Matters of Faith, By Jim Foley
Castlemaine Uniting Church and ‘Just Brass’ support player
It was a normal late afternoon scene at Castlemaine’s Maxi IGA. People rushing through their shopping and looking forward to getting home as the light faded and temperature fell. Unobtrusively, a couple of primary school students drifted in and sat on the bench under the noticeboard, resting tubas in their laps. Nothing you’d particularly notice while wondering what you’d left off the shopping list or wheeling a trolley towards the car park.
Then the tubas started up with a steady “oompah, oompah” while other young musicians quickly joined them from doorways and other hiding places.
Soon the entry to the supermarket was resounding to a swinging version of a catchy spiritual.
Heads turned with people stopping in their tracks and tapping their feet as the gathered players confidently laid into their impromptu ‘flash mob’ performance.
As quickly as it started the music stopped and, as the applause rang out, the entertainers disappeared as quietly as they had emerged.
The ‘pop up’ showtime was presented by students of several local primary schools taking part in the national ‘Just Brass’ program run by The Salvation Army.
Students are invited to learn a donated brass instrument with experienced musicians tutoring them at school and, once a week, gathering to practise as a band at The Salvation Army church. Some are now playing at “Salvo” services and in the Thompson Foundry and other bands.
Music has long brought pleasure to people and the last of the psalms in the Bible, written some 3000 years ago, pays tribute to musicians playing a range of instruments; trumpets, lutes, harps, tambourines, strings and cymbals in praise of God.
The descendants of those trumpets certainly brought smiles to faces and brightened up an ordinary day at the Maxi IGA.
A video of the ‘flash mob’ placed on the Castlemaine Salvation Army Facebook site is also on its way to 6000 views!
