Owen Sound City Band - Official concert band of the City of Owen Sound, the all-ages City Band has been providing the musical soundtrack to the Scenic City since 1925

3 · 09

Are You Going to Desboro Fair?

Labour Day Saturday and time for a City Band program at the 152nd annual Desboro Fall Fair!

Every year on Labour Day weekend, Desboro hosts an annual Agricultural Fall Fair. The fair brings many of the surrounding farmers together to compete for items such as tallest corn, best hay, best selection of antiques and best antique tractors. There are a variety of games for children (everyone loves to watch the frog jumping competition and play a game at the carnival tent). The local youth demonstrate what they learned as members of the many 4H clubs including the calf club and the Potato club, and you can even have your chance to buy some of the prize winning potatoes.

via en.wikipedia.org

Clarence Lange, director with the Desboro and Chesley agricultural societies for 75 years, put it this way:

"It was the dream of our forefathers to have an event like this every year. They generated and expected support from the community to make it happen. They needed it then and it's needed now, too."

via thedailyobserver.ca

And just like every year, the Owen Sound City Band will be there to usher in the antique tractor parade for the noon hour with a program of show tunes and some vintage brass band marches!

Did we mention the award-winning pies? For directions to Desboro, click the event title in our calendar at owensoundcityband.org and then click on 'map' to take you right there!

concerts desboro parades

2 · 09

Claude Gordon’s “The Seven Basic Items”

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Why did so many people come from so far away to study with Claude Gordon? What made him unique? Why do so many people owe their careers to this man’s teaching?

The following is an overview of “The Seven Basic Items” with a few brief comments on their implications. Each item is intended to work together in harmony with all the other items. If one item isn’t working correctly there will come a day when the player will struggle.

These exact items are also found in Herbert L. Clarke’s Setting Up Drills, which shows how Claude approached things exactly like Clarke did. He studied with Clarke for ten years. Gordon’s Brass Playing Is No Harder Than Deep Breathing has been misunderstood by some as focusing only on breathing. The point is that once everything is working correctly, playing is as simple as taking a big breath, which anyone can do

1 · 09

A Beautiful End to Summer!

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And so it was, a beautiful summer's evening under the twilight, the geese warming up their flight skills overhead, our last show of the 2010 summer Music In The Park season and a big thank-you to all our fans for all your support and applause over these past many Mondays. We love this job.

Thanks as well goes out again to Linda Joch for capturing the moment; if you have photos (or recordings!) of the Owen Sound City Band, rememberances of your own tour of duty or of friends or family who have played in our group please do let us know at info-at-owensoundcityband.org -- we love to feature our history and we're hoping to piece together an exhibit panel for the Grey-Roots, so any and all contributions are very welcome.

And speaking of memories, hear here now some echos of last Monday's summer season wrap-up, and it being a bittersweet parting, let's finish on a melancholy note with Send In The Clowns