ARANUI H.S. BAND

Press, Volume C, Issue 29515, 17 May 1961, Page 17

ARANUI H.S. BAND

Instruments, Help Offered

The Aranui High School, expects to have a good band,! according to the headmaster: (Mr W. J. A. Brittenden). It; has accepted offers to lend; instruments and to help in i instruction from two adult: bands. Some schools had access to instruments but difficulty about instructors and little enthusiasm among pupils or parents, Mr Brittenden said. Aranui was apparently the centre of a “good band district.” Mr Ralph Simpson, conductor of the Christchurch Fire Brigade Band, had offered to teach pupils in evening classes on brass instruments on indefinite loan. The New Brighton Band had also offered to lend instruments. A school band, once a distant project, was now virtually in being. Of 22 boys who had joined, eight bad some previous band experience. Five girls had also volunteered. Mr Brittenden said he was “perfectly happy” to have them play some of the lighter brass instruments, but he had now secured for them three clarinets, which would be the nucleus of a useful woodwind section of both the band and an orchestra. About 20 other pupils were also learning to play the violin, the ’cello, and the double bass. Besides the regular music instructors for this, the school had an art teacher skilled on the violin and a typing teacher skilled on the ’cello. “All in all, we are particularly fortunate with our music,” Mir Brittenden said.