Music Manifesto Case Study #5 – Lee
- Lee lives in Rayleigh, Essex
- Every weekend he plays contrabass tuba in the Black Knights Drum & Bugle Corps
- Week-nights he’s part of a soul/disco/funk band, Streetlife
- He describes his musical personality as ‘Loud!’
- Lee has been to Holland with the band, played at Wembley and at an Indian wedding (‘That was different!’)
- ’Drum corps music is based around big brass jazz band arrangements of classic and contemporary music’
Lee was 18 when his mum died of cancer. His father had long before disappeared off the scene. It would probably be true to say that the Black Knights Drum & Bugle Corps became his surrogate family. His brother and sister both played in marching bands also, but Lee has stuck with it, able to play any of the band’s array of brass instruments from trumpet to contrabass – an enormous forward-facing tuba, carried on the shoulder. ‘The drum corps is a way of life. I joined a local marching band when I was ten. Now, my friends, girlfriend and social life are built around the band. I play most weekends, usually eight to 16 hours, depending on events. And I play about 3 hours a week in a soul band’. There’s also the Jubilee Jazz brass ensemble…
Oddly, Lee doesn’t mention any specific learning paths leading up to his now prolific musical life – no inspiring teachers, no GCSEs, no college courses or grade exams. It’s as if the learning and the doing have always been one and the same thing, bound up in the life of the marching band itself. Yet he does recognise the benefits: ‘Social interaction, self discipline, sense of achievement. What’s the alternative for young people? Games consoles, graffiti, car crime… I’ll choose music, thanks! In five years’ time, I’ll be more than likely teaching in a drum corps, trying to give something back to an activity that’s shaped my life’.
And it’s not just occupying time he means. Lee’s most exciting moment – so far – was the first gig he played with the soul band, Streetlife. ‘I can’t describe the nerves I felt that night’. But quite different to the feeling of utter despondency (‘gutted’) he had two years ago when he had to walk away from the band he was in because he couldn’t afford it. Music’s not something ‘out there’ – it’s part of the everyday struggle. ‘I once sold a trumpet to pay off my overdraft – so you could say music has helped me out in life’s difficulties’. But seriously, ‘when my mum passed away I went to Holland with a marching band a few days after the funeral. My friends in that group really helped me through’.
‘Friends’ and ‘the group’, notice – just as important as the music itself. Though Lee’s certain of what the music can do: ‘Good tunes should be able to push you to all extremes of emotion’. How does he know if it’s any good or not? ‘When you can’t get it out of your head for hours after hearing it … I’ll listen to anything. I have a CD [compilation] which starts with a modern heavy rock track Down with the sickness by The Disturbed, has other tracks by Meatloaf, Guns ‘n’ Roses, Britney, Dido, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, some drum corps versions of When a man loves a woman and Barber’s Adagio for strings, then some dance tracks from a Ministry of Sound album and the final track is Leo Sayer’s When I need you’.
But it’s hard to get Lee to discuss anything technical about music. He’s not someone who needs to know what goes on ‘under the bonnet,’ as it were. He doesn’t even reveal whether he reads music notation or learns everything by ear. Perhaps it’s a bit like all the other everyday things that we do as part of living. We don’t think much about the mechanics of sleeping, eating, walking or talking. Maybe there’s something to be said for having ‘musicking’ on that list…
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