Over the years of playing brass instruments I have noticed many many players come and many go as well. They become like family because brass bands are extensions of your family. In fact it has been said that a brass band is a family. We all come together to create music together, to laugh with (and sometimes at) each other. We encourage each other to play better and give each other time to understand and play a passage in a tune which we thought was previously impossible to play. The old phrase "Practice makes perfect" I believe works to a certain extent up until the point when you try to play your part along with the rest of the band and then all it takes is for one player to start on the wrong beat and if you are not careful it can 'throw' your timing out as well. Watching the beat of the conductor is important but I believe equally important is the sometimes necessity to use other methods of keeping the beat and listening to other players come in on a certain part of the musical piece. Other methods of keeping the beat are to count inside your head or to lightly tap your foot on the floor (I don't use this method myself because it can be noisy and distracting when someone else does it and takes away from the reverence of a piece especially during a quiet, slow movement).
As I have said above, brass bands are like large family and the brass banding movement/organisation in general come together as a family. I have often said that there are two things that everyone around the world will immediately understand... love and music. You can take a musical instrument into the jungles of Borneo to tribes people and play it and they will be fascinated by it and will try to figure out how it works and where the sound is coming from.
You can take the man out of the music but you can't take the music out of the man :-)
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