Melinda: Thanks for the help and advice. I knew that the Brits had different instruments in their "local" bands, primarily limited to brass & drums, and some of them in different keys than the ones we have in US bands. So, with some of their music we either (1) might not have the correct instruments to play it and/or (2) our woodwinds (half the band) would revolt because they got left out!

A friend in Zurich sent me a chart for the Russian folk song "Vichernjia Zvon" (Evening Bells), a beautiful piece of music that I have always loved. Their Swiss bands are seemingly more like ours, so it had parts for all the instruments in our band except flutes and saxes. Just an aberration he said, as they have both instruments in his band, so, maybe Continental bands actually are more like ours.

Maybe if your director friend knows of some good folk tunes that CBBLIB has in their collection, that would be nice info for me to get. I could look through their search mode forever and never come up with those folk songs, as I might never think to enter their names in the search function. I wish they had either a alphabetical catalogue that I could print out, or at least a browse function, so I could read down through their list and serendipitously find folk songs that might otherwise have never entered my mind.

But, then, sometimes us billhillies have far fetched ideas!

Eu