David B Hammond
With 30 years' experience as an all-round performer at major ceremonies and events around the world, David brings a wealth of expertise in providing first class musical entertainment. Conducting, playing instruments, creating programmes, resourcing musicians, and event management have all been a part of his professional life. As a successful leader of ensembles, bands, and orchestras he can support conductors and other managers to get the best out of their teams. David also draws on his musical experiences as a professional performer to enhance his business consultancy; people are performers in all walks of life.
Educated at the London College of Music and York and Cambridge Universities, and as a performer with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, David has had a diverse career, taking him across the world as a French horn player and conductor. After four years in Southern Africa working for the Bophuthatswana Arts Council, his subsequent time in the British army saw him live in Germany and Gibraltar, serve in the Balkans, Falkland Islands, Canada, Cyprus, Kenya, and lead soldiers on Operations in Afghanistan.
With the Household Cavalry, David led the mounted band on the Queen’s Birthday Parade in 2014, and he continued to work in the state arena as Director of Music, The Countess of Wessex’s String Orchestra, responsible for the music at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, and Holyrood Palace for Investitures, State Banquets, and other royal events. As an army reservist David is now Director of Music of The Band of The Royal Yeomanry (Inns of Court & City Yeomanry). As a civilian he is a French horn player and conductor, a director of the management consultancy Get Psyched Up!, and Associate Lecturer in Strategic Management at The Open University.
David has five degrees and holds Fellowships from the principal British music conservatoires. Following on from an MBA with the Open University, David’s PhD research combined his interests in music, strategy, and history, and forms the basis of this book.
David has participated in sports throughout his career, notably football and rugby, and has also enjoyed ‘adventure’ travelling – such as canoeing on the Zambezi and completing the Trans-Siberian Railway. He now loves spending his spare time on the Essex coast with his wife, Kate, their teenage twin daughters, Jane and Elizabeth, and two large labradoodles.
PhD (Open)
MBA (Open)
MA (York) – Music Technology
BMus(Hons) 1st Class (RMSM/Kingston)
GLCM(Hons) (London College of Music)
FRSM; FTCL; FLCM – French Horn Performance
PGCE (Cantab) – Music & Creative Arts
Phone: 07452 986315
Address: 43 Wellesley Road
CLACTON-ON-SEA
Essex
CO15 3PL
UK
Educated at the London College of Music and York and Cambridge Universities, and as a performer with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, David has had a diverse career, taking him across the world as a French horn player and conductor. After four years in Southern Africa working for the Bophuthatswana Arts Council, his subsequent time in the British army saw him live in Germany and Gibraltar, serve in the Balkans, Falkland Islands, Canada, Cyprus, Kenya, and lead soldiers on Operations in Afghanistan.
With the Household Cavalry, David led the mounted band on the Queen’s Birthday Parade in 2014, and he continued to work in the state arena as Director of Music, The Countess of Wessex’s String Orchestra, responsible for the music at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, and Holyrood Palace for Investitures, State Banquets, and other royal events. As an army reservist David is now Director of Music of The Band of The Royal Yeomanry (Inns of Court & City Yeomanry). As a civilian he is a French horn player and conductor, a director of the management consultancy Get Psyched Up!, and Associate Lecturer in Strategic Management at The Open University.
David has five degrees and holds Fellowships from the principal British music conservatoires. Following on from an MBA with the Open University, David’s PhD research combined his interests in music, strategy, and history, and forms the basis of this book.
David has participated in sports throughout his career, notably football and rugby, and has also enjoyed ‘adventure’ travelling – such as canoeing on the Zambezi and completing the Trans-Siberian Railway. He now loves spending his spare time on the Essex coast with his wife, Kate, their teenage twin daughters, Jane and Elizabeth, and two large labradoodles.
PhD (Open)
MBA (Open)
MA (York) – Music Technology
BMus(Hons) 1st Class (RMSM/Kingston)
GLCM(Hons) (London College of Music)
FRSM; FTCL; FLCM – French Horn Performance
PGCE (Cantab) – Music & Creative Arts
Phone: 07452 986315
Address: 43 Wellesley Road
CLACTON-ON-SEA
Essex
CO15 3PL
UK
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Part 1: Culture
Chapter 2: The gentlemen of the regiment: Musicians in the regular army
Chapter 3: ‘Breaking in’ the young hands: The dependence on band boys
Part 2: Performance
Chapter 4: Seaside, ceremonial, and an unhappy union: Bands and live performance
Chapter 5: A clear and homogenous sound: Performance practice and recording
Chapter 6: ‘Tonic’ music and discord with the BBC: Repertoire and broadcasting
Part 3: Influence
Chapter 7: Kneller hall and the pitch battle with the War Office
Chapter 8: Punching above their weight: Soft power influence of British army bands overseas
Chapter 9: The Youghal ‘outrage’: Political appropriation of military bands and the founding of the Irish Free State
Appendix 1: Broadcasts (excluding outside broadcasts) by staff bands from January 1932 to September 1933
Appendix 2: Colonel Somerville’s list to the BBC of army bands graded ‘outstanding’ by Kneller Hall in 1933.
Appendix 3: Colonel Jervis’s ‘order of merit’ army band list sent to the BBC in 1934, notable for its absence of
staff bands.
Appendix 4: Walton O’Donnell’s BBC audition reports for three bands in Northern Ireland.
Appendix 5: Internal 1941 BBC memo rejecting the Kneller Hall band grading system.
Appendix 6: Army Council Instruction – 544: Pitch of Instruments of Army Bands
Appendix 7: An anonymous humorous poem about the change to low pitch published in The Leading Note in 1929
Bibliography
The author
There were approximately 7,000 full-time bandsmen serving in the British army in the interwar years. This was about a third of the total number of musicians in the music profession in the United Kingdom, making the War Office the largest single employer of professional musicians in the country. British army musicians were a key stakeholder in the music industry in the United Kingdom, but also farther afield, where it made a significant contribution to the maintenance of British imperial authority.
To sustain the large number of bands, residential institutions provided young boys for recruitment into the army as bandsmen and, as a consequence, the army set the standard for musical training and performance. The music industry relied upon the existence of army bands for its business and the military played a significant part in the adoption of an international standard of musical pitch. Nevertheless, there was a tempestuous relationship between army bands and the BBC, as well as the recording industry as a whole.
Using untapped sources and original material, Major David Hammond reveals the role and soft power influence of British army music in the interwar years.
"In Britain, in 1896, civilian musicians moved from ‘Philharmonic Pitch’ to the flatter ‘New Philharmonic Pitch’. British army bands, however, retained the ‘Old Philharmonic’ pitch. With approximately 180 official bands, employing some 7,000 full-time musicians, the army was a primary stakeholder in the music industry and a huge customer for instrument manufacturers. When Colonel JAC Somerville became Commandant of the Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall, in 1920, he intended that military musicians should perform at the same pitch as civilians, but the cost of a complete re-issue of instruments was not palatable to the War Office. A deputation, headed by Elgar, to meet with the Secretary of State for War was refused, questions were raised in Parliament, and the King took a personal interest. With bands serving in China, India, Africa, and the West Indies, in addition to those on Home Service, this paper will explore some of the far-reaching consequences of the change that eventually took place. This will include analysis of War Office archives, Parliamentary papers, and contemporary publications, revealing the crucial role the army played in the standardisation of pitch in Britain, paving the way for international consensus on standard musical pitch in 1939."
In 1931, the Statute of Westminster gave the Dominions, including the Union of South Africa, the right to be free of British law. In the same year, the self-governing British colony of Southern Rhodesia passed the Land Apportionment Act, codifying the distribution of land by race. Significantly, making front page news in January, 1931, the Band of the Grenadier Guards embarked from Britain on a highly successful tour of Southern Africa. Notable highlights of their tour were the parade in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, to open the Legislative Assembly and, performing at Cecil Rhodes’ memorial. Furthermore, they entertained huge crowds in the major centres of the now nominally independent South Africa.
This paper, supported by archival newsreel, argues that what was perceived as the archetypal ‘tradition’ of Britishness, a Guards Band with bearskins and scarlet tunics, was unashamedly utilised to reinforce British influence in Imperial Africa, both in a fledgling self-governing colony and an established dominion."
The Ministry of Defence is the single largest employer of professional musicians in Britain and for over 150 years the Royal Military School of Music has trained them, fashioning an exclusive musical identity and culture. Captain David Hammond, Director of Music for The Band of The Blues and Royals (and formerly Deputy Chief Instructor of the Royal Military School of Music), investigates the influence of musical training within the military on the rest of the music profession and its significance in the twenty-first century.
This event complements the Academy Museum’s current exhibition, War Music: Notes from the First World War, which runs until March 2015.
Part 1: Culture
Chapter 2: The gentlemen of the regiment: Musicians in the regular army
Chapter 3: ‘Breaking in’ the young hands: The dependence on band boys
Part 2: Performance
Chapter 4: Seaside, ceremonial, and an unhappy union: Bands and live performance
Chapter 5: A clear and homogenous sound: Performance practice and recording
Chapter 6: ‘Tonic’ music and discord with the BBC: Repertoire and broadcasting
Part 3: Influence
Chapter 7: Kneller hall and the pitch battle with the War Office
Chapter 8: Punching above their weight: Soft power influence of British army bands overseas
Chapter 9: The Youghal ‘outrage’: Political appropriation of military bands and the founding of the Irish Free State
Appendix 1: Broadcasts (excluding outside broadcasts) by staff bands from January 1932 to September 1933
Appendix 2: Colonel Somerville’s list to the BBC of army bands graded ‘outstanding’ by Kneller Hall in 1933.
Appendix 3: Colonel Jervis’s ‘order of merit’ army band list sent to the BBC in 1934, notable for its absence of
staff bands.
Appendix 4: Walton O’Donnell’s BBC audition reports for three bands in Northern Ireland.
Appendix 5: Internal 1941 BBC memo rejecting the Kneller Hall band grading system.
Appendix 6: Army Council Instruction – 544: Pitch of Instruments of Army Bands
Appendix 7: An anonymous humorous poem about the change to low pitch published in The Leading Note in 1929
Bibliography
The author
There were approximately 7,000 full-time bandsmen serving in the British army in the interwar years. This was about a third of the total number of musicians in the music profession in the United Kingdom, making the War Office the largest single employer of professional musicians in the country. British army musicians were a key stakeholder in the music industry in the United Kingdom, but also farther afield, where it made a significant contribution to the maintenance of British imperial authority.
To sustain the large number of bands, residential institutions provided young boys for recruitment into the army as bandsmen and, as a consequence, the army set the standard for musical training and performance. The music industry relied upon the existence of army bands for its business and the military played a significant part in the adoption of an international standard of musical pitch. Nevertheless, there was a tempestuous relationship between army bands and the BBC, as well as the recording industry as a whole.
Using untapped sources and original material, Major David Hammond reveals the role and soft power influence of British army music in the interwar years.
"In Britain, in 1896, civilian musicians moved from ‘Philharmonic Pitch’ to the flatter ‘New Philharmonic Pitch’. British army bands, however, retained the ‘Old Philharmonic’ pitch. With approximately 180 official bands, employing some 7,000 full-time musicians, the army was a primary stakeholder in the music industry and a huge customer for instrument manufacturers. When Colonel JAC Somerville became Commandant of the Royal Military School of Music, Kneller Hall, in 1920, he intended that military musicians should perform at the same pitch as civilians, but the cost of a complete re-issue of instruments was not palatable to the War Office. A deputation, headed by Elgar, to meet with the Secretary of State for War was refused, questions were raised in Parliament, and the King took a personal interest. With bands serving in China, India, Africa, and the West Indies, in addition to those on Home Service, this paper will explore some of the far-reaching consequences of the change that eventually took place. This will include analysis of War Office archives, Parliamentary papers, and contemporary publications, revealing the crucial role the army played in the standardisation of pitch in Britain, paving the way for international consensus on standard musical pitch in 1939."
In 1931, the Statute of Westminster gave the Dominions, including the Union of South Africa, the right to be free of British law. In the same year, the self-governing British colony of Southern Rhodesia passed the Land Apportionment Act, codifying the distribution of land by race. Significantly, making front page news in January, 1931, the Band of the Grenadier Guards embarked from Britain on a highly successful tour of Southern Africa. Notable highlights of their tour were the parade in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, to open the Legislative Assembly and, performing at Cecil Rhodes’ memorial. Furthermore, they entertained huge crowds in the major centres of the now nominally independent South Africa.
This paper, supported by archival newsreel, argues that what was perceived as the archetypal ‘tradition’ of Britishness, a Guards Band with bearskins and scarlet tunics, was unashamedly utilised to reinforce British influence in Imperial Africa, both in a fledgling self-governing colony and an established dominion."
The Ministry of Defence is the single largest employer of professional musicians in Britain and for over 150 years the Royal Military School of Music has trained them, fashioning an exclusive musical identity and culture. Captain David Hammond, Director of Music for The Band of The Blues and Royals (and formerly Deputy Chief Instructor of the Royal Military School of Music), investigates the influence of musical training within the military on the rest of the music profession and its significance in the twenty-first century.
This event complements the Academy Museum’s current exhibition, War Music: Notes from the First World War, which runs until March 2015.