Contesting
Hi,
I've been reading this thread with great interest on possibly two reasons. The first reason being that I am a brass band musician and play at quite a few contests and have strong opinions on the subject. The second reason why I'm finding this so interesting is that I'm writing a part of my thesis at the moment on Contests, the preparation, the influence on the players, conductors, the importance of identity and the contest itself. I have read all of your comments and trying to remain objective as I have to I find myself being torn down the middle of this debate. I have a few comments to make :-
(1) When people say that youth competitions are healthy I agree 100%, and more and more bands seemingly enter these various competitions. However, more and more bands enter the Music for Youth festival which gives distinctions and merits instead of 1,2 and 3 places.
(2) Contests inevitably form strong identities, for either player and follower. These identities show that band musicians care about who the play for and who they represent. However, a strong identity can also cause more and more fragmentation in the movement where (especially in the upper echelons of banding) bands are percieved to have fierce rivalries and don't talk to each other. This I think is on its way out due to the effect of more and more players meeting through various academia and forming friendships outside the often venomous atmoshpere of banding.
(3) I agree that most original music is written for contests and not for concerts. All of this has nothing to do with the contest but the perceptions of "what the audiences want" in concerts. I have recently been listening to more band concerts from the audience perspective and in these concerts bands have played contest pieces either for up-and-coming or previous contests. One of these bands was not a Championship or first section band, but a second section band and although the performance was not perfect I found it refreshing to hear. As for Championship section bands, I don't get to hear very many but I assume that many don't play test pieces and prefer playing "ear-candy" to their audiences and here I agree that top bands could do more for the promotion of test pieces in concerts.
(4) Composition and commission. Top bands, although to blame to a certain degree are commissioning more original music. I have listened recently to a CD of Cory playing compositions by David Bedford and John Pickard and I think the music is excellent, Fodens have had a composition/arranging competition as have Lindley. Composers such as Phillip Sparke and Kevin Norbury have written great "test piece-esque" for some of the top bands, I particualrly like Hymn of the Highlands.
(5) As for contests themselves. I have read books about possibly the nearest thing to band contests in other forms of music, in particualr a book by Averill Gage on Barbershop contesting in America. There are many parallels between the two genres, both have a heavy reliance on contesting although it has to be said that their competitons are own choise rather than set test piece. Calypso comeptitions in Trinidad are a mix of European influenced contests and Latin American, where banter between the steel bands not only happens after the contests but during the contest when they are on stage!
This is getting tedious but here's one final point:-
(6) With the variety of choice which is now available via different media would you as a member of the general public want to listen to a piece performed 20 times when you could sit at home and have the choice of switching the radio or TV on ? I think it's time that we had an European styled contest of "Own Choice" and set "Test piece", especially for the Nationals as they do in many countries around the world (which we either choose to ignore or think that our traditional contest is still the best!). Either that or find a way to get the audience more involved, i.e an audience favourite competition (..I hear the suspicious minds working here!) with a Ask the audience button or something like that. Orchestras are now informing their audiences about what the piece their playing is about, something that we have been doing for ages, but this shows that even the great big grey dinasour like that can change, SO CAN'T WE ?
Thanks for your patience,
(the views on here are representing my own opinions and not that of any band that I am associated)