1.    HuMP musicians shall be psychic

HuMP musicians need to develop the carefully honed skill  of psychic awareness to be able to accompany the dancers.  You've no doubt heard of predictive text...but have you ever heard of PREDICTIVE PLAYING?!  If you haven't and you want to be in the band with us, you'll need to get some serious practice in before you come along to our Beginners' Workshops in September.  What I suggest is that you sit and listen to your favourite musical radio station for a few days, all the time playing 'predict the next tune'.  Once you've managed to successfully guess the next tune about to be played on the radio, you are qualified!  You can then, with confidence, start playing the correct HuMP tune to the dance for which the dancers have formed up without there even being the need to be told what it is!! 

2.   HuMP musicians must be able to multi-task

As a musician with HuMP, you have to be able to: do the crossword, play dominoes, discuss the national news (or underwear) and eat chocolates in between bars (musical bars, not the other type) without it affecting the rhythm of your music.  If you can do this, you're IN!

3.  HuMP musicians shall stick to the unofficial 'union' rules

Not that morris dancers are drinkers or anything or indeed Trades Unionists but the Hurst band likes to get to the local pub promptly at the end of practice.  Fair's fair.  Anyhow, this means at 10.00pm sharp!  The rule is that regardless of whether the Squire and dancers have just started practising a dance at just 3 minutes to 10, the musicians shall finish the piece they're playing at 10pm on the dot!  This causes great hilarity amongst the musicians as they watch the dancers puffing and panting as they career in to each other at speed, whack each others' fingers with hurried waving of sticks, and trip over their feet.  Well, whilst we like the music, there's only so many times you can repeat the same phrase without resorting to general anarchy.  What do you reckon?

3.    HuMP musicians shall all have injuries when asked to play the most difficult or the least  interesting pieces

Funny thing this, but it's an unfortunate freak of nature that the fiddle players' finger-ends split, the drummer's drumstick end falls off, the melodeon player's buttons stick and the recorder player's asthma all set in when certain pieces of music are asked for by the Squire.  Coincidental or what?!

4.    HuMP musicians shall have a good sense of humour and be prepared to mess around

Well, I expect you've gathered this by now!  We all have a great time playing together and can't wait to get into some session music as soon as we finish rehearsing/dancing out.  Don't get me wrong; we play some lovely Morris tunes but we can also rip into some great session medleys too.  Basically, if you like folk music, I guarantee you'll enjoy being with or listening to the Hurst Morris People band.

5.    HuMP musicians shall play some of the best ensemble music played on the local Morris scene

 If you keep an eye on this site for a few weeks longer, I'll hopefully have managed to upload a recording of some of our tunes, so you can get an idea of what we sound like.  Hope you like it!  Back to Musicians