The reason the girls took up music and not fashion design is clearly displayed above!
Vivian Westwood... eat your heart out!
I come from a small village near Southport and joined the Royal Marines Band
Service in September 2001. I am currently learning the clarinet and violin.
Monday
7 o'clock on Monday morning the corridor awakens and begins to bustle with activity as people rush around getting ready for PT. As usual, on a PT morning no-one can wait for the activity that awaits them and turn up at the gym 10 minutes early!
This morning's activity was taken with differing degrees of enthusiasm, as after
a physically demanding warm up of sprints, pressups, situps and squat thrusts
it was straight into the BFT or mile and a half run. This probably doesn't sound
too bad to most of you, but, the catch is it has to be completed in 13 minutes
15 seconds for females and 11 minutes and 13 seconds for males.After this it
was back to the accommodation for a shower, change into uniform and then straight
to work at the School of Music.
For me it was the last chance to have a look through an array of pieces and
studies on my clarinet before my lesson, after stand easy. Luckily when I did
get to my lesson we only looked at my Grade 5 pieces and study which my professor
gave to me on the Friday and so wasn't expecting too much. These pieces are:
2nd Movement Fantasiestücke by N W Grade, 4th Movement Dance Preludes by
Witold Lutoslawski and the study Tarantella by Carl Bearmann. I actually managed
to play them all reasonably fluently with only a few rhythmic errors needing
correction. All in all, a jolly good lesson with Mr Kennard. The rest of the
day for me was spent practising and sadly I missed the recitals as I was Duty
Runner; and there was a lot of mail.
After work, unlike normal, there was no rush to clean the accommodation ready
for rounds because if we attended the organised social we were excused rounds
for the week.
The theme for the social was bad taste and everyone had to dress up in the worst
clothes they could find. Musn Boardman failed to make himself look bad enough
by the PDM's judgement and so as a booby prize had to down a yard of ale. Musn
Self however, did such a good/bad job that she won £10, and second place
won an Easter egg. The night was a great success as you could tell the next
morning.
Tuesday
With headaches flying around all over the place it was only right to give a few scratches and scrapes on my violin in preparation for my lesson first thing that morning with Mr Simpson. Unfortunately it was another lesson spent devoted to technique as I still haven't got the hang of which hand holds the bow! Only kidding. The rest of the day did not pass without incident. After a few small squabbles between some of the girls about the imbalance of the amount of people in each room, some people were, unfortunately, evicted and sent to find a home in another corner of the corridor.
That evening after work, Musns Dawkins, King, Parkin, Thompson, Hall, Bug Ford
and I got permission to miss evening orchestra rehearsal to play volleyball
for HMS Nelson against HMS Dryad. We also managed to pick up one Navy rank who
had a little experience otherwise we were all beginners. We played 3 games of
25 points, Dryad won the first, we won the second and Dryad won the third and
final game. However they had obviously had a lot more practice than we had and
although Bug Ford turned out to be a natural at the sport we still didn't win.
It was very close however.
Wednesday
First thing saw the Parade Band in the concert hall and my first musical rehearsal with the new Bandmaster. We were going through a few marches so that we could go out on the parade ground and play them properly, whilst marching. Thankfully the weather is starting to warm up and we didn't feel the usual pain of cold searing in our fingers.
Normally on a Wednesday we all look forward to RT in the afternoon as it breaks
the week up nicely. However, this week, the PTI's had gone to Wales to have
a look at the accommodation and activities for our week of Adventure Trainning
in May. This meant that it was an orchestral rehearsal, for those in the orchestra,
to rehearse for sponsored prayers the following morning. The few of us that
were not on this, myself included, got to go and play basketball in the gym
as it was booked and they were keeping it open… especially for us.
It turned out to be really good fun although we soon realised that the team
that had Musn Beasley as one of its members would always win.
That night, as every Wednesday night, Musn Thompson and I went swimming training
at HMS Temeraire. It's good fun but hard work and I have to say I'm glad there
will be no PT Thursday morning.
Thursday
Well no PT, so instead we were in the concert hall for sponsored prayers (a small service lasting about half an hour). The sermon was on doubting. Well after exercising our vocal chords during the hymns it was back to our rooms for a morning of practice.
After dinner at 1400 I was off to the doctors to tell her about my latest bout
of tonsillitis and the penicillin I had to take during Easter leave. This keeps
flaring up and I'm beginning to wish I'd taken Sgt Connelly up on his offer
to remove them, with his jack knife and pliers, during my Basic Training. As
usual this evening it was the Concert Band rehearsal and tonight Major Davies
was taking the rehearsal in preparation for a gig on the 29 April with the Salvation
Army.
Friday
This morning it was Parade Band with CSgt Holman overlooking the musical side of things today. After our practice in the concert hall it was out on the parade ground to put theory into practice. For the first time ever I was actually on the back row with the rest of the clarinets as I'm usually put where I'll fit, but with Musn Parkin being off for medical reasons it was my turn to join the group. It was quite a successful rehearsal, well, I didn't get shouted at for a change, so it can't have been that bad!
After the morning stand easy all the clarinettists gathered in Musn Imm's room
with Sgt Miller for a sectional rehearsal of the Concert Band music ready for
next Saturday. This is really helpful as it allows us to concentrate on the
difficult areas of the music where it would be impossible to do with everyone
on a Thursday night.
Well now I'm on the train home so I can go to the funeral of my Gran who lived
with us for 2 years before I moved out. However, I believe most people are going
to celebrate Musns Watt and Michell leaving for Scotland Band.
Musn O'Malley
The reason the girls took up music and not fashion design is clearly displayed
above!
Vivian Westwood... eat your heart out!