“...which is outside, and several miles away.

Sir Thomas Beecham - the prick

Competitive Brass Banding

Is totally a thing! Well, not ATM unless you’re in New Zealand (and it’s pretty big in NZ, as these
things go), but brass band contests are a well established phenomenon.

For example, did you know that the British Open Brass Band Championship is a) the oldest
music competition in the world still running (again, COVID notwithstanding) and b) is OLDER
than the Open Golf Championship?

It’s serious stuff, and totally ridiculous too. There are leagues, Big Named Players,
sponsorships, poaching, contentious results, international rankings, and awesome uniforms.

The Game (in theory)

Players assemble a band by drafting “assets” (soloists, sections of the band, a famous
conductor etc.), and compete over several turns to become “band of the year”.

Each turn represents a contest, the format of which is determined by a random draw of 1) the
Testpiece and 2) the adjudicator. There are ten of each card type, for 100 possible contest
formats. A possible combination could be a “March and hymn tune” contest, judged by a
trombone-fancier; bands with more “rhythm” and “trombone” keywords in their assets will
perform better than their rivals in this example.

While a band’s assets remain (more or less) constant throughout the season, players will also
have single-use “strategies” they can play between turns e.g. “poach star player”, “blackmail
adjudicator”, “extra rehearsals” to alter the result of the next contest.

The band with the highest cumulative score after the set number of rounds (defendant on the
no. Players) is “band of the year”

Cards

~24 “assets” that are drafted at the start of the game.

~16 “strategies” that are randomly dealt after the draft.
~10 “Testpieces”
~10 “adjudicators”