UNCONVENTIONAL CORNETIST

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 777, 11 June 1954, Page 26

UNCONVENTIONAL CORNETIST

bandsman named Ken Smith gave up the tenor horn, which he had played for a year, and switched to the cornet. He liked the sound better, and thought it could do more, Since then the young musician has done much to demonstrate the capacities of the instrument, and has, in doing so, become one ‘of the world’s top-ranking performers. One of the few musicians to return home after successes abroad, Ken Smith recently arrived back in New Zealand to take up an appointment as conductor of the St. Kilda Band. In Wellington, he told: The Listener something of the work that led to success. "Almost from the start," he said, "I disliked the conventional cornet solo-the air and variations always played, and still played. As a result I looked into the repertoires of the violin, oboe and clarinet. I even made use of songs and operatic arias to develop technique." During his stay in Wellington, Mr. Smith showed some ‘of the results of this extension of the cornet’s repertoire. With the All-Star Band, he performed two movements of Mendelssohn’s violin concerto, arranged for cornet and brass band. "The concerto was adapted," he said, "to show the extent and sheer OT years ago a boy

musical beauty as well as the technical possibilities of the instrument. I-can understand the purist’s objections. I personally prefer to hear the work as originally written, But if you approach it in the right way musically, and try to do justice to it, then there shouldn't be too much controversy." The trumpet repertoire, he said, was quite extensive, but much of it was "too academic and dull" to be played or listened to with pleasure. As the son of an eminent band conductor, Ken Smith developed an early interest in brass insttuments. He was 11 when he started playing the tenor horn, and almost immediately he joined the Westport Municipal Band. This disbanded soon after the outbreak of war, and Ken entered the newly-formed Westport Boys’ Band, staying there till 1947, when his father, K. G. L. Smith, became conductor of the St. Kilda Band and the family shifted to Dunedin. At school in! Westport, the young cornetist was encouraged to enter architecture or banking as a career, but he had other ideas. When he left school at 16, he entered a bank, but only to avoid the limitations which university study would impose on his opportunities to practise. Then, after two years, he left the bank. because of the limitations it imposed on his timé for practice. For a year he was an NZBS programme officer, and then, in 1950, came the opportunity he

wanted. He joined the staff of Fairey Aviation Works, and, more important for him, he became a member of its famous band. During his years with the British band, Ken Smith became known for his solo performances and received a growing number of invitations to play in oratorio, symphony and other concerts, and for the BBC. With the Birmingham Symphony he_ performed the Haydn Concerto in E Flat, and with the BBC Northern Orchestra the McMahon Concerto for Two Trumpets. "To do work more sonorous -or even more delicate technically-my choice is the cornet," said Mr. Smith. "But for more classical work, of course, one must use the trumpet." Readers may be surprised to hear that Ken Smith has attained his present dexterity with

the cornet, using the "wrong" hand. Naturally left-handed, he was forced by the design of the instrument to manipulate the Valves with his right. "I’ve often regretted that I didn’t ever get a left instrument, but it’s not worth while now," he says. "Of course, if I ever lost the use of my right hand I'd persevere and learn with the left.’ That he could do so readily seems clear. Years ago, in Westport, Ken Smith broke a bone in his right wrist. He was booked to appear at a concert, and actually did so, his wrist encased in hand performing the duties of the right. On the question of the lip’s importance to a cornetist, Mr. Smith did some debunking of accepted ideas. The story of a person's lip "going," he says, is an plaster and the left. excuse. "The strength for playing is on. the same principle as for a singercorrect use of the facial muscles and the diaphragm. If you tire in the course of playing, the lips shouldn't become tired, but they lose their sensitivity, If my playing is not up to scratch, it means I have become tired elsewhere and lost the sensitivity to do those little things which make music far more enjoyable. In fact, this sensitivity is essential to beauty in music. It is the essence of the art of delicate and soft playing." Ken Smith’s recipe for the attainment of. "the art of delicate and soft playing" lies not in tuition, but in learning. His only tutor, his father, taught him the essentials. but he has studied at no school of music; under no eminent masters of his instrument. "Practice and performance." he says, "have taken up 95 per cent of my spare time. I may have practised for four hours during the dav, but if I have a spare hour in the evening, rather than go to books I go to my instrument." Asked about ‘his own preferences in music, Ken Smith sprang another surprise. "My great interest in music lies in chamber music, and particularly in the werks of Mozart and Beethoven." He was also interested, he said, in brass ensemble playing, which he thought had "tremendous possibilities,’ and which was "a neglected field of musical endeavour." From a man who has proved wrong such authoritative pronouncements on the cornet as that it has "vulgar tone, boorish origin," it is perhaps not surprising to hear that his plans for St. Kilda Band are hardly conventional. "My first endeavour," he says, "will be to produce the highest quality of music from the band, and not keep to what has been the brass band repertoire over the last decade."