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Former band geek? No Strings Attached wants you

Do you miss your days as a high school band geek? Do you regret giving up your instrument as more pressing things happened in your life? Greater Sudbury's own community concert band, the No Strings Attached Community Band, can help you pick up that t
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The No Strings Attached Community Band is pictured here in 2014. The community concert band celebrates 15 years this season. Supplied photo.
Do you miss your days as a high school band geek? Do you regret giving up your instrument as more pressing things happened in your life?

Greater Sudbury's own community concert band, the No Strings Attached Community Band, can help you pick up that trumpet or clarinet again.

With some new band members, it might have been 20 or 30 years since they've last played their instrument. Helping people find their way back to music is incredibly rewarding, said the band's conductor and founder, Sandra McMillan.

More experienced players act as mentors to less experienced ones. It may take several months, but usually people are able to play like they did in high school once again.

“People often express kind of a shame of having given up an instrument,” she said.

“It hasn't been given up, it just had to be set aside for awhile because of other responsibilities. There's no reason to be embarrassed or feel bad, like you've missed some opportunity, because there's this opportunity to get it back.

“That's one of the main aspects of what we're about, is getting people back playing their instrument.”

The No Strings Attached Community Band started out in the early part of the new century as McMillan's thesis project when she was a fourth-year music student at Laurentian University.

But the band, which celebrates its 15th anniversary this year, has become much more than a fleeting academic endeavour.

McMillan said she's proud No Strings Attached is still around, and grateful for all those who have helped her over the years.

“I'm so proud it's gone from something that I started as an idea that came up on a dog walk to this organization that's established and still growing,” she said.

McMillan, who eventually became a high school music teacher, founded the group during the 2000-2001 school year after noticing a gap in the local musical landscape.

Before No Strings Attached, Sudbury had another community concert band, but it had been defunct for years. With her interest in teaching and conducting, McMillan decided the band would be the perfect thesis project.

Those first few years were far from easy. Initially, McMillan enlisted her Laurentian music classmates as members, but in the band's second year, she was left with just 12 members.

“We had lots of saxophones, no trumpets, no trombones, and we had a couple of flutes,” she said. “It was very out of whack.”

Over the years, that mix has sorted itself out, and the ensemble has increased in size. They're also playing more difficult music — about the same level as senior high school bands, or even beyond.

No Strings Attached performs a variety of music, including classical and popular pieces. Several concerts are held every year. The band also competes in the annual Northern Ontario Music Festival.

The band meets Thursday nights from 7-9 p.m. at Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School. The first rehearsal of the season is Sept. 17.

McMillan said she's always looking for new members, but especially needs those who play (or used to play) flutes, clarinets, trumpets or percussion.

The band accepts players as young as high school age, and adults as long as they've at least previously played instruments up to the senior high school level.

Learn more at www.nostringsattachedband.org, or contact McMillan at [email protected] or 705-523-5627.

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Heidi Ulrichsen

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