Music For Youth and the end of county (but not forever I hope)

So mostly in this blog I tell you about all the gigs I go to and bands I see and things like that, but I can't ignore the fact that this is the diary of a musician and I do actually play music myself, so let me tell you about what has been happening this week.

Thursday: I went to Birmingham with my fellow quintet members (we're called Gone with the Wind I think it's ridiculously cheese but they seemed to love it) to take part in Music For Youth. In case you don't know what that is we call it National Festival, it's sort of a huge music competition where you go and play and get judged and try and beat everyone else to get through to the next round (they will tell you it's not a competition and they aren't judging you, you aren't even allowed to call it adjudication anymore you have to say 'feedback') So anyway we got the train to Birmingham to play, a very underrehearsed slap together quintet all melting in the heat or suffering from various injuries in the case of our french horn player and then we played. It actually went pretty well. Our pieces were good and the hall we played in was lovely. During feedback they had pretty much nothing negative things to say about us which made us very happy and their 'next steps' advice was just to play it faster.

(Gone with the Wind Ft. The legend that be Mr K)

Friday: Typical musician life. Eat sleep travel play repeat. Friday featured yet another trip to Birmingham but this time with the Northamptonshire County Youth Concert Band. So we went and we played our super epic piece and worked our magic. Feedback was incredible and they told us how amazing we are. We also got the 'Innovation Award' (We won) Another fabulous day at Music For Youth.

Sunday: Sunday was probably the saddest day of my musical week because it involved my last ever county concert with Concert Band. I have been involved in the county music service since I was 11 years old and just a tiny year seven. Having completed 7 years there I can safely say that auditioning for county music was one of the best things I have ever been forced into doing. Yes my first year was a little bit of a nightmare, everyone else seemed to be so much better than me, and to know each other, I pretty much had no friends with the exception of about two people, who still remain some of my best friends. County has given me some of the most amazing experiences I could have asked for, from playing in the Derngate in year 7, to playing multiple concerts in incredible venues in Spain, like the prettiest bank I have ever seen. After my first year I noticed how much more confident I was on the flute and my sight reading improved dramatically. After my second year I was super confident (maybe a little too confident) and playing in concerts regularly became second nature, and I didn't even care that my evenings and weekends were filled with county commitments because being in a music school means being surrounded by people with the same interests as you, and it meant that the people I was spending all my time with would become my closest friends. It's so easy to just click with people who are equally as band-geeky as you. County became a place where I felt in my element, and cheesy as it sounds the people there made me feel normal and happy and welcome and everything I needed. The 'teachers' there know everyone, everyone is important and is made to feel that way, and mostly make you smile, and put their all into what they do. Concert Band is so noticeably driven forward and encouraged by Smalley's clear commitment to conducting the band, and he gave a totally emotional speech about everyone leaving on Sunday (sobs). BUT this isn't the end of my time at NMPAT, noone ever really leaves NMPAT.

PS you should all probably check out the NMPAT Facebook page, this place is pretty special:

https://www.facebook.com/NMPAT/timeline