Advisory Consultant - David King

Why did you choose to work with Yamaha to develop Neo?

Yamaha in many respects accepted a challenge. The challenge was to apply the technology that they had, which was the best in world, and to invest in time and in the talents of artists to produce a complete family of professional brass band instruments. From my own perspective this was certainly an exciting project working with Yamaha both as a consultant and as an ambassador for professional band musicians.

Yamaha is known all over the world for its fantastic work with strings, brass and percussion at the professional orchestral level, however community brass bands have for many years only ever hoped that maybe it was possible that they could also have their own professional range of instruments produced by Yamaha.

For the first time Yamaha has brought together many ideas from band musicianship artists to the technological “bench” and produced something that now, after almost ten years, uniquely defines the Yamaha Neo “Solar Sound Concept.” There is a fine balance between simply producing an instrument that is easy to play and one which also has inbuilt positive resistance. This has been one of the most challenging aspects in producing the Yamaha Neo range.

No discerning brass player would ever dream of an instrument that plays the music for us however what is desired is an instrument that allows the performer to express themseIves more easily. With the production of the Neo range one of the primary goals has been to provide efficiency and energy conservation to the performer so that the air is not wasted. Using the air like a violinist uses the bow, energy efficiency provides the performer with the maximum potential to create a musical landscape more naturally. Energy conservation is vital and certainly a fundamental requirement of all discerning brass performers.

Congratulations on your band’s victory in the National Championships. I believe there were a number of Yamaha instruments used including a Xeno Cornet. How did Yamaha instruments help you achieve this?

Brighouse and Rastrick band, the current national champions of Great Britain, have a working relationship with Yamaha UK, and only in July 2010, they took on a full set of Yamaha Xeno cornets. We were very happy to see these cornets work in many different acoustics, both at Symphony Hall in Birmingham, and then in the wonderful big, open, drier acoustic environment of the Royal Albert Hall. The Yamaha cornets worked very well. We were extremely pleased to be playing them in all the major competitions in the United Kingdom. We also used two prototype Euphoniums at the recent national championships, both of which are the basis for the new Neo Euphonium. In addition we also used the new Neo B-flat basses which we helped Yamaha to develop, so we now have the lower tubas, the middle tubas, and a full array of cornets.

We are very pleased that the instruments have been working not just in the brass band, but also as solo voices. So it's all going extremely well with the development process, and working with Brighouse and Rastrick band, you really do have an opportunity to test and see whether it's working and making the grade professionally.

When you are conducting brass bands, which points do you focus on?

The prime consideration and focus will always remain as subservience to the written score and the composer's musical intention. The score is very much a canvas. It's a map, with many musical ideas and guides, in terms of what's written. But much of the magic isn't written. The real magic of music is found between the notes.

What makes this focus more possible is working with discerning musicians and of course also having very good musical instruments.

In terms of the sound world of the brass band, Yamaha's concept of the 'Solar sound' defines both complimentary qualities of what I would consider the ideal sound of the brass band - warmth and brightness combined with projection and personality.