sparkling_quavers
Active Member
Should competitions use open adjudication or should we keep the box?
Box or no box......
- Thread starter sparkling_quavers
- Start date
McEuphie
Member
box or not
Who would be more intimidated, the band or the adjuducator?
I have voted for keeping the box for 2 reasons:
1. I think it is less intimidating for younger players and the more nervous amongst us to think that the judge is just listening to us rather than staring us in the eye
(it also allows us to move the more technical stuff around the band, rather than having players panic and struggle - and I can hear you saying "but they'll never do it if they don't have a go" but what do you want - to take part or to win! Opinions welcome!!
2. The box should make it a more level playing field - you will still get bands who only ever play 1 test piece so could be recognised.
I played in one open adjudication contest where one of our bass players was a good friend of the judge and chatted to him before the contest started - and this in no way influenced his decision to give us the prize for best bass section! We also won best soloist (soprano) and section prize.
So keep on boxing!
Who would be more intimidated, the band or the adjuducator?
I have voted for keeping the box for 2 reasons:
1. I think it is less intimidating for younger players and the more nervous amongst us to think that the judge is just listening to us rather than staring us in the eye
(it also allows us to move the more technical stuff around the band, rather than having players panic and struggle - and I can hear you saying "but they'll never do it if they don't have a go" but what do you want - to take part or to win! Opinions welcome!!
2. The box should make it a more level playing field - you will still get bands who only ever play 1 test piece so could be recognised.
I played in one open adjudication contest where one of our bass players was a good friend of the judge and chatted to him before the contest started - and this in no way influenced his decision to give us the prize for best bass section! We also won best soloist (soprano) and section prize.
So keep on boxing!
sparkling_quavers
Active Member
Re: box or not
RE: Part swopping...I agree there is a place for this but there has to be a limit. Younger players should be encouraged to take part in contesting and if they can't cope with a few bars I think it is fine if this is given to someone else. But I have played in bands where certain positions are not even given a chance. Back-row cornets etc have parts taken off them during the 2nd/3rd rehearsal on a piece. That doesn't exactly give them a change does it?? It's all about making the best of what you have got but I don't see the point of having token players in the band. If you are not going to let them play anything then why have them sitting there?
also, it is not against the rules so why would it matter if the adjudicator saw it? We all know it goes on anyway!
Hmmm that is presuming the audjudicator doesn't know who the bands are when he is in the box anyway :shock: :shock:McEuphie said:
RE: Part swopping...I agree there is a place for this but there has to be a limit. Younger players should be encouraged to take part in contesting and if they can't cope with a few bars I think it is fine if this is given to someone else. But I have played in bands where certain positions are not even given a chance. Back-row cornets etc have parts taken off them during the 2nd/3rd rehearsal on a piece. That doesn't exactly give them a change does it?? It's all about making the best of what you have got but I don't see the point of having token players in the band. If you are not going to let them play anything then why have them sitting there?
also, it is not against the rules so why would it matter if the adjudicator saw it? We all know it goes on anyway!
BigHorn
Active Member
Now here's a thought. :idea: How about adjudication by machine. :shock:
Work colleagues and myself were trying unsuccessfully to identify a track on a collection of mp3's the other day when someone suggested ringing a phone number. We held the receiver near the speakers for about 10 seconds then a machine texted a message to us identifying the track.
If machines can do that over telephone wires and match 10 seconds of music to a database of thousands of songs, then surely it would be simple to judge a specific piece against a reference performance - or indeed one generated from the score. The box would be just that - a box of electonic trickery - totally unbiased and instant summing up. No waffle about the 2nd cornets being a little soft but an accurate '2nd cornet .327 decibels out at bar 53' 'Bb bass 6 hertz out of tune and came in .06 seconds late at bar 34.
Work colleagues and myself were trying unsuccessfully to identify a track on a collection of mp3's the other day when someone suggested ringing a phone number. We held the receiver near the speakers for about 10 seconds then a machine texted a message to us identifying the track.
If machines can do that over telephone wires and match 10 seconds of music to a database of thousands of songs, then surely it would be simple to judge a specific piece against a reference performance - or indeed one generated from the score. The box would be just that - a box of electonic trickery - totally unbiased and instant summing up. No waffle about the 2nd cornets being a little soft but an accurate '2nd cornet .327 decibels out at bar 53' 'Bb bass 6 hertz out of tune and came in .06 seconds late at bar 34.
I actually did my college thesis on something like what BH is saying.. a music database which queried via musical input rather than metadata such as composer, genre etc..
First point. It's hairy stuff...
Second.. It's going to be a lot easier to analyse a relatively simple common or garden mp3 track than a full 18+ part brass band score. Loads of reasons for this. Sheer complexity. Size, time.. An average test piece is 15 mins say. That's 900 secs. Based on my experience, given a sampling rate of 8Khz (very low) that generates an on the fly wave analysis file with almost 8million samples. In order to process this, an expensive computational transform must be performed on each set of samples, and then further computations performed on the resulting sample sets. All this drops the quality of an already existing sample. And this is only to try and identify a spectographic representation of the music.
Any analysis must then be performed on a sample which has probably lost much of the bass line (lies too low in the frequency scale) and is going to be quite complex.
Also, our ears are used to hearing certain sounds. We probably "tune out" the normal overtones which contribute to timbre, and hear a rich fundamental. A computer is going to pick up everything it can. Now, add 25 other sounds, each with their own overtones on top of a given sound, and you start to imagine the chaos that mathematically exists.
CD quality music has at least 8 times the sample rate above.. that's at least a 64 times increase in the time required, and the space required for initial analysis.
Techno-speak aside, isn't music all about creating emotion, not playing pitch perfect. To my knowledge, we're a way from music-appreciating computers just yet..
First point. It's hairy stuff...
Second.. It's going to be a lot easier to analyse a relatively simple common or garden mp3 track than a full 18+ part brass band score. Loads of reasons for this. Sheer complexity. Size, time.. An average test piece is 15 mins say. That's 900 secs. Based on my experience, given a sampling rate of 8Khz (very low) that generates an on the fly wave analysis file with almost 8million samples. In order to process this, an expensive computational transform must be performed on each set of samples, and then further computations performed on the resulting sample sets. All this drops the quality of an already existing sample. And this is only to try and identify a spectographic representation of the music.
Any analysis must then be performed on a sample which has probably lost much of the bass line (lies too low in the frequency scale) and is going to be quite complex.
Also, our ears are used to hearing certain sounds. We probably "tune out" the normal overtones which contribute to timbre, and hear a rich fundamental. A computer is going to pick up everything it can. Now, add 25 other sounds, each with their own overtones on top of a given sound, and you start to imagine the chaos that mathematically exists.
CD quality music has at least 8 times the sample rate above.. that's at least a 64 times increase in the time required, and the space required for initial analysis.
Techno-speak aside, isn't music all about creating emotion, not playing pitch perfect. To my knowledge, we're a way from music-appreciating computers just yet..
Fishsta
Active Member
Reminds me of that vinyl record scanning program...
The idea is that you scan in a vinyl record at high resolution, and the program can actually read the image and recreate an MP3 track from it...
Haven't tried it myself, but I believe it takes AGES to read the image.
Computers are getting faster and faster, sometime in the future, the "electronic adjudicator" WILL exist.
(I hereby copyright the terms "Adjuditron" and "Adjuditronic", as that will be how it's referred to... make cheques payable to me, etc etc...
)
The idea is that you scan in a vinyl record at high resolution, and the program can actually read the image and recreate an MP3 track from it...
Haven't tried it myself, but I believe it takes AGES to read the image.
Computers are getting faster and faster, sometime in the future, the "electronic adjudicator" WILL exist.
(I hereby copyright the terms "Adjuditron" and "Adjuditronic", as that will be how it's referred to... make cheques payable to me, etc etc...
)
Brian
Member
Re: box or not
Oh dear Sparkling quavers....In National Contests " It is against the Rules " some years ago one Area Committee checked every Bands set of parts, as they came off stage, and several bands had altered their parts...Thankfully they were disqualified..If you want to CHEAT, you should pay the price...What about the Bands that don't alter parts....All Bands have the same "Test Piece" and it should be a level playing field, if you can't play a part then you should expect to lose points..If you did it in a written exam and were seen you would be disqualified, so whats the difference...And yes I know it goes on, and by top bands as well..Try looking at Corys parts when they won the National Finals last time, maybe hence no recording....But it will still occur..Briansparkling_quavers said:
spookybiking
Member
The box
If theres more than one adjudicator they should be in seperate box (Cause im sure they are all in one box if theres more than one person)
If theres more than one adjudicator they should be in seperate box (Cause im sure they are all in one box if theres more than one person)
Roger Thorne
Active Member
Swopping Parts!
Swapping Parts!
If it's good enough for Black Dyke (and I've seen that first hand at the National Finals) and all the other top bands, it good enough for everyone!
If Bands didn't enter contests because certain players within the band couldn't play the odd bar, I bet there wouldn't be many bands on the contesting circuit.
Swapping Parts!
If it's good enough for Black Dyke (and I've seen that first hand at the National Finals) and all the other top bands, it good enough for everyone!
If Bands didn't enter contests because certain players within the band couldn't play the odd bar, I bet there wouldn't be many bands on the contesting circuit.
Brian
Member
Re: Swopping Parts!
If a composer wrote his music in the way that he did, and the Test Piece Selection Panel in their wisdom chose it..they both did that because thats what they wanted.If the front row players ( lets say ) can't manage their part, who do you give that to..et al around the Band...Because Black Dyke do it does not make it right, or any other Band..More Power to those brave enough to perform all their own parts.Roger Thorne said:
Roger Thorne
Active Member
Frisp wrote:
Continuing the theme on swapping parts there is a very interesting article in this weeks British Bandsmen by Tabby Clegg on this subject.
Well worth a read.
That's just a case of swapping the player!
Continuing the theme on swapping parts there is a very interesting article in this weeks British Bandsmen by Tabby Clegg on this subject.
Well worth a read.