The Defence Section of the British Embassy in Addis Ababa requested further assistance from HQ CAMUS in 2010. This year's team comprised of Capt Richard Watterson (DOM REME), WO1 Ian Mitchell (BM HC&C), and LSgt Matt McKay (IG Band).

A flight to Bole Airport at about 0700hrs on a bright and sunny Sunday morning; after an hour of laboriously slow bureaucracy we'd acquired entry visas, had our luggage checked and finally emerged from the airport.  In direct counterpoint to the wheels of progress inside the airport, the city of Addis moved at a frenetic place: young men herded goats along footpaths, masked women swept the streets, at junctions beggars called at every car, people sat outside dilapidated cafes shouting, "Hey, ferenji - how are you?!" (ferenji: foreigner in Amhirric), the homeless slept on paths, in doorways, and on the central reservations of the roads, dogs roamed in packs of six or seven, children wanted to clean your shoes for a meagre fee; everyone had a mission, everyone wanted to sell you something, or to provide you with some kind of service; it took some adjusting to - especially coming from rural North Yorkshire!

Our first stop was the British Embassy to meet with Col Bradford and CPO Day; the DA's briefing was informative and he confirmed our planned training perspective: we didn't want to turn the two bands into pseudo-British military bands, instead it was more appropriate to use British military music and standard western wind-playing techniques as vehicles for enhancing the performance of Ethiopian music; the ENDFB harbour an aspiration to perform at the Edinburgh Tattoo, and our thoughts were that their unique musical culture would receive a much warmer welcome than any effort to try and reproduce a traditional British military display. 

A Beating of Retreat style performance was planned for the final Thursday of the tour; our objectives having been settled we met with CPO Day who issued us with an Ethiopian mobile phone and our subsistence and sent us on our way to the ENDFB barracks to start work. 

At the barracks we were met by a group of officers headed by Col Kibram (DOM ENDFB), his 2IC, two Captains holding the appointments of teachers, and another Captain, the conductor.  The rank structure seemed a little odd: musicians were promoted dependant on how many years they had served, there were no Warrant Officers in the unit, and SNCOs regularly commissioned within the band as players.  This rank structure appeared to result in a lack of coordination and control of the band, and perhaps too much influence from within the players' fraternity.  

Having completed our initial meeting, the team was given a tour of the facilities by the Directorate of the band.  The music library was none-existent; each player seemed to have manuscript copies of most pieces, these well-thumbed hand-copied sheets contained many inaccuracies, and lacked dynamics and phrasing; the pieces seemed to have been copied out by people with very little musical literacy.

Over the next few days we established a routine of sectional rehearsals: Capt Watterson taking the trumpets, cornets and horns, myself taking the lower brass, and LSgt McKay taking the woodwind. Having the opportunity to break this 70-piece band down into sections allowed us to look closely at the quality of the instruments, and at technical abilities of the constituent players.  The quality of the hardware also varied wildly, some instruments were brand new, others seemed older than the actual players; notably, two ancient baritone saxophones were on parade one day, and the following day were replaced by two state of the art Yamaha instruments. 

On Friday of the first week we played mp3 performances of marches played by British bands to the ENDFB in a lecture theatre; we talked about many different aspects of the performances stressing dynamic variation and balance, articulation, phrasing and other stylistic traits; pertinent questions were asked and discussions included the respective sizes of British bands, tempo variations and style; the seminal moment came during the rehearsal which followed the discussion: the sound of the band had totally changed for the positive - the penny seemed to have dropped.  This was an excellent way to finish the first week: our first week's objective - ironing out fundamental issues associated with marching band – had been met.

Week three - was to culminate in a performance of the material required for Remembrance Sunday.  Training time was now at a premium and the ENDFB's senior management had been able to put all other commitments on hold and to allow for full days of dedicated musical training.

The conductor and the Drum Major attended a recce at the Embassy on the Monday of that week, and a successful dress rehearsal took place on the Wednesday afternoon.  The actual parade on the Thursday has been described as 'impressive', 'extremely successful', and 'a testament to the CAMUS Instructors' - very pleasing.  From our point of view, the Band felt nervous during the march-on, the ground was bumpy, and the environment was unfamiliar to the musicians; but like military musicians the world over, the uniform went on and their performance level was raised by 10% - our task had been completed with considerable success.

During the tour we managed four training sessions with the Band of the Federal Police Force; the environment these musicians worked in seemed to be much more disciplined than the ENDFB; the hierarchy was extremely keen to make as much as possible out of the time available. 

All in all, the Police band and the ENDFB progressed extremely well; after having completed our final parade on Thursday, the ENDFB thought they'd seen the last of us, however we paid them a surprise visit on the Friday morning: as we drove into camp the marching band was out on the square: the sound was reasonably balanced, they'd clearly tuned up, the dressing was good, and you got the feeling that you'd made a considerable difference - it was extremely rewarding.

Ian Mitchell
Warrant Officer Class One
Bandmaster (Retd)