think, want interesting than this. Oh, no, no,
(01:09):
no. This is interesting.
We love interesting people. We get too many of, you know, the people on the
top. We need more of the average guy. Man, lady.
Yes, the mundanady. I'm here to bring the mundanady. I know.
We need some more unique perspectives.
Because you know what? Other conductors are probably not listening to our podcast.
It's like it's the normal people. We're the podcast of the people, right? The band people.
(01:32):
Yeah, we want this podcast to be about people who play in bands all over Australia.
And the last couple of weeks we've been sort of quite brass band heavy.
So brass band. So it's great to have someone from a concert band and someone who's not in Victoria.
And Jade, you play the flute with the Unley Concert Band, right?
That's right. I don't know if that's right. I've been with the Unley Concert
(01:54):
Band for, I want to say, 17 years now.
17 years. Wow. Wait, so since before – oh, no, my math is 2003. Yeah, 2003. Yeah.
Did I have a seven? Oh, okay. Yeah, that's really bad. That's okay.
It's okay. Well, that's a long time. I'm here for you. That's awesome.
Have they given you a badge or something? Have you got a life membership? Yeah.
(02:17):
No, not a life membership. I think you have to be a little bit more important for that.
But I have a 15-year badge and actually I'm membership. I'm an awards coordinator.
So basically next time I get my next badge, I'll be giving it to myself.
Yeah, give it to yourself. Can we nominate you? Can we nominate you for life
membership of Unley Concert Band for 17 years of fine floating?
(02:38):
I think of the current life members, and I don't think I'm quite up to scratch,
to be honest, but maybe one day.
How many people play in Unley Concert Band? Yeah.
Ask Tim's question. Sorry, we talk over each other when we're on Zoom.
I was going to say how many people have been there longer than 17 years.
That's a better question than Tim's question. well there's maybe
(03:01):
two members that have been there since the band started so that i don't know
26 years now and then like varying degrees all the people that were in the band
when i joined is still in the band so some long haul members there and at the
moment i reckon we've got about,
(03:21):
out I don't don't quote me on this but like 45 at
least 45 for nationals but like
literally don't quote me because I never count anybody yeah they
come and go don't they yeah oh that's nice that's fun 46 yeah so it's much bigger
than a brass band and you don't play a brass instrument what's that like not
(03:43):
at all what's that like I don't know I guess stamina wise apparently it's better I don't You know.
Let's just say that we can still keep going after all the brassies are chopped.
Yeah, that would be nice. That would be nice. Woodwind stamina.
Woodwind stamina. Yeah. Yeah.
And, Jade, how did the flute come to you or how did you come to the flute? What's the origins?
(04:08):
So this was a long time ago, but when I was five, my brother wanted to learn
the instrument and he wanted to learn clarinet, but the clarinet teacher said
that he was too young and he was about eight at the time.
And the only teacher that would take him in
was the flute teacher and then obviously sibling rivalry
I was supremely jealous and basically begged
to be able to play and my
(04:31):
brother who's always been the same bit competitive but also a little bit of
a like to place bets and things so he said oh if you can get a proper sound
out of this head joint in like a week then surely I'll make sure that you can
play he's eight he has no control over with my parents to pay for lessons or
not, but I did, and somehow,
I think it was completely unrelated that they let me, but he likes to think
(04:53):
that it was thanks to him.
He's such an enabler, such an enabler of you on flute.
He's made a beautiful thing. Oh, this is the same guy that used to get me to
do his, like, year 10 maths homework when I was in year 7, so there's, like, really no...
They're just siblings. That's just how we are.
Sibling life and does does your brother still play an instrument
(05:14):
in a band or he he does not he
lost a lot of passion for it in school because he went to a private school
and did a music scholarship and they said that he couldn't quit the flute or
the piano when he was there and because of that like pressure he was like no
i'm not actually keen anymore so he stopped in year 12 and i kept going because
my mom signed me up for only hunter band yay yay yeah she's like Like,
(05:38):
I'm not going to lose two of you.
I've paid all this money for your instrumental lessons and one of you has already stopped playing.
So I found this ad in the local paper and you're going to rehearsal on Wednesday.
Wow. So your mum found Unley Concert Band in the newsroom.
That's like, wow. Because I wasn't going to do music at school and she's like,
well, you're not going to give it up.
(05:58):
You've already given up piano and you've already given up viola so you can't give up flute.
Parents get very disappointed when kids give up. I say give up in inverted commas.
Because it's like you get a lot out of music even if you decide not to go into community band.
Like kids who learn it in school go through to Year 12. They've obviously,
I don't know, developed their brain and learnt about the arts and blah, blah, blah.
(06:21):
And there's lots of other things you kind of, you do ceramics in school and
you might not become an artist and that's not called giving up.
But parents get very disappointed. They're like, I paid so much money for your
music lessons and you didn't become some musical star.
But just getting enjoyment out of it is enough.
I think. But it is nice if you can keep going. Yeah.
(06:41):
I don't know what they expect, like, for you to become a tennis star.
I was going to say we're really lucky because Jade is actually a musical star
and she still has the passion for the flute.
It's great to still have a passion. Isn't that right, Jade? Yeah.
Yes, I do definitely still have a passion. So it's a success story.
And is your mum still proud of you? Yeah, she still comes to our concerts.
I mean, like, she'll hate me saying this, but she's getting on now.
(07:03):
She still turns up, so that's good.
I think she's proud of me. The band is the least. She's glad that I kept it up.
I think the band is probably a small portion of why she's proud of me,
I hope, considering the cliche is that the Asian tiger mom forces you to practice.
She was never really like that but managed to keep our interest alive anyway,
(07:23):
maybe just by reminding us how much everything costs.
But, you know, happy for the opportunity.
Oh, yeah. Do you remember the first time that you played flute in a band?
In a band. In your first rehearsal?
First rehearsal. I remember my first performance in a flute quartet playing
fourth part of 22 Little Star on my bendy flute head joint.
Nice. I know, because I couldn't reach the end of the flute,
(07:45):
so they had to give me the bendy head joint. It was... Oh, yeah,
that curvy thing. Somewhere.
Yeah. As far as band is concerned, I think when I was maybe seven or eight,
I joined the Primary Schools Band Ensemble, which is run by the Department of
Education here in South Australia.
Earlier and actually the conductor at the
time carrie hewitt is actually playing
(08:08):
with unleaf nationals this year so some good nostalgic
memories for us there yes i even found
his recommendation for me for high school recently when
i was packing so i think
i still remember you have to audition for that band and how stressful
it was being seven and having to do and prepare for an audition and
it wasn't it wasn't like they weren't harsh or anything
(08:30):
thing but it's still a different experience altogether when
you haven't ever done that before and yeah it was
a it was a great ensemble to be and i actually met a lot of people i went to high
school with eventually and in that ensemble so
yeah i love it well that sounds
amazing is that kind of band still running do they
still do that primary school thing i actually don't i don't know they also did
(08:52):
primary school string orchestra i don't know if they still run i would i would
hope that they do it went for a long long long time and there's just like all
sorts of people that went through Primus because we know Ensemble Wind in South Australia.
You still have the jumper that has everyone's names on it. Oh, cute.
I remember when Brian Griffiths used to be conductor for a while,
(09:12):
we realised that we were both in Primus because we knew Ensemble Wind at the
same time and his name is on my jumper.
That's pretty cute. He's actually the adjudicator for the A-grade section. Oh.
Oh, yeah. Conflict. Conflict. No, they're behind a screen.
That's fine. You won't know who he's who. I'm sure. I'm sure this is getting
off topic, but I'm sure they can tell which band's which, can't they? Do you reckon?
(09:35):
You would think so. I reckon they sound so different. And like,
yeah, it's all a little bit of shouting, like standing behind a screen. No, it's all anonymous.
I can't see. It's all anonymous. Trust the process. Trust the process.
I've seen the screens the adjudicators sit behind and like, you know,
light doesn't get through.
Oh, I know they can't see out. Trust the process. Light doesn't get through.
My point is it seems mean to make them sit there for like eight hours and like
(09:58):
not even look at anything.
Like just let them look at the band. I'm sure they'll still be impartial.
So I'm saying trust their professionalism to like be able to see you and still be impartial, right?
And then they can judge the uniforms.
You'd recognise them too. Like soloists, you'd recognise that.
You'd hear like every, you'd recognise their tone and stuff if you were like
a professional. I'm not. I don't have the ear for it, but I imagine you'd be
(10:21):
able to pick something out. Yeah.
Yeah, I often think when I play
Juba, gee, I sound really, really good and everyone must know it's me.
In your section of like. Something like that. Yeah, it's important that you're positive too.
Someone's got to believe me. Oh, that we're not doing. Yeah, yeah.
So, Jade, you mentioned that you felt it was quite nerve-wracking,
(10:42):
I guess, as a seven-year-old sort of preparing for your first thing.
Do you still get nervous when you're playing?
If you're going on stage at Nationals, will you feel nervous? Yeah. Okay.
And is that like an excited, nervous looking forward to it or like nervous,
can't wait until it's over?
A little bit of both. I actually get really chronic stage fright.
Okay. I've always had it. When you were a kid, people don't tell you about,
(11:06):
like, theatre blockers. Yeah, obviously.
Here's the thing now. I've never managed to take any.
But I can't actually play unaccompanied without wanting to vomit.
So generally bands are good for me.
Piano accompaniment is good. I once did the Stedford when I was,
like, I don't know, 14, unaccompanied in the study section. and I felt like
(11:29):
I was going to faint the entire time.
Apparently people can't tell. Only I can tell, but I know how it feels.
So, yes, terrified every time.
Some of it's adrenaline, some of it's just fear.
But you push through. Yeah, and I think that's a really, really great thing
about bands is you're playing with other people like almost all the time and
(11:49):
it's so much more fun than just playing by yourself.
Says the tuba player yeah i agreed well you know yeah i know i feel like there
was some guy in high school that played tuba and he played this a really cool
rendition of the swan for one of his solo performance.
Exercises that would have been nice did he dress up as a swan as well i feel
(12:09):
like that would always be the finishing touch for that piece honestly i i never
felt disappointed about that performance until now and as you mentioned that
i wish i could go back in time and request it but But unfortunately,
no, we all had to wear a performance uniform.
So if anyone's listening out there and it has the SWAN program coming up,
don't forget, you can just like take a pillow apart, stick the feathers on,
there you go, instant SWAN.
(12:30):
It's just tar and feathered before you even have a chance to perform. Exactly.
The audience would love it, except for the adjudicators who couldn't see it. All right, all right.
Are you in the section of the flutes? I don't know that much about the flutes.
How many flutes are in the band and, like, how do you work together?
Because it's like tuning and they're all very high, aren't they?
How does your flute section work? It is a difficult instrument to tune for sure.
(12:54):
We've got a good section this year. At the moment we have three firsts,
two seconds and our piccolo player, which who I think has the hardest job,
I think she'll agree with me.
And as far as the structure, as Kim said, I'm section leader and principal,
but I would love to have both and things to one of my first flutes,
but she just won't take things off me.
(13:16):
Do you get to sit on the end do you sit on the end yes
get to sit on the end unfortunately featured a lot of
tim's close-ups which i feel like he does just to annoy me
but you look so good on camera and you
sound so good on microphone i think it's nice because the the flute goes the
other way it's a good yeah angle yeah yeah we do need to sit further apart from
(13:37):
each other than other parts of the section otherwise we do tend to you know
spite each other in the head and hit the backs of chairs and things like that
but But all of us are pretty blind, so we have separate stands.
I mean, a lot of, like, flute sections, when they're a bit bigger,
they tend to share stands. We just can't do that. All of us are like,
even the ones that look like they're not blind are wearing contacts.
So we need our space. We need our own stands. We do have sectionals,
(14:00):
and we've been having lots of woodwind sectionals as well as a bigger group.
So we had one on Sunday, oh, yesterday morning.
So, yeah, lots of practice. And everyone plays differently, so everyone's tuning
is different, which makes it hard for tuning.
And then the temperature of the room, as per any other player, is quite challenging.
Is it going to be a heat wave in Adelaide when Nationals is on?
(14:22):
Like as a local, what do you reckon? I really hope not. I hope not.
I hope we're getting it out the way now. It's been pretty temperate so far this
summer. Now we're into autumn now, at least technically.
So I would love for it to not be hot, but, you know, knock on wood.
Probably will be. No, I love it. I love the heat. Bring it on.
A whole lot of stinky band people in our room. Oh, it's good.
(14:45):
But we train. We often do Australia Day in Corowa and it's always like 40 degrees
and it's like the band's now used to the like extreme temperatures.
It's like training when you go running in the desert or something.
Altitude training. And now if we ever have to play on stage at like 35 degrees,
we'll be able to do it, I reckon.
Sweat just dripping down. Yeah.
(15:06):
But no, I'm sure it will be fine. Jade, I've got another question for you. Yeah.
Have you ever played an instrument other than flute?
Have you dabbled? Are you a doubler naturally or is flute your one and only?
Oh, I started playing piano. You did mention viola early on.
Yeah, I played piano when I was – I started when I was seven and I played that
until, you know, maybe 10 years and I wasn't very good at it.
(15:29):
I really don't have the hand span.
I have all these like – you know the episode of The Simpsons when they say stumpyness
runs in the father's side of the family?
That is definitely me i'm lucky enough that i can play
the flute to be honest and i did play viola for a
bit because they so you're a piccolo piccolo specialist oh i'm
awful at piccolo it's actually it is actually quite
a joke in only concert band how bad i am at piccolo
(15:49):
so i do not touch the i have one it is not it needs repair and i'm leaving it
that way for now because it's a great excuse to never have to play it and i
have a great people for my piccolo players throughout the years that have been
very willing to take on the piccolo part because it is challenging and I just frankly suck at it.
(16:10):
I guess that's the perks of being section leader as well, right? Yeah, right.
You're going to sound great on piccolo on this bit. You can play that bit.
I'm going to play this bit.
When they've heard me play piccolo, it's kind of been like a little pitiful,
like pitied eyes looking at me being like, put it down now. That's enough. Yeah.
Well, you play the nice pretty solos, the pretty flute solos.
(16:33):
Piccolos have to, like, play all those high bits. Yeah.
It sounds hard. Different ombasho, to be honest. I'm sure if I actually cared
enough to do it, I would probably be able to practice my way back into it because
I did play it when I was a kid.
But nowadays I just never really have an opportunity to pick it up,
except one time we were playing kind of all the animals for an orchestra I was
in and the piccolo player was playing piano, so I had to play the piccolo part.
(16:56):
But other than that no but i
played viola because everyone had to learn a third instrument when
i started in high school but that was a requirement at our school and i
wanted to play violin but they told me they promised me viola be easier
but it was a lie i could not read alto clef the entire time i played viola for
three years and the whole time i didn't even read notes i'll be like that that
(17:19):
spot this finger like didn't even learn it yeah yeah yeah yeah alto clef's a bitch.
And i'm never going to play in the orchestra middle
c's like on the line like it was
convenient for like year 12 exams but other than that there
was an absolute no bit of a shout out to my high school string teacher who put
(17:41):
up with me never practicing but other than that no i haven't really dabbled
in other instruments i mean apart from like the odd paradiddle when i've asked
like my partner leave my place percussion i'll ask him to like teach me a few things and then,
every now and then people will be like oh why try playing this trumpet for fun
and i'll be like okay but i can't actually play anything except i can get a
(18:04):
sound out that's about it right,
That's pretty good. Yeah. That's pretty good. But maybe there's a picture for
you in like, you know, playing paradiddles in a percussion section.
I can imagine that. Do some vibes. I don't know about that.
I don't know. I already had to stay back until the end with all the percussion
stuff. I feel like that's enough.
Leave it to the professionals to play all the difficult stuff.
(18:24):
Maybe crash cymbals. Maybe that's what I'll draw the line. Crash cymbals. That's pretty fun.
So Unlead Band loves a good street march, right? Yes, we do.
Ordinarily. I think this year we are. Ordinarily. Yeah, this year we're not going to compete.
Oh, it's optional, right? Well, it is optional. It was always optional for Wimbledon. Yeah.
(18:45):
Where I was going with my question is I would love to see you play Crash Symbols on a march. Oh, my God.
I feel like that would just be, that would be totally amazing.
I'm actually not a great marcher. For many years I worked retail jobs,
so I didn't have the capacity to take time off. For now, I'm just, like, not good at it.
But it is pretty funny. I think we do the pageants and stuff every year here
(19:09):
in South Australia. I don't know if it's such a big thing interstate.
It's really not. But the pageant's huge.
Yep. But the Credit Union Christmas pageant obviously has, like,
hundreds of thousands or something people come out to watch it. Can we just pause?
Because I feel like there aren't any pageants anywhere else in all of Australia
except for South Australia.
So would you mind just explaining what the pageant is like and what it's all
(19:30):
about? I don't even know what you're talking about, this pageant.
Yeah, tell me. Oh, don't come for me on the data because I'm not across the
stack. That's okay. That's okay. Just impression.
What's the impression? In South Australia, every year there's Christmas,
like basically Christmas parades,
and each local community tends to have like
all the suburbs around it
(19:52):
have a local pageant where like it's
just local businesses will have floats and then
like there'll be Father Christmas at the end essentially eventually and there'll be
bands marching and playing for music and there'll be dancers but
the biggest one is the credit union well not pretty anymore sorry
it's i think it's is it national pharmacies now i don't know they keep changing
the sponsors but it's a big the big sponsor sorry to the sponsor i've already
(20:15):
forgotten i think there might be national hello sponsor hello and they they
sponsor it might be the people's choice credit union now i have no idea i mean,
Like I said, sorry, guys, but they basically have this huge.
Money well spent sponsorship. Adelaide CBD.
So they close off the whole, basically most of the CBD.
And this pageant goes for, I want to say like one and a half to two hours.
(20:41):
It's about a four kilometre, five kilometre walk to do the pageant.
So how is it different to a parade?
Isn't it just a parade? Why is it a pageant? Yeah, it is a parade.
But it's a Christmas pageant. They just use the term pageant.
Okay. But it's basically they have these floats that they've had.
They have new ones each year, but they've had ones that have been around since it started.
(21:02):
So they just refurbish them every year. And basically you grow up seeing certain
ones. And it's televised as well.
And you have basically most every band that marches in South Australia will
participate, including the armed forces, like Navy band, police band,
army band would all march too.
And you'll have all the dance troops, people dressed as clowns,
(21:24):
interacting with the kids. The kids will get there early and drawn aside the pavement.
It's a big deal. And I rock across to like Mount Gambier some years for their band festival there.
And the band festival is like mid-November. And a big feature of the band festival
is the Christmas pageant, which happens. So I think it's just. It's always November.
Yeah. It's November and it feels to me like it's a very South Australian thing.
(21:47):
Yeah. Definitely doesn't happen in Victoria.
Well, we've got Moomba, but it's not as big. And they used to sell the DVD,
but now they televise it. Oh.
Televised. Oof. that's big yes I know they re-televised it in the afternoon
we can go back and watch it later on too but,
Yeah, so that's probably the extent of it. Where I was going with that story
is I'm so unco at marching, I actually lost one of my march cards halfway through.
(22:10):
And because it's a four-kilometre, five-kilometre march, you have to play some
of these pieces multiple times.
And you also have to repeat a piece when you're going through the TV,
the cameras, because there's obviously the big swooping cameras and they do the close-up.
And I was just hoping and relying on my memory to play a little bit of rock for that entire time.
So by the end, someone's like, I found this like two kilometres back.
(22:33):
I'm like, yeah, that's mine.
I've got a story for you about marching, Jade. If you hate playing the piccolo,
when I played in a marching band in the US and we didn't even have flutes,
no one was allowed to play flute.
They all had to play piccolo. So we had 24 piccolos in the band.
Oh, yeah. And no normal flute. I think they were like, oh, the flutes are too
soft. No one will hear them. And everyone just played loud the entire time.
But 24 piccolos were just like a sight and sound to behold. I tell you that.
(22:58):
I feel like marching bands in the U.S. are like next level, though.
Yeah. Just next level in general. Yeah. For the most part. They're really good ones.
I just think monstrously good. And I could imagine that there's probably a band
in America with 24 piccolos and they're playing like perfectly in tune.
No, they weren't in tune, but that's okay. That's impossible.
Surely that's impossible.
Not that time. Not in your situation. I'm sure there was one somewhere.
(23:19):
It was, yeah, not the main focus of the thing. But they had their little,
do you have the, you hold your march card on your wrist? That's so cute.
Like because there's no space on your instrument? Oh, yes. You have your flutist friend.
Yes, your flutist friend. You better hope that's in the right position when
you put your arms up, otherwise you're stuck with it there until you get a chance to sneakily adjust it.
(23:40):
Hey, Robyn. Yeah. What was the name of the band that you played with?
It was the University of Illinois Marching Illini.
Yeah, it was one of the big ones. It was a Midwestern university band.
Yeah, it was awesome fun.
It was the best. And then we went to St. Patrick's Day. That was fun too.
With 24 piccolos the real important question is did you
wear did you wear the hat with the feather in it yeah
(24:02):
i did have a jet it was a called a plume plume but they
only gave them they only gave them to you like you had
the hat on and then like right before you went out they're like they had
a special box they're like you put the feather in you they don't trust you with
the plume you did your march and then as soon as you're off someone's like snatching
them all back yeah well they're very fluffy they're very very special i imagine
(24:24):
they're not cheap and i can Imagine like most people would either lose or damage them pretty easily.
Yeah. People were not used to having an additional foot high on their heads.
Yeah, no, we were not trusted with the plumes for any extra amount of time that was required.
Which bird did the plume come from?
It was blue. Oh, it was not a – I think it was quite long.
(24:45):
I'm holding up my – Like an eagle? What's that, like 20 centimetres? It was huge.
No, but it was like – They're fluffy though. They're like ostrich.
It wasn't a real made feather.
It was like straight up and it had like So loyal listeners, loyal listeners,
right now Robin's hand gestures are amazing and just imagine stroking a feather
in the air It's like slush They're giving fluffy vibes It's not hard,
(25:07):
it's got like little bits coming off it so when you move it's like billows with
the wind It's got some flexibility to it.
Yeah. No, but we weren't allowed actually to use music. We had to memorise everything.
They'd give you one week for the next show and say, memorise all this music
in two days and then you had to do the show. It was really full on, I tell you that.
(25:27):
Loved it though. I will say this is a thumbnail for this episode.
I feel like we need to get a picture of Robin wearing said plume to be the thumbnail.
I think that's a great idea, yeah. I was going to suggest as well maybe some
outtakes. We can get like Robin's plume feather hair examples. I don't have enough.
It looks like she's conducting. Yeah, exactly. Great. I don't have enough Canva
skills. It took me enough to remove the background to get our current.
(25:49):
Every time I release an episode, they're like, have you got a new picture for
this episode? I'm like, no, just keep putting the same picture there.
Well, listeners, if you're wondering, if everyone else's podcast has different
pictures, I did give Tim the login to the free Canva account that I made the
thing with and he added one little thing.
It doesn't, it's not amazing how profile picture is it, Tim?
(26:10):
We took it at the pub. We've got very high production standards. standards
when we were convincing people to come production value was
really there yeah we've got great high values we always skip our important our
structure tim oh whoops yeah yeah robin that's okay we got excited talking to
jane well how's your week been oh thanks for asking robin.
(26:36):
It's been good it's been too hot it's been too it has been very hot either but
like i find that if If I really do my breathing practice and my air work,
I think I can play faster in hot weather because, like, the speed of sound is faster in a hot room.
So, like, it helps with the fast notes and the articulations.
Does your band room not have good air conditioning?
What's going on? Just turn the air conditioner on. You've conquered nature with air conditioning.
(27:02):
Yeah. How's your week been, Robyn?
Uh, yep. Okay. In terms of band life.
Yeah, I had to go to this first. So Jade, our euphonium player in another band has broken his arm.
So I have to have now come in two weeks before nationals have to learn all this music for this chart.
But, and I also have to turn his- Just in time for the sign on sheet.
(27:23):
I know it was like he, luckily he fell over the day before permits were due. So that was okay.
They could put me on. I have to turn his pages, the poor guy.
So his left arm's in a sling. He He has to hold his euphonium with one hand
and then so I not only have to play the bits and all his music,
I also have to turn all his pages for him and I've got to write on my music
to turn his page and that's quite stressful.
(27:44):
Never occurred to me that he could still play with one arm. Yeah.
Well, he can't use his fourth vowel but you could get away with three vowels.
He's still better than me even with only one hand. So I'm just making sure I turn his pages for him.
That's the most important part of my job. It's quite stressful.
Well but we'll all be there together at nationals in two weeks right no two
(28:06):
and a half weeks two weeks soon how do you feel having to check my watch because
i have no idea what date it is yeah,
is that enough reflecting tim we didn't have that much reflecting to
do do we that's good reflecting that's okay so jade
do you like it when nationals are in your home state home state
advantage or not really it's great
not having to travel it's quite like it's just a
(28:28):
logistics thing it's quite difficult to
travel with a bear i mean you guys all know that especially with a
percussionist yeah just who's taking what and you know who's taking the marching
drum and what do we need and stuff like that but yeah it's definitely convenient
i'm happy it's um in the cbd this year and not out far away i know that like
(28:50):
sometimes you know venue constraints mean that has to be further out.
The Adelaide Uni in the Con is a good location. It was there in 2011 and it worked quite well.
And Elder Hole sounds really good, which is, I think, where the A grade are.
Especially when Unley's playing in it. It sounds even better.
(29:13):
One can only hope. Oh, I do have a question for you, Jade, though.
Yeah, go for it. So many bands from all over Australia are going to be going to Adelaide.
Do you have any insider tips? Like, how can foreigners to Adelaide come to Adelaide
for Easter when things are closed down?
What are some, like, three do's and a couple of don't do's? What's the best pub?
(29:35):
What's the best pub to go after the pub? You are asking the absolute wrong person. Oh, no. I know.
There's quite a few good ones in, like, Rundle Street, and there's a lot of
small – Adelaide kind of has a lot of small wine bars, cocktail bars now, and gin bars.
So if you need a big area, your best bet would be anywhere along Randall Street,
(29:57):
like Stagg or the Elephant and stuff like that.
If you're after something little, things like Lee Street off Highley Street
and some of those smaller laneways where all the little tiny pop-ups start is probably a good idea.
I'm not really a big drinker. Does Unley Constant Band have an after-party planned?
(30:18):
Oh, I imagine that they do. I'm not social secretary this year,
so I'll leave it in there.
You're looking out to the awards. That's sensible. Yeah. Yeah, that's enough, right?
I imagine that they'll do something on the Saturday night, as usual.
If we don't finish too late, it really depends on the scheduling.
You know, like sometimes a great concert finishes really late.
(30:38):
Or starts after midnight. After midnight.
Unforgettable, Jade. Unforgettable.
Everyone can't forget. After midnight. All the poor kids had to go home.
They couldn't even listen to the results because they all had to go to bed.
Yeah. Well, they're doing all the results together, aren't they?
Don't like all the wind bands, they're going to do all the results at the same time?
(30:59):
Did you say grade last? I have no idea. I don't know.
I think they're doing that. Because I know B grade's on quite early and then
they're in the other hall and then they won't have the results until all the
bands are finished and they're going to do all the results at the same time.
I thought that they would do them separately.
Is this misinformation? It sounds like a misinformation campaign here,
Robin. I'm not sure. Is that a misinformation? I saw it on the list of things.
(31:22):
Oh, it was on Facebook. I don't know.
Oh, am I not supposed to say that in the media? But, yeah, it might be late.
But it's a bit annoying if it's, like, late and then you want to go to dinner
and you want to celebrate and anyway.
I'm very into the social stuff in case you haven't.
And I'm actually helping out on Capringa City Concert Band as well in the afternoon
(31:44):
in B grade. same as you Robin last minute last minute sign on did you break
someone's arm so I've been to one rehearsal sorry guys,
oh no i didn't break anyone's arm i
could i was lucky enough that they could actually get me on a sign on
a sheet as a permit actually the the common joke janet will
kill me for saying this i pray that will kill me but is you get hit
(32:06):
by a bus because a very long time ago janet said
to me she plays flute as well she goes i've been
practicing your solo just in case you get hit by a bus janet it's a very specific
way for me to not be able to play most people would just say in case you get
sick or something i'm like have you recently obtained a bus license so since
then And getting hit by a bus has been kind of the go-to for reasons why you
(32:27):
might not be able to make a concert.
So when you said that, your colleague cut his arm and I was like,
did he get hit by a bus? Did he get hit by a bus?
No. But this isn't the case with Onkaparinga. You're just in there to help out and you're there.
They're lucky that you could sign on. Yeah, that's right. Good.
It's actually quite fun to play B grade again. It's been a while,
(32:48):
but it's because we're playing some of the pieces that I play when we were in
B grade last year. Don't tell us the pieces. Don't tell us the pieces.
Don't tell us the pieces. Can you imagine the outrage online if the pieces were known? Oh, my gosh.
Oh, they have to stop nationals. But everyone knows the test piece.
Yeah. Everyone knows the test piece. Do I remember the test piece name?
(33:10):
It's called the compostatella. I don't know.
Oh, yeah. Compostella? Compost.
Compost. I don't know. or something like that. I'm sure it's not that popular.
It's something like that. It's Teary. It's Teary. It's really pretty.
You know Teary Tim? He does all those pieces. He's the new hot thing.
(33:32):
Yeah. Yeah, he's my Facebook friend. Hi, Thierry. I don't know how to say your name.
You said you were friends with him and could get him on the podcast.
I was like, that's a bit of a tall thing. Yeah, all right.
Yeah, can you? I probably can, yeah.
Probably can. Oh, yeah, just get him on. Oh, man. Anyway, well, yeah, Be Great is fun.
So some people like to watch, like, you know, the bands on the live stream,
(33:57):
and I find quite often that the chat box gets really busy sometimes.
Times until until i don't
know why this is until only takes the stage then it's like
there's no one chatting do you think that's just a coincidence i think
that's a coincidence you might can't confirm what is that the reasons why
that happens okay interesting interesting i
just thought i thought it's not like the years that we haven't competed that
(34:20):
we've um gotten together and actually had a had a watch party and everyone's
been on their phones or anything like i can't say whether that's true or not
sometimes there's a high volume of chats coming through from like a South Australian
IP address. I'm like, hmm, hello, Emily.
Sledging every other band with their own. If we could comment on our own band, we would.
(34:43):
Unfortunately, it's a little bit difficult. While you're playing,
just like, ooh, someone wants to sell a bit of Radville in the chat. Just tap, tap, tap.
That would be hilarious. I wouldn't trust myself to have my phone on the stage
because I'm that person that accidentally sets their music off in rehearsals.
Yeah. It hasn't like alarms and stuff. Oh, yeah, we can't be trusted.
Who's practicing out there, Tim? Is someone practicing? Is that Jamie?
(35:05):
Jamie's practicing. I'm giving Jamie a lift home. I said it would be done by 10.30.
You gave him one lift home and now he's getting all, oh, did he say,
oh, and he's still there. Poor kid. All right.
We're doing pretty well, actually,
for time. I won't say how long it is because I might edit some out.
I don't think I'll have to edit any of your stuff out, Jade.
(35:26):
No, Jade is such a good speaker and so interesting.
I love it. Oh, okay. Very interesting. Oh, okay.
I love hearing you, Nick. I have a comment about my laundering and tea comment
about how fascinating I am because that's like what I do on a public holiday evening.
No comment, but good to know that everybody's clean. We love it.
We love it. All right. Well, maybe I'll ask you some of my questions and then we'll be done. Okay.
(35:51):
If you could play any other instrument, what would it be?
Cello. And it could be anything like. Cello. Great choice. Great choice.
It's just a sexy instrument, is it not? It sure is.
Yeah. You want to go low. You do a lot of high. Or baritone saxophone because
whenever I see baritone saxophone players, like.
(36:12):
They're just hot. My friend. They're just hot, right. I always feel like.
I feel like they look reliable.
They're reliable. She would be an excellent, I always tell her,
she'd be an excellent boyfriend and she'd take care of me.
That's how I feel when I watch her play pedal notes and, like,
in time and, like, repeated passages.
It's just so comforting, right? I just feel like they're so reliable,
they just keep chugging on. So comforting. Yeah, they honk away.
(36:32):
Not like a tuba player, they're not as reliable, are they? The tuba. Never.
But I guess if you played the cello. Gary Sax is always there.
If you played the cello, I think The Swan was originally written for the cello.
So maybe there's a future there. Maybe you could wear the feathers.
Yeah. It's on the cards, right? If I ever get enough money to buy a cello.
(36:57):
We can start a GoFundMe. All right.
GoFundMe for me to dress up in feathers and play the cello.
I don't think you'll get many people putting up their money for that.
You'd be surprised what happens on the internet, Jade. You'd be surprised.
I would be very surprised but you know what if it means i get a chile for free
(37:17):
i'd i'd be willing to slap his feathers on maybe not specifically but,
some things water soluble will do what are
we even talking about i don't know because you've been in your band a long time
do you have any stolen things like is there anything you've just moved house
correct jane in your packing have you noticed any things that may They belong
(37:39):
to actually only bands that have been in your possession for too long. Oh, you got me.
Yes, I have found, well, it's not mine, but I found an original percussion part
for one of the pieces that probably needs to go back.
Just slowly ride to the bus, slowly ride. Yeah.
And I think we also found, I don't know if it's our slapstick or the band's
(38:00):
slapstick, but we found that. Slapstick?
Got a couple of Kensington and Norwood uniforms that we don't know if they even use them anymore.
Vintage. We might have updated their uniforms since then. Yeah, so they're vintage.
We've got those two pairs of pants and a jacket and two ties that we'll need
to find their way home if they still wear those because Levi used to play with
(38:23):
them but doesn't anymore.
What else did I find? I actually found an original, sorry, Brighton Secondary
School, but I found an original copy of one of the pieces I obviously played in high school.
Impressive. Not only concert bands. I feel like they don't play that anymore.
They probably haven't missed it, but sorry nonetheless.
And a quintet flute part that might belong to Adelaide University.
(38:48):
So maybe I'll leave that there at my school.
I'm very sorry to whoever used their card to borrow that It could have been expensive.
I feel like this question could have been different. It could have been,
has there been a band you've played with that you haven't stolen their stuff?
Well, the answer would be no. It would be a much shorter answer, wouldn't it?
(39:08):
I think that's a pretty good record for nine years of hoarding at my old house.
That's fantastic. We're proud of you. Probably not too bad, yeah.
Thank you. Thank you. I feel like setting the bar really low and getting praise
for it is just kind of what I'm all about.
Yeah, at least it's not a tuber. Fenella wins that one. I was a whole tuber
in her house for 15 years. We struck gold with that.
(39:29):
Yeah, an entire tuber. Well, I was thinking when I moved house,
my sister helped me move house and she was shocked and appalled by how many instruments I had.
Like I was like, I don't know. She's like, why do you need three different guitars?
You don't even play the guitar. How many instruments do you reckon you moved
from the last house to this house? Because we were talking about that.
So I don't actually own that many myself. Like I obviously have.
(39:53):
Piccolo, but we don't speak about that. I've got a fife, which I absolutely cannot play.
A recorder, which I can play half-heartedly. A couple of Irish tin whistles.
And some wooden flutes. So that's about all I've got. But Levi,
we had to move for Levi, obviously, his drum kit, and all of his cymbals, hardware.
And then, like, he has some really obscure stuff. Like, my parents got him on
(40:15):
those Irish drums when they went to Ireland. He also has, like – Bodron.
Yeah, Bodron, that's right. All right. He also has a saxophone,
a trumpet, a bass clarinet, a normal clarinet, a key cornet,
face guitar, electric guitar. I think we got rid of the bass guitar actually because it was broken.
Electric guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboard.
(40:37):
He's mixing desks, all of his mics and stuff. Yeah.
So a lot of things, music things we had to move for him. And he can't even move in that room right now.
He's busy trying to, like, set it up so that he can be shelving back up.
So he actually has homes for all this. But, of course, all the auxiliary percussionists
because percussionists can't stop, can they?
They see something that makes a noise and they must buy it. At one point,
I think we moved a bag that had just two metal pieces of metal,
(40:59):
like a flywheel and something else in it.
Why do you have this? That would sound so good. They sound good,
yeah. That would sound so good when you get it.
You don't have any twirly-whirlies? No, but they're actually at the band hole
because we made them for Angels in the Architecture many years ago.
We played to Kelly. and then other bands borrow them from us.
(41:20):
So it's... You hire them out. Yeah, they're available for hire.
They're tuned quite well. They're
tuned exactly for Angels in the Architecture and nothing else. Yeah.
But yes, they do exist. Levi also made, we did a piece that was by an Australian composer.
I'm really sorry, I don't remember his name. But there was like a part for,
and I don't remember what it's called, but it's like a stick with bottle caps
(41:41):
on it. Oh, the Larga phone.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Larga phone. So Levi had to make a Larga phone and we
finally threw out the remainder of the bottle caps that were drilled but not used.
But yeah, that Larga phone also I think lives at the band hall.
It's an excuse to drink a lot of beer. That's okay. It's just beer caps on a
stick. I think they just bought bottle caps from a brewery.
What? Because the ones that you use, you bend them to open them, right?
(42:05):
So, like, unless you have screw tops. It wrecks the tone. Exactly.
Yeah. Couldn't even imagine a lager phone with bent bottle caps.
That would just be terrible.
They're twisties, like Simon's. No, no, no. Not at all.
If all the caps are the same, if you bought them in a packet,
(42:26):
they'd all be the same there. You need an eclectic lagaphone.
I'm imagining this lagaphone looking way too uniform and I'm disappointed.
It actually looks really impressive, like to the point that it looks like we
bought it, but it was just like handmade.
It had like a stick to hit it and everything.
I want one of those now. And it was quite comical. I think one of our percussionists
(42:47):
didn't come to a couple of rehearsals and he turned up and then he was told,
you're playing this thing, and he put his hand at the lagaphone with no context. Yeah.
Did he come back? Oh, yeah. Well, that was it. Oh, that's nice.
Okay, good. He's definitely come back.
But I think it should be an appeal, really. Like, you get to hit this with a
stick. So, you know, I feel like the cash is like that kind of thing.
(43:09):
That's the whole premise.
Yeah. Whack it. Yeah. The whacker.
All right. So, you guys coming for the whole weekend? The whole weekend?
Of course. Well, Tim has to stream the whole thing. Yeah, like Thursday.
Yeah, we get there Thursday. I'm going to get there on Wednesday.
Yeah. No, I don't stay. I don't do solos anymore. I've got to set up. I'm too old.
(43:32):
I'm going to stream solos. I'm going to stream solos. Are you?
Yeah. I used to do everything.
Sorry, Emily. Yeah, I've got too many children at home.
I'm pawning them out to, like, separate grandparents so that one set doesn't
have to look after them all.
They have to do a divide and conquer, so we have to come back ASAP.
(43:53):
To be honest. yeah yeah they're a handful that's all right yeah well what's on for the week guys,
other than rehearsals how many rehearsals are you up to jay do you do two a
week we've been doing an extra on the weekend i think this weekend coming we
actually were right no we do have one,
(44:14):
so this just the three yeah two five three if we go okay yeah i don't know concert
bands don't listening to a rehearse is not your brass band.
It's like a two-a-week standard for brass bands. I don't know.
I was saying just the three as in that seems like a lot, doesn't it?
That's just half my week taken up by band, yeah. Yeah, that's all right.
(44:38):
Oh, well, we're nearly there. Yeah, it's only once a year, right?
We don't do extra rehearsals like this for stage. Oh, okay. Never.
Never? No? Rehearsals for stage. Boo!
What's on for your week, Robin? What's on for your week?
Um, yeah, just rehearsing. Oh, so this weekend is our weekend rehearsal and
(45:01):
we're going to do like a invite people to, I just said, invite your mums.
So we're having a, like an open rehearsal, like at the end of the rehearsal, we'll run our program.
We won't do a proper concert, but, um, like it's always a couple of people's mums come.
That's nice. The ones that can't, you know, they're not coming with us to travels
and, you know, the mums that don't like watching the stream,
(45:21):
no offence, Tim, because, you know, technology.
And they're like, I want to hear your band play in real life.
So it's like everyone bring your mums and we have like five mums,
including my mum because she has to watch my children.
How about you, Tim? You've got a concert this weekend, don't you?
Are you doing that? I'm actually flying to New Zealand on Wednesday for the
New Zealand Pipe Band Championships.
(45:42):
You talked about that last week. I'm flying.
Well, now it's happening. It's the thing about the future, it happens.
And then I'm flying back on Sunday morning.
And then I've got to land at the airport and then I've got to go to my Footscray
concert because Footscray is doing a concert with Weston Bruss and Darabin and
we're all going to play our own choices and hymn and march.
(46:07):
I saw that. Footscray and Darabin are like technically against each other, aren't they?
You're being like friendly rivals. It's called Frenemies. Oh,
Frenemies. Yeah, okay. Yeah, Frenemies.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why you're not playing the test piece though.
You don't want to reveal all your cards. Exactly. We don't want to give away the test piece. Yeah.
Okay. What we've actually done with the test piece is we've put it all up a
semitone to make it sound a bit brighter.
(46:30):
I know. It might be the edge you need because I only once came second on the
count back on the test piece, so you just never know.
You might need the extra half a point on that test piece. That semitone.
No one will notice. They'll never know. So it's going to be a great week.
Yeah. What a great week ahead. We'll have fun at the pipe bands.
(46:51):
Yeah, pipe pens. And then hopefully my plane isn't delayed to flying back in
on Sunday morning and I get to the concert. Yay. It would be great.
Who are you flying with? I feel like you've distinct yourself already.
Yeah. Wait, is it Air New Zealand's all right? Is it other ones are not too
good? Air New Zealand's great. Yeah, yeah, okay.
I mean, they're not sponsoring us. They should give us money.
No, I don't know. Hello, Air New Zealand. Hello.
(47:15):
These AI transcripts don't write themselves. I've got to pay like five bucks
a month extra for my AI transcripts. Then they put the subtitles.
If anyone wants to listen to the pod with subtitles, it seems like an oxymoron,
like don't you listen to a podcast because you don't want to look at something? I don't know.
But it puts on subtitles if everyone wants to listen. Are there subtitles? Yeah.
Well, if you click subtitles, it'll pop up. The AI listens to our thing and
(47:38):
then generates the subtitles.
Yeah. Can you get them to write in the gestures as well so that everyone can
really enjoy the plumage?
Audio description, like feathers, feathers, feathers.
Yeah, I might do the feathers. Or hand gestures to indicate fluffy feathers. About this long.
Fluffiness maximum. I don't know. Yeah.
(47:59):
All right. Well, Jade. Thank you, Jade. Thank you so much. Thank you so much
for joining us. That's okay. It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me, I guess.
Whether or not this was great for you, I don't know. We haven't talked about
any pieces, wind band pieces to sing an outro.
Oh, yeah. So, Jade, at the end of every podcast, We sing part of our favourite,
(48:20):
like, you know, band piece all together, all three of us, because we don't have any outro music.
Should we do – Do you guys have a favourite? Because I know what's been in my
head all week. What's been in your head? What's been in your head?
Is it Holst's Sweet in E-flat?
No, it's Festival Variations.
Oh. It's such a banger. By Claude T. Smith. Claude T. Smith.
(48:40):
I told you I don't know anything about music.
I warned you before this. I am the worst bandie ever. But, yes.
Can you hum it to us? Can you sing it to us? I think I've done it.
It's the one that's like.
Oh, yeah, that one.
(49:01):
Come on, Robin.
Robin's not singing.
I'm sure there's a crash. This is so chaotic. This is the worst outro ever.
Crash bye everyone thanks for listening bye.
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