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A brass band at Christmastime

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The tradition of singing Local Carols in the villages to the North West of Sheffield goes back to at least the late Eighteenth Century; the Local Carols were generally composed by local musicians, organists or choirmasters and the carols were often given local names. Originally this is thought to have been a reaction against the banning of many carols by both the Church and the State. Some Carols caused controversy and it is known that ‘While Shepherds Watched’ had to be cleaned up by the Victorians for being too crude. There is also strong evidence that ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ was a call to 18th Century Jacobites to rebel [1]. Examples of locally written tunes are, ‘Bright and Joyful’ […]

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Engagement benefits with leisure-time music are multi-layered

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‘Making music is fun, uses different skills to those you need to employ in the rest of your life, is relaxing and stress-busting, and makes you feel better about yourself. In scientific terms, there is now a growing body of’ proven ‘research which shows that this can amount to better physical and mental health: making music really is good for you’ – and therefore ‘saves the NHS and social services money’. ‘Everyone can make music, from a two-year-old to a 90-year-old, whether rich or poor, disabled or not. It can help to bring communities together across generations, social classes, income brackets, disabled’, and able-bodied. ‘An obvious benefit of that is that it reduces loneliness and social exclusion, which are a […]

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Sheffield local carols

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It’ll soon be that time of year again; ‘the December madness’, as some of the brass bands refer to it. If you really want to get into the Christmas spirit though there’s nothing better than to sing along to some carols with a brass band, and throughout December you’ll find all the Sheffield bands out and about all over the place, but if you particularly want to find out where some of the bands are going to play some of the ‘local’ Sheffield carols one of the best places to look is the Village Carols website at http://www.localcarols.org.uk/sings.php where you’ll find a list of many of the venues along with the names of the brass bands who’ll be playing at several […]

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Local bands at Yorkshire Areas

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After day one of the Yorkshire Regionals at Huddersfield this year, Sheffield bands have been doing the city proud. In the fourth section, Loxley finished a creditable third. Sheffield isn’t represented in the Second Section, but Wosboroug Brass is only a bit further up the M1 and under the baton of John Hopkinson, they achieved a good second place. In the first section, Stannington and Unite The Union were both competing in a strong section. It wasn’t to be for last year’s Second Section National Champions Stannington who finished a disappointing eleventh, but it was a different matter for Unite who will be representing Sheffield at Cheltenham later this year with a strong second place. Tomorrow (Sunday) it’s the Third […]

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