title: Faster, higher, louder
title: the effects of competition on the British brass band movement from 1913-2013
titleType: Subtitle
Creators: name: Osborn, Christopher
Publisher: name: Lancaster University
Year: 2018

description: This thesis examines the effects of the centrality of competition on the
      British brass band movement from 1913-2013. Competition has been an
      important activity for British brass bands since the 1860s, when the
      concept of an all brass band was still in its infancy. The brass band
      contest maintained a recognisable form from the middle of the nineteenth
      century to the present day. The consistent contest structure based around
      sections allows for the identification of changes to levels of musicality
      and technicality in players, the idiom of brass band contest performances
      and stylistic influences on test piece composition. This is possible in a
      more detailed and accurate way than is possible for other competitive arts
      movements. Since the commissioning of the first original test piece in
      1913, the composition of test pieces has dominated serious and long form
      composition for brass band. The constraints placed on test pieces that
      made them suitable for their use in contests, the requirements for length
      and technical difficulty that vary by section, helped to create a
      repertoire of music that is unique. However, the brass band movement has
      not been examined through the lens of its contesting activities despite
      being the subject of both social history and musicological studies. 
      
      My primary sources are records of test piece use and results for
      individual sections of the National Finals and British Open contest series
      in The British Bandsman archive, supplemented by other primary sources
      from the brass band media. I have used this evidence to construct a
      database of test piece use and contest results that I was able to analyse
      statistically. This has enabled me to track the standards and styles of
      playing demonstrated by the selection of test pieces for different contest
      sections at different times. These patterns of test piece use were
      presented to leading figures in the brass band movement and their thoughts
      and reactions captured in seven interviews with players, conductors,
      composers, adjudicators and journalists. These interviews provide
      contextual evidence to identify the reasons behind the changes
      demonstrated in the test piece database and are supported by additional
      sources from the comments sections and contest reviews in The British
      Bandsman and brass band news website 4barsrest for the latter period of my
      research.
      
      This combination of new material from archival and oral sources provides
      new insight into the brass band movement and its role as the premier form
      of amateur music making in Britain during the twentieth century. The
      thesis analyses the test pieces used in contests, selecting the
      twenty-nine most frequently used and dividing them into groups based on
      patterns of use. The next section includes analysis of these groups and
      patterns alongside the individual pieces. This is not a musicological
      thesis, but where relevant there is musical analysis of selected pieces.
      The final section examines changes in the brass band idiom and
      compositional styles of test piece to place changes in musicality and
      technique in their historical and musical contexts.