Thread: Brass Bands
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Old 28-09-2012, 12:38 PM
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Coquet Coquet is offline
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Default Brass Bands

I've got an incoming question from a researcher regarding local bands. Reproduced below. Anyone got any info? we must have had a few colliery/village bands?





Did your village, town or community once have its own brass or silver band?

I am carrying out ongoing research in the history of brass bands in local communities, and would like to ask if you know of any information about any such extinct bands in your area.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries were the "golden age" for these bands numbering, it is said, up to 40,000 distinct bands at their peak. Many of these bands were associated with local industries, often being a "works" band. Others provided a musical focus for many small towns and villages in the days before the gramophone and the wireless. Today, in contrast, only some 1,500 or so are left active in the UK.

Sadly many of the bands left little in the way of information about their existence, and what does exist is widely scattered with individuals, local archives and national collections.

Part of my research is to identify these lost bands, to collect together material to provide a central database of info
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