Q&A: Andy Grappy

AG: I started by learning the piano. One of my uncles was returning to the West Indies and couldn’t take his piano with him, so my parents decided I should learn. They all rolled the piano to our house (five doors away)! I practised religiously for five minutes before every lesson and made very little progress, but could read music. Later, in the UK, a new music teacher at my secondary school in the Midlands wanted to start a brass band – something I’d never really come across. My brother wanted to join it, and because I was asthmatic, my mum said ‘You have to go along, because blowing might help you’. I spent a year learning the baritone [horn], then moved on to euphonium and then Double B flat Bass [tuba], the biggest of the instruments – I had to sit on books in order to reach the leadpipe. Because I could already read music, I made quite rapid progress. I joined the Sandwell youth band and occasionally I would go to Midland Youth Jazz Orchestra (MYJO) rehearsals at Cannon Hill Park [in Birmingham], because I was interested in that and my dad really liked jazz. So I had experience of playing the tuba in different genres – brass band, jazz, big band, and the borough orchestra. A lot of the tuba players my age hadn’t had that breadth of experience.