New Junior Band Members

Welcome to The Concert Band

This web site is dedicated to college and secondary school concert and wind bands. It contains information about the various instruments employed, as well as hints about band training (including technique and intonation), conducting, the physical laws the govern sound production, and anything else I think the young musicians who play in these bands might find helpful. Some sections (such as the one on interpretation) are more for band directors than players, of course, but overall I have tried to include something of interest to just about everyone.

There is also a large section devoted to the activities of the Brass Band Jenderal (BBJ), a Salvation Army band based in Medan, Indonesia. If you are interested in this Band, click here.

Some of the information on this website has been extracted from my book entitled The Band Director's Handbook: A guide for College and Secondary School Band Directors in Southeast Asia. The book also includes additional chapters on pedagogy and the varying characteristics of different wind band instruments that are not included in this website. It also has a chapter devoted to writing arrangements and transcriptions for wind band. To order a copy of my book, see the publication details below.

: Administrator; BBJ Activities; 02 April 2012; Hits: 1330

New Junior Band Members

Two young boys - 12-year-old Andreas and 11-year-old Maijen - have become the latest members of BBJ's junior band.

Two young boys - 12-year-old Andreas and 11-year-old Maijen - have become the latest members of BBJ's junior band. The two boys were accepted into the band by Junior bandmaster Deddy Agusta Purba on Friday March 23, 2012 after they passed the entrance examination. The day was a public holiday in Indonesia, so nobody had to go to school. Andreas and Maijen at residents of the Salvation Army Boys Home in Medan where BBJ is based.

As members of BBJ Junior (the junior band), Horn player Andreas and cornet player Maijen will perform in BBJ's concert on Saturday July 14. Also performing at the concert will be BBJ Senior and a visiting Salvation Army band from Australia (Adelaide Congress Hall - ACH).

The sixteen members of the beginners band were tested individually in the morning and the results were announced in the afternoon. Here is a picture of all the members of the beginners band before the test.

The remaining 14 members of the beginners band were disappointed, but they have been promised a chance to perform in public during the Sunday morning service the day after the concert. Playing in front of the band from Australia, they will get a chance to prove that they have improved sufficiently to become members of BBJ Junior.

As in the case of the learners who formed our reconstituted junior band last year (2011), each candidate was tested on some simple scales and technical exercises chosen from the Salvation Army's publication Studies for Band Training (Album 32). They also had to hold a long note steady in the middle register. This was tested with an electronic tuner.

Here is how they were tested:

The much higher failure rate this time was not because beginners band members were lazy. Rather, it was because they had only been learning for only six months. All the candidates who passed in 2011 had been learning for more than a year. Beginners band leader Sekti (who plays trombone in BBJ Senior) worked very hard with the young kids, and I am very happy with what he has done.