What’s in a name?

So when a group of musicians get together and decide to form a group/ensemble/band/quartet, one of the first things that they discuss is "what shall we call ourselves?". Never mind "what are we going to play?" or "will we sound good together?", this first question is usually deemed the clincher as to whether the band will be deemed successful or not, but only by the musicians themselves.

All advice and research on the web tells you to put aside this question and just focus on getting all the other elements right as a group. The music, the musicianship, the communication and the vital first couple of rehearsals. However it is very difficult to look past the fact that you haven't got an identity and there is a need, a wanting to correct that.

Before any of our bows touched a string, we got together as a group at the Woodman Inn , Thunderbridge to enjoy a great meal together and to get to know each other a bit better and to discuss "our name". The common denominator of the group was me, the Cellist. I play with Emily and Ruth in The Huddersfield Philharmonic and I work with Natalie at our local Music Service. It was a chance for Emily and Ruth to meet and get to know Natalie.

We came up with loads of names, some serious and some downright silly but we didn't settle on that one as we all had different ideas. We decided to wait until our first rehearsal, bring together all the ideas and then start to narrow it down to the chosen few before taking a vote.

We didn't, in the end, need to do any of that. On the day of the rehearsal, Emily came up with one suggestion which hadn't been mentioned before. It was so simple but classic and we all instantly agreed on it. Job done.

So The Fern Quartet is simply made up of the four first letters of each of our names - Fionnuala, Emily, Ruth and Natalie. Like I said, simple but classic!