About Tricia and Trona

About us
Trona and Tricia	Patricia Melville-Mason Even as a child, Tricia seems to have been compelled to encourage others to make music. Together with two school friends, she persuaded fellow pupils to learn the recorder, supervised their practising in what was supposed to be playtime, and entered them as a group for competitions! Tricia has a wealth of general musical experience, having participated in orchestras for ballet, grand opera, G&S, musicals - also military and concert bands and a wide variety of chamber music. In the 1960s, she played for the Edinburgh Wind Ensemble, which performed works by the great composers before most of these were available in either recorded or printed form. She was also a founder member of the Edinburgh Symphony Orchestra.
Catriona Melville-Mason Trona currently teaches woodwind at Ardvreck School and to private pupils of all ages in Crieff and West Lothian. As a performer, she has played for an eclectic mix of events and venues, including Edinburgh’s Hogmanay, Easdale Island Oktoberfest, Gleneagles Hotel, Butlins Holiday Camp, RAF Kinloss, St Giles Cathedral, an Austrian chairlift, etc etc… She began arranging music to cover situations where no appropriate published copies were available. Trona has a particular interest in creating repertoire that allows small mixed-ability ensembles to enjoy making music together. Her arrangements have been publicly performed by various school and family groups and are used regularly in educational contexts. Trona did not set out to pursue music as a career but, through a combination of circumstance and popular request, ended up doing so. She has accumulated some relevant qualifications along the way, as funds and other commitments permitted, making her particularly aware of the time management and motivation issues that affect the adult learner.
	Tricia has been teaching the clarinet for nearly fifty years. Initially, she studied music for pleasure and turned down an offer to attend the Royal Scottish Academy of Music on a full-time basis. However, she was constantly being asked to teach woodwind so she developed her familiarity with the bassoon, saxophone and flute and added an honours degree in educational psychology and music to her existing qualifications. Together, Tricia and Trona established the easy-listening background music ensemble, the Faucheldean Wind Trio, and the novelty group, The Growlers. In each case, there was virtually no suitable music, so it was necessary to create appealing arrangements before inviting a flautist or contrabassoon player to join them and begin accepting engagements. On the whole, Trona deals with most of the music, although Tricia also enjoys the challenge of arranging items which should achieve an effective performance from Blow & Blast participants. Between them, Tricia and Trona have a reliable working knowledge of all the orchestral woodwind instruments. This, along with their teaching experience, means that they fully understand the problems that face learners at different stages of their musical development.

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