Youwant toavoidyour ensemble simply sounding as if half of themusicianshavenot turnedup
money at the Tesco in West Dulwich. Furthermore, picking a song that people like and enjoy also contributed to our success: Kung Fu Fighting and Lovely Day , Marlowe’s songs, are both very happy songs that the boys enjoyed performing. However, sometimes this involvement can come with its own issues. For the past two years, I have walked on stage to lead Marlowe not knowing who would be staring back at me. In my first year, we even (accidentally, I hope) had a boy from Grenville and a boy from Raleigh on stage during our performance, not knowing a single word and carefully following my explicit mouth movements. The final component of the competition in House Music is the House Instrumental competition. This part of the competition is perhaps the hardest to organise: Dulwich boys’ talents vary and, inevitably, in any given house you will end up with one percussionist, a guitarist, a violinist (or two) and maybe a trumpeter if you’re lucky; in any case, not a coherent ensemble. As a result, you often see inventive instrumentation adaptations, such as
a saxophone trio and a cello playing a piece written for saxophone quartet; or, my personal favourite, two bassoons and a cello playing an arrangement of Dave Brubeck’s Take Five . These peculiar ensembles can be really special if they work (and how often do they do that?). However, you want to avoid the ensemble simply sounding as if half of the musicians have not turned up. Therefore, finding a piece for House Instrumental is always the hardest part; somehow every year boys seem to make it work and, for that, credit must be given to all of them. House Music is by far my favourite competition of the year. There is no other competition like it. It is so varied, and it is the only event that includes pupils aged eleven to 18. It also encourages a real sense of patriotism towards the houses. Running House Music for Marlowe has been an honour; winning it, an absolute honour. I hope boys in the future look back at these pearls of wisdom as a recipe for success in this esteemed competition, and also, I hope this can provide evidence that Marlowe (musically, at least) is the best house!
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