Parp said:
It's just a bit of fun. Do you really have to be so dismissive? I'm afraid your post has just made you look awfully bitter about banding, for whatever reason.
Why not sit back, take a deep breath and ignore the thread if it offends you so much? I personally can't wait to see the results and see what a variety of players we'll have on there.
I guess theres a couple ways to look at this.
From an optimistic point of view what this list may do is prompt people to go out and listen to or get recordings of some of the artists mentioned in the top 10 and be inspired to emulate those people. This can only be a good thing.
From a pesimistic point of view asking an understandibly partisan and, predominanly, brass band orientated readership to vote for their greatest players, especially while restricting it to brass band related players means you get an extremely narrow and dare I say "sub-par" choice of brass players on the grand scale of things, especially when you start getting into the 50+ range and your Roger Websters/David Thorntons are gone.
I think the point he was trying to make, albeit rather vitriolic in tone, was that on the world stage, brass banding has been and still is a "niché" genre almost exclusively performed and played by amateur musicians. This does not, of course, imply that there are not some exceptionally talented players in the brass band scene as there are some undoubtedly talented people playing. However as a whole I would suggest that the number of exceptional players outside the realms of brass banding to be considerably higher. This is both as a propotion of the total players and in pure numbers due in no small fact to there being a much greater number of people dedicating their whole working and playing life to it. The upshot to this is that a list like this will by defenition not contain most of the best brass players in the world and as such be somewhat hollow.
Of course, if you don't care about anything but brass banding then this list might have some relevance but I think that would be a gross shame as, to be honest, while I love brass banding theres so much more to be discovered outside the movement by musicians that are in a different class altogether to all but the top one or two players in the brass band movement.
Just as a small aside theres the question of judging criteria. Take someone like Arnold Jacob. An exceptionally influential tuba player who succeeded in pushing the boundries of tuba playing forward for his time and is considered one of the best tuba teachers that has ever lived. However, from a puerly technical viewpoint there are any number of players today who can play faster, louder, higher, lower and arguably "better" than he ever did. If you had a blind test side by side with some of the more recent tuba virtuoso players I can guarantee most wouldn't rate him near them. Does that make him a greatest "player" or not? As a pure player, these days there are many better than him however for his influence on the instruments development and prominence few could come near him.
Thanks
Gary
:tup
