Posted on Sunday February 21st, 2021
It's been almost a year since our last rehearsal and this week, we finally got back together...kind of!π΅ Our first ever Zoom rehearsal included scales, articulations and work on note lengths, just like a normal rehearsal, and we all started to remember what it's like to play music in the company of other people! Due to the technical limitations of Zoom (there's a huge d..e..l..a..y..), we unfortunately can only play with our microphones muted, but it was great for the band to be able make music with each other in some form again. MD Claire took us through the piece which we've selected for our next virtual recording, pointing out pitfalls and the way that different sections should be played, and we had a chance to try out fiddly passages and play along with a recording of the piece too.
Hopefully, it won't be *too* long before we're able to get back together in real life but in the meantime, it was fantastic to get back to some communal music-making and we hope to have another rehearsal soon!
Posted on Sunday February 14th, 2021
This week saw the band's 15th online quiz since the start of the first lockdown back in March last year.π€πβοΈ Different members of the band have been volunteering to set the questions and on Wednesday, Sue challenged us with some close-up photos of instruments.
Can you identify the instruments featured in these close-up photos? Bonus points are on offer for naming the make of each instrument!πΊπ»π₯
Posted on Sunday February 7th, 2021
OK...we confess that it's beginning to look a bit like we're mostly obsessed with cake round here but if we're honest, our recent band quizzes and trip to the virtual pub aren't quite so photogenic!
January's round of The Great WCB Bake Off opted for a healthy theme which this month's entrants interpreted in various different ways, from an egg-less, sugar-less, fat-less cake made with wholemeal flour, to Scottish Tablet, made with 'just' a kilogramme of sugar but served with salad and multivitamins!
After a rigorous judging process, the winner was judged to be Ursula's impressive Marmalade Cake, whilst commendations were awarded to Steve's Stuffed Peppers (for thinking outside of the box), Alison's Wholemeal Cake (for being super-healthy) and Gregor's Scottish Tablet (for the biggest boost to mood)...
To see all the entries, together with explanations of exactly how their creators claimed they were healthy, check out the photos...!π§
(PS...sorry if you were hoping for some slightly more musical content from us! We're working on the musical side too but we're always proud of the fact that we're a pretty sociable bunch so we're proud of the fact that we're continuing with our band social scene despite the present circumstances!)
Posted on Sunday January 24th, 2021
Whilst last Monday might have been 'Blue Monday,' our musical offering for this week is anything but gloomy. It may be titled Blue but this quintet arrangement is a brilliant and jolly liittle piece featuring WCB trumpeter Gregor and multi-talented euphonium, trombone and horn player John.πΊ Composed by Thomas Gansch from incredible brass septet Mnozil Brass (look them up if you've not come across them - they're amazing), it's the ideal accompaniment for a laid-back Sunday...well...all except for a spectacular top Eb in the 1st trumpet part - make sure you stay tuned to catch it! We hope you like it...π΅
Love it guys. Well done. Will share that with my class again
I went to the evening concert at the National Championships a while back and whilst I waited in the foyer a group of musicians came in and started playing amongst the crowd. I was very close to them. They were rather loud at that range but I was transfixed and couldn't move. They kept swopping instruments and played perfectly. I found out later that they were the Mnozil Brass who had been playing on stage during the interval. They were told to move on by a steward eventually for 'annoying' the public. but what an experience! I have seen them twice since from the audience and I remember them getting a standing ovation at one event. It was either at the Hexagon or in the old Town Hall in Reading.
Very cool listening to this and watching the snow falling outside. Well done Gregor and John - another triumph!
Loved it well done Gregor and John.
Well done both - cracking!
Congrats - a super performance
Gansch gut !
YEAAAAAAAAAH
Well done Gregor and John.πΊπ―
Posted on Saturday January 23rd, 2021
Definitely time to replace our Christmassy cover photo - here's the lovely bandstand in Alexandra gardens in Windsor, back in August 2019.π Hopefully we'll be able to get back to doing some summery gigs this year and maybe even manage an ice cream or twoπ¦ (what do you mean it's going to snow tomorrow?!βοΈ)!
Look out for our latest lockdown recording, out tomorrow (Sunday) - it's a feelgood little quintet number...π
Posted on Sunday January 17th, 2021
Whilst Christmas seems a long time ago now, it was a busy time for WCB with not only our 12 Virtual Days of Christmas, but also musical contributions to the switching on of Woodley's Christmas Lights, Addington School's Christmas Concert and Reading's Digital Advent Calendar! Despite this, we still found the time to squeeze in a couple of Christmas socials including a festive round of the Great WCB Bake Off!ππ°
Competition was fierce with no less than 11 entries, with everything from Yule Logs to Christmassy Rocky Road and Marzipan Mince Pies to Swedish Pepparkakor (gingerbread cookies)! In the end, the expert panel of judges awarded prizes to three well-deserved winners:
πUrsula for the Creativity and Back Story of her fabulous family Christmas cake,
πEthan, Jon & Hilary for the Impressiveness and Attention to Detail of their amazing Gingerbread House, and
πSue for the Appearance and Finish of her exquisitely-decorated Christmas Cakes
We had a lot of fun showcasing our bakes - take a look at all of the pictures to see what you would have voted for and let us know in the comments! We'll be back for more Bake Off later this month...
Posted on Sunday January 10th, 2021
With enhanced lockdowns and rising virus rates, it looks like it will still be a while before we're able to get together as a band to make music. As a band, we've also had some very sad news this week. So today, we'd like to share this reflective piece, entitled Do You Recall, recorded at the end of last year by WCB member John Deane and written by friend of the band Rob Wiffin.
Thank you. Was after a very long day's teaching but came out ok.
Beautifully played John
That really is beautiful
Really beautiful John
Lovely βΊοΈβ€οΈ
Juliet Griffiths, you'll enjoy that.
What sad news?
Posted on Friday December 25th, 2020
It's been so long since we had a day without putting a post up on here at 8:30am, we think that we might have forgotten how to do it! Only kidding...we just wanted to take a moment to say a massive and heartfelt thank you to everyone who's watched our 12 Virtual Days of Christmas videos over the last couple of weeks, especially if you've taken a moment to like, comment or share one or more of them. It's been wonderful to see so many people getting so much enjoyment out of the videos (so far, the 12 videos have reached over 24,000 people and been viewed for 5,200 minutes which is pretty amazing!) and we're thrilled to have been able to spread a little Christmas joy in what's been a pretty peculiar year for us as a band and for everyone else too!
On behalf of all of us, we'd like to wish all of our audiences, friends and families a happy and healthy Christmas and we'll see you in 2021!ππ΅β€οΈ
Happy Christmas to WCBππ
Happy Christmas to my WCB family x πππβοΈπΆπ·
Happy Christmas WCB β€οΈβ€οΈβ€οΈπΌ
Happy Christmas to all of you.
Posted on Thursday December 24th, 2020
Well, that was fun! If you were listening to BBC Berkshire at about 8:40 this evening, you'd have heard our Assistant MD Owen talking to Michelle Jordan about our 12 Virtual Days of Christmas! She was really excited to hear about what we've been up to and if you missed it, you can hear the interview again here:
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p090873p
starting at 2:38:45.
If you were listening to the show and want to hear and see our 12 Virtual Days of Christmas, you can find all 12 videos here:
www.facebook.com/watch/202897213075683/664968430843252/
We hope that you like them! Merry Christmas!ππ΅π
Really enjoyed all the pieces, thanks to all involved.
As an independent family i.e. not connected to WCB, we’ve been enthralled with the WCB 12 Days of Christmas. Well done Owen and everyone involved, you’ve certainly brightened up all our lives and we can’t wait to see you live in 2021! Merry Christmas one and all!
Well done Owen, you did WCB proud!
Posted on Thursday December 24th, 2020
Well, here we are! The final video of our 12 Virtual Days of Christmas and we are going out in style!ππ΅π
The biggest virtual collaboration we've ever created, featuring 35 members of the band, 13 different percussion instrumentsπ₯ (can you spot them all?!) and no less than 48 separate audio tracks - here's Happy Xmas (War is Over) in a brilliant arrangement that we know you'll love and which we hope will leave you full to the brim of Christmas spirit.
Thank you *so* much to everyone who's enjoyed watching our daily videos - we set out to bring a daily dose of festive music and maybe the odd smile to our audiences, friends and families and from the reactions and comments that we've received, it's clear that we've done just that. From all of us at WCB, we wish you a very Merry and healthy Christmas and we look forward to seeing you for more music-making, hopefully in person, in 2021!πΆβ€οΈ
PS Missed any videos? You can find our full Virtual Christmas playlist here
(www.facebook.com/watch/202897213075683/664968430843252/),
or catch up with all of our 2020 virtual recordings here
(www.facebook.com/watch/202897213075683/671424900307935/)!
Just wonderful! Happy Christmas all xx
Brilliant. Have a lovely Christmas guys
Thank you! π I’ve really enjoyed your 12 days of Christmas it’s been lovely to have these daily doses of festive cheer. I hope you all have a lovely Christmas π and thank you once again for your daily cheer.
Fantastic all of the 12 days have given us some festive cheer. Wishing you all a very merry Christmas π
Thank you for your virtual 12 days of Christmas. We have enjoyed listening/watching these clips very much bringing some much needed Christmas cheer. So professional and can't wait for the outside concerts to start in 2021. Happy Christmas to all at Woodley Concert Band.
I've loved each of your 12 days and spotting so many familiar faces. Thanks so much and Merry Christmas to you all
Love it! A brilliant set of videos guys and so much work! ππ»πππ₯π·πΊ
Dave π
Posted on Wednesday December 23rd, 2020
We couldn't possibly have had our 12 Virtual Days of Christmas without We Wish You a Merry Christmas! ππ΅π
Back one final time with this most traditional of Christmas Concert carols, here are Gregor, John, Jon, Len, Mark and Phil with our seasonal greetings for you!πΊπ
But why is this traditional Christmas gig finisher appearing a bit early, on Day 11? Well...we are going BIG on Day 12 with something that you definitely won't want to miss...see you tomorrow to find out exactly what we have up our sleeves...π€π
Brilliant! Thanks guys
Posted on Tuesday December 22nd, 2020
Take one very popular Christmas song, four super-smooth saxophones and a sprinkling of festive magic and what do you get? That's right! Day 10 of our Twelve Virtual Days of Christmas!ππ΅π
Here's WCB saxophonist Sarah Parker with a brilliant and sumptuous rendition of a song that's guaranteed to leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy inside - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas!π·πΆπ·
After today, there are just 2 days left of our Twelve Virtual Daysπ - what musical treat will tomorrow bring?! See you then...!
So lovely, well played Sarah
Very nice. Well played Sarah.
Beautiful, thanks Sarah!
Wonderful thanks Sarah
Nice one Sarah xx
Beautiful! Thanks Sarah.
Posted on Monday December 21st, 2020
There are just 4 videos left in our Twelve Virtual Days of Christmasππ΅π
and today is our only trio! This charming and jolly little arrangement of Deck the Halls by Tsuyoshi Yoroiguma features Catherine Piper, Cathy Hughes and Sally on flute - these three WCB members were our first to record a piece virtually during the first lockdown back in May and also the first to get together to play in person (socially distanced, naturally!) once this became possible in July! A rousing way to start your week!
See you tomorrow for something silky and smoooooth!π΅π·
Yay flutes! This is brilliant, well done. Great editing too!
very nice, humming this all day now
Vert well played but I think the addition of a bass part via bass clarinet would improve it. Just a thought.π€
Sounding great. Well done ladies.
Gorgeous!
Posted on Sunday December 20th, 2020
It's Day 8 of our very own Twelve Virtual Days of Christmas and we might be in Tier 4 but we're extremely excited to share our full band virtual performance of the UK's most-played Christmas song of the 21st Century!ππ΅π
Featuring 31 WCB members, 1 marionette and the closest we can get to virtual swaying, here's our awesome version of Fairytale of New York!
See you tomorrow for something effervescent and sparkly...!β¨
-----------------------------
Our performance of Fairytale of New York was first released earlier in December as part of the fantastic Reading Digital Advent Calendar and we're grateful to Reading Culture Live for their donation in support of the creation of this video. If you haven't seen the Digital Advent Calendar, you can (and should!) catch up on all that you've missed here:
www.readingculturelive.co.uk/genre/digital-advent-calendar/
#digitaladventcalendar #rdgculturelive #magicalchristmas
What's On Reading Reading UK CIC
Absolutely fantastic π π Gave me goosebumps xxxx
This is fantastic - loved it! Even had me thinking I should get back to the Clarinet, not sure I should inflict that on my family mind! You guys have done an awesome job. Great production/editing too! Possibly my favourite Christmas song.
Amazing, I knew the song but didn’t know what it was called. It was very uplifting on a wet, tier 4, Monday morning! Some good news, Alan has a date for the vaccination!! Hooray!
Excellent ! The editing is fantastic and the music is, as usual, perfection. Well done all. ♥οΈπ²♥οΈ
My favourite so far, well done and Merry Christmas!
Absolutely brilliant, we loved it!
Love this! Happy Christmas everyone πβ¨βοΈ
ππ»ππ»ππ»
Brilliant as usual guys - nice to see everyone together again!
Sounding great guys. Fab job on the editing. Just getting better and better. β€οΈβ€οΈπΌβ€οΈβ€οΈ
Fantastic playing and editing! Well done WCB
Loved it, thanks!
Fantastic job everyone. ππ»ππ
I see that you have Rebecca on French horn. Please remember me to her. We used to play together in Thames-Wind.π
Spectacular.
Beautiful
Posted on Saturday December 19th, 2020
In at Day 7 of our Twelve Virtual Days of Christmasππ΅π
, the carol most requested when the band's out busking - we once played this no less than 14 times in 4 hours' worth of playing!ππ·π Here's Jingle Bells played by 4 suspiciously-similar looking people in one room...
Make sure that you come back tomorrow for No.8 - you *really* won't want to miss our VERY big version of one of the most popular Christmas songs of all time...!π§π½
That’s great! Good work!
Best yet! The theme tune in our house at the moment π Happy Christmas Owen, Louise, James and Laurence
Fab job Owen well done ππβ€οΈ
Fantastic! How on earth did you manage the video edit?!
that is fantastic!
Glad to see the crazy hats finally get an outing this year!
Yay Owen the Elf !!
A triumph! ... but a scary prospect that there are actually 4 Owen Lloyd 's!
Brilliant!!!
Love it! Well done Owen, Owen, Owen and Owen π€£