After a brief introduction about my role in all this and also the role of all the members in ethics group from my previous post let me discuss a bit the document.
First of all, there is NO fine prints about taxes, and there never were. If it was for me though, I would be up for it, even if it had to be as high as 1%, and be able to retain it back the musician would have to invest something in music, be it lessons, new instrument or whatever related. I would also make a maximum limit of how much this percentage is used after which the normal percentages should apply to stop musicians and arrogant/stupid delegates forking out money which neither the Ministers have ever seen per hour. But that is me, and that is not in the document. So all of those who are frightened, angry, or have been manipulated that tax is going to be introduced, you can now sleep well at night.
The other issue I have been seeing is the band size. I have heard it all, but the document says two things about it. First, there are NO limitations on how many musicians it needs for a band playing during its feast. Example. In Ħamrun: The band clubs of Ħamrun, can still be made out of 100-200 musicians, with all the lack of balance, control or what so ever, nevertheless, there is no restriction. The restrictions ONLY apply when: A wind band is playing in another village’s feast or during the Good Friday processions (including those held on different days) & Easter. The restriction is this, and I am going to make a simple example.
super extra large wind band formation. still possible if it is done on the wind band's local feast
Let us take a wind band which has 30 registered home grown musicians (bandisti tal-post). As an average, 40% of these musicians attend each service the band has. Meaning that this band has to consider that 12 from their 30 musician will attend. Now, the document says that a wind band needs to be approx. 50 musicians, therefore the band needs to take 50 minus 12 which is equal to 38. This means that this band needs 38 foreign musicians to add to the band. Now if all the homegrown musicians attend then this band will have 68 musician playing. This is acceptable.
This rule, was designed, for two specific reasons. First of which to reduce the amount of losses for the wind band which has few local musicians, and secondly is to try and create a balanced wind band. A guideline of how the wind band should be set up was also given to the delegates to use and try to balance as much as they can. This will help in bringing back the real sound of a wind band and hopefully get back instruments which are being lost due the deformation being used.
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