Brass Band Sections in Britain

There are five main brass band sections in the United Kingdom: Championship, First, Second, Third, and Fourth. Sometimes, a Youth section is also used, but this is not graded.

This is the section containing the very best bands in the United Kingdom who compete in the Open and National Brass Band Championships, established in 1853 and 1860 respectively. Bands such as Black Dyke,Brighouse and Rastrick, Fairey and Grimethorpe are placed in here. A few of these have professional or semi-professional players, but the contest has always been designed towards amateur musicians.

The test pieces set for or commissioned by this section are extremely difficult and use complicated musical conventions and techniques to challenge the musicians. Music composed for this section in recent years has included "Eden" by John Pickard and "Montreux Wind Dances" by Carl Rütti.

There are a range of different competitions for this section, from the Regional Qualifying Contests (also known as "Areas") to the European Brass Band Championships.

The top ten bands in the Championship section (ordered by their 4barsrest.com/World of Brass international ranking, as of 1 January 2014) are;

The First section is the next section down from the Championship section, and although the contest music is not as challenging, it is still quite difficult to play. The degree of difficulty of the music used in competitions is progressively less for each section. Many individual players in the First section can match the virtuosity of Championship section players, and the gap between the two sections is always hotly contested, as indeed it is between Second and First. Very often the only reason a band from the top of one section does not successfully migrate up to the next section lies in their interpretation of a test piece at a contest, where their fate lies in the hands of an adjudicator. The adjudicator sits enclosed and unable to see the bands as they play, and then judges them on various points, one of which is interpretation. In the past, deportment was one of the judgeable factors, but this is no longer part of contest judgement. On many occasions success or failure will depend on very small matters, and this closeness increases in the higher sections.

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