Royal Marines Band Service - Beat Retreat Rehearsals in Portsmouth

The News, Portsmouth

2 years ago

The musicians are preparing for the ceremony of the Horse Guards in London.

Transcript

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01:51It's day three of rehearsals for Beating Retreat.

01:55Day one and two are mostly just drills,

01:57so musicians and buglers marching without their instruments,

02:00just hearing the music and working out all the choreography.

02:03And then later on, day two and day three,

02:06we kind of start to put the whole thing together.

02:09So it's early days, really.

02:10We've got the rest of this week and a bit of next week,

02:12but we've made really good progress so far.

02:14So we're here in Portsmouth.

02:16This afternoon we're joined by the Royal Marines Guard of Honor

02:18from 30 Commander Royal Marines.

02:20So that's an additional ceremonial kind of element.

02:24So we're rehearsing with them for the rest of the week.

02:28Then we have Families Day here on Saturday,

02:30which is our dress rehearsal, effectively.

02:32Sunday and Monday are rest days, and then we're up to London

02:35Tuesday and Wednesday, performances Thursday and Friday.

02:38So all pretty condensed, but, yeah, a busy period.

02:41I think everybody's feeling pretty good.

02:43The whole thing's coming together quite quickly.

02:46We try and make the rehearsal process as efficient as possible,

02:49so we're all very well prepared.

02:52We don't tend to, we try to keep the stress levels pretty low,

02:57sort of manage things bit by bit carefully and pull things together.

03:01So I think everyone's feeling pretty good.

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05:44We're certainly on track to where we need to be.

05:47This is week two of three weeks, essentially.

05:50So we had the Chora Drums here rehearsing last week.

05:53The band have been added into the equation this week.

05:56We've got the Guard joining in later in the week

05:58before we move to London for more rehearsals

06:00and then the final performance.

06:02The big difference to our day-to-day performances

06:04really with this is the scale of it.

06:06We've got all five bands coming from all around the country,

06:09Scotland, Plymouth, Limston,

06:11and then the two more local bands in Portsmouth

06:13and Collingwood near Fairham.

06:16And, yeah, just bringing everybody in together

06:19to have a band on this scale,

06:21mass bands, Chora Drums, fanfare team.

06:23We've got a 96-man Guard coming from 30 Commando as well

06:27joining us later in the day today.

06:29So it's just the scale of the whole thing is much different

06:32to what we're used to on a day-to-day basis.

06:35Do you think all the bands are working together well so far?

06:37Yeah, so far, I mean, the good thing with us is

06:40we all train in the same place in Portsmouth.

06:43Everybody then goes off to their separate bands.

06:45But then when we come back, we've all got that core training

06:48and we've all worked into the same end result all the time.

06:51So it's quite easy to gel everything together

06:53after a bit of rehearsal time.

06:55The bands enjoy getting together more than anything.

06:57It's the fact they're coming from their dispersed locations

07:01and getting together socially as well as everything else

07:05and enjoying their time in Portsmouth together.

07:08Yeah, I mean, the big challenge for us is

07:11because of the size of the performance area.

07:15It's just getting everything together.

07:18When we've got bands splitting and moving in different directions,

07:20we've got a stage band that sits off to the side of the performance area as well.

07:24So locking all those elements in together is a challenge.

07:27It's a challenge here on the field, but then when we get to London,

07:30we've got fresh challenges with...

07:33There's a brick wall essentially at one end of the performance area.

07:36We use Horse Guards Building as the backdrop.

07:38So at times half the band are marching towards the building

07:41and the other half are marching towards St James' Park

07:44and so the sound's getting lost in the trees.

07:47So it's just a matter of working on that when we get there,

07:50getting the bass drums locked in around the centre

07:53and then getting the stage band to lock into that as well.

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09:06Yay!

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14:17Finally, starting to put it all together.

14:20was without instruments and now we're starting to put them on and top to bottom in the routine

14:26and it's showing parts which need like a bit more time on with issues such as like the sound

14:34projection with the band being such far behind the core drums it creates quite a large echo

14:42and it's solidifying which beat we're all on to make sure that the audience receive the right

14:47sound this is my first year first beat and retreat i'm very much looking forward to it

14:54i had the the chance to march down the mile as a sea cadet

14:58so doing that when with the proper raw marines band it's going to be a great opportunity

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19:32and they went pretty well it's a bit ropey to start off with um with the sound delay between

19:36the band and the guys that are playing in the tent but um after a few run-throughs it's

19:44going all right now so so when we get up to london in horse guards because the buildings are all

19:48around there's always the sound bouncing off all the different buildings which kind of causes a

19:54bit of a delay so getting that together it just means we have to work as a team even harder and

20:00just keep listening in to the bass drums who are guiding us with the beat yeah no it's really nice

20:06to um to have the mass bands here um normally we only have a band of approximately 35 to

20:1240 on parade i'm out on a parade band so to have nearly 200 people behind the sounds just

20:19incredible um i'm excited um this will be probably my sixth mass bands beat retreat

20:26on horse guard so it's um it's always nice to go up there and show london what we can do

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Royal Marines Band Service - Beat Retreat Rehearsals in Portsmouth

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