And another thing!

The Adelaide Congress Hall Band in the 1960s ... bands and conductors were the focus of letters to the editor in The Musician publication in 1965.

BY BARRY GITTINS

We are all capable of making positive suggestions in our shared lives and working towards finding common ground and achieving shared goals. That observation duly said and noted, there is something very human about raising concerns that, while they may bother us, don’t exactly set the world on fire.

The Salvation Army’s publication The Musician used to give people the opportunity to get things off their chest with Do you agree? – the publication’s letters to the editor column.

In the 14 August 1965 issue, 60 years ago, Mrs E.R. Cook shared her “honest reflections to several customs observed in our SA meetings [as] I feel that I’m not alone in thinking as I do”.

The letter from Mrs E.R Cook outlining a number of things in meetings that irked her.

The correspondent laid out her case for bands and pianists to play introductions before congregational songs, for the singing of every verse in songs, for Salvos to stand up more in meetings, and for more sympathy to be expressed for “somnolent bandsmen” who sit “in the warmest part of the building [and] become very drowsy on the coldest night”. (Not something that causes concern now that most corps no longer hold Sunday night salvation meetings.)

Her biggest concern was that leaders of meetings chose to conduct congregational singing “while a perfectly competent bandmaster a few yards away is also conducting”. She found this confusing, “especially if the bandmaster’s beat is followed by the band, and there are two separate beats”. 

Responding in kind, in a letter entitled ‘I agree!’ that was published in the 11 September 1965 issue, Major Keith Earl seconded the concerns raised “almost entirely”, but he stood up for a leader’s right to wave their hands around – regardless of what the conductor was doing.

If he had a different beat to that of “a perfectly competent bandmaster”, the major wrote, “it would be because I wanted the bandmaster to change [as the leader] should know how he wants the song sung and the bandmaster is leading the accompaniment”.

“Granted,” he acknowledged, “I have seen leaders who do not know what they want when a song is sung, but the leadership must be in one pair of hands only, and surely a perfectly competent bandmaster would endeavour to follow the leader, otherwise why describe him as such?”

The 1960s were a time of intense cultural, societal, political, spiritual and behavioural upheaval and change in national and international affairs. It seems the smaller human picture was of more interest to the Army.