If there is anything the Bermuda Regiment has taught Bermudian Paul Smith, it is how to blow his own horn.

L/Cpl Smith, 22, is a Bermuda Regiment band tuba player who was recently sent to England to study his instrument at Kneller Hall, Royal Military School of Music, outside of London.

The Royal Gazette spoke with L/Cpl Smith last week shortly after his completion of the year-long course.

“It was pretty fun sometimes,” he said. “It was stressful when it came close to the end of each term. People were taking what was called a trade test. If they pass the trade test that means they can go into a band.”

He was taking what is known as Phase 2 Training Camp. Two courses were offered, ‘The Foundations Course’ and the ‘Band Masters Training Course’. He took the first course.

When British soldiers decide to join the Corps of Army Music they go through 12 months of training so that they can come up to a standard where they can go up to a field army band.

“The most stressful time was the summer concert season,” said L/Cpl Smith. “So there was six concerts in total, and a total of four bands. It was pretty much two and a half days straight of rehearsals and then a concert on the third night.”

L/Cpl Smith said he never took a trade test, because he didn’t know that he could. But he thinks if he had taken it, it would have gone okay.

“I struggled in the first part of the year because my professor told me he would treat me as a beginner because I only had a range of a seventh of good notes,” he said. “So it took a lot of struggle with them. Also, with my sound I wasn’t sounding like the other tuba players in the British army.”

But after awhile the intense study and practise started to pay off, and he improved dramatically.

“It took me until the middle of the summer term,” he said. “I took a break and went up to Scotland for a long weekend. Then I came back. I picked up my tuba and started playing and I thought, ‘wow, that can’t be me’.”

L/Cpl Smith had the honour of being taught by Patrick Harrild, the principal tuba player in the London Symphony Orchestra.

“They are the orchestra that John Williams uses,” said L/Cpl Smith. “He writes scores for films like ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Star Wars’. Anything you have heard from those movies is the London Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Harrild has taught about 95 percent of the tuba players in the United Kingdom.”

At the end of the course, Mr. Harrild told L/Cpl Smith that he had a working range of the three octaves, had a great sound and had learned how to practise.

“It took awhile to get used to that (the amount of practise required),” he said. “I do know how to get things done now. He said I have come a long way and now all I have to do is come home and work.”

L/Cpl Smith first joined the Bermuda Regiment band in 2001 at the age of 17. He took lessons from then Director of Music Major Barrett Dill.

“He said whenever you are ready come up sit in the band and play,” said L/Cpl Smith. “Then I played for a couple of months from September to December and then in January of 2001 was when I started with the Bermuda Regiment band. “I started on coronet, and about a year later one of my sergeant majors turned around and said ‘you look like a tuba player’. I was a bit reluctant, and then he coaxed the Director of Music to agree with him. The next practice I was on the tuba and then a couple of months later I was feeling a bit better about it and now I am comfortable with it.”

He said one of the challenges of playing the tuba over other instruments is the large amount of air that has to be put into the instrument.

“Because it is a big instrument people think you can’t play fast stuff on it,” he said.

L/Cpl Smith said he has been interested in music all his life, and began in music by singing in the church choir at the Marsden First United Methodist Church.

“I sang in church, and sang in the CedarBridge choir,” he said. “I played trumpet with Whitney when I was there. Then I joined the Bermuda Regiment band and that was that.

“I come from a musical area. I sang in my church choir with a couple of the Talbot Brothers. I didn’t even know who they were at first. I got to sing with guys like that.

“It was just a fun thing. In church we messed around a lot with music. We just got up and played for different events at church. We always sang all over the Island. It wasn’t too much in pushing me to go into music, but I decided to go that way.”

Now that L/Cpl Smith is back in Bermuda again, his first plan is to get back into sync with the Bermuda Regiment band. “I need to get a feel for some of the new players,” he said. “I have been away for a year and there are a couple of new players. At the moment we are talking amongst ourselves about recruiting for the band. We have lost a lot of numbers and we need to regain our numbers.”

He said that bandmaster is a position he might like to aim for, and there are rumours that he might be a choice for the future. For now, though, he is focusing on trying to get into a music school in the UK within the next two years.

“I want to come back and teach,” he said. “Whatever happens after that, that is what happens. There are other people who would like to have the job of bandmaster as well. Hopefully, when the director makes his choice he makes the right choice, whatever that may be.”

He would like to teach at one of his old schools, CedarBridge Academy, Whitney Institute or Harrington Sound Primary. But he is also interested in the steel pans, and if he taught that, he would teach an older age group.

“Having gone to Kneller Hall makes it easier for me to prepare for music school auditions,” he said. “My professor was also the professor at The Royal Academy of Music, among other places.

“He said as long as I continued as I have been going along, and get up to Grade A Standard, I should be alright,” he said. “I will probably go for a diploma and then audition. Competition is fierce to get into these colleges. There are other schools, but if I can try and go for the best, I will.”