By John Gardner
There are surprises every year at Solo/Ensemble contest. I would spend the day encouraging, listening, supporting, congratulating, and consoling. Without question, the experience students gain from participation is strong.
Life is not always fair, and neither are judges. A high school principal once commented to me after a disappointing marching band result that…
“They should judge these things the way we do basketball; points happen when the ball goes through the basket.”
At the end of the day of a Solo/Ensemble festival a few years ago, when two directors were complaining to the site official about the same particular judge, the official response was that…
“…that score represents a personal, professional opinion. That is what we hire them to do.”
There are problematic (for me to justify) judges in solo/ensemble festivals:
- The college professor who refuses to consider that these are high school performers. No one is asking or expecting you to lower your standards, but the students you are evaluating are NOT 3rd year music performance majors. Tell them how to get there without crushing any possibility that they will ever participate again.
- The inconsistent judge. Twice I have experienced solo festivals; once at district and another time at state, where the judge gave zero Gold (top) ratings in the morning and then almost 100% top ratings in the afternoon. I suspect the judge table talk at lunch included others telling this particular judge that “you can’t do that”.
- The judge who must leave room in scoring for a better individual/ensemble to come later. This happens in all types of contests, but when the first of a difficulty-level performs, or when the first of a class marching band, etc., the scoring almost always starts lower and creeps up. It is not supposed to be that way.
- The judge who writes non-helpful comments. When you are in a state with a two-tiered festival; i.e. District and State, the comments by the District judge are invaluable in preparing for State. But when the judge comments are things like…..
“fine”
“good”
“excellent”
…. without any reference to where in the music, what good is that?
Teachers shouldn’t establish that students can always blame a difficult performance or resulting score on the judge, so that is not what this post is about. Rather, to share the positives from participation and performance.
YOU are an achiever.
I often talk with students about “adding lines to their resume”. Here are some that could be added after participation in a solo festival event:
Participated in solo contest [x] years
Participated in solo contest [x] years, received [yz] ratings
Participated in solo contest [x] years, received [yz] ratings, went to state
Those who didn’t participate didn’t get nervous, didn’t miss a note, didn’t have to deal with criticism and didn’t improve.
Life is not about stroking your self-esteem. Only in public education is one of the top priorities to make the student feel good about him/herself and about what he is doing. Only after graduation, as those feel-good students are trying to get into top universities or top companies does the reality set in that employers are much less inclined to care about how you feel as they are about how you perform. Sometimes the results at solo contest are disappointing. You stand up there for 5 minutes and have an adult focus on your mistakes, although hopefully they are also giving advice on how to improve.
Practice may not make perfect, but it certainly can improve the score. Unless you played a solo that was way too easy, you experienced the benefit of taking on a challenge and learning how to master it. Hopefully you mastered it.
Participation improves student musicianship. The judge is an expert in the field and usually on the instrument. Most of them put good effort into providing positive feedback, not only on what you performed but on the mechanics of playing. You should read and heed what they say. Most of your improvement, however, comes before the event, in the practice and preparation you put into performance…. and then, the performance itself.
Music performance is a skill you will need if you continue in music. Even Music Education majors must perform in college — A LOT. Depending on where you go, you may be performing weekly in studio classes, 2-3 times a semester in student recitals, and in front of a “jury” at the end of the semester.
Music performance helps develop skills for your professional career. If you are in the corporate world, you will likely have to make presentations in front of groups of people. Perhaps public speaking. You will get critiqued, but then by customers making purchasing decisions or bosses making payroll and advancement decisions.
Other than the temporary stress of the performance and pending ‘judgment’, I know of zero negatives to the concept of solo festival participation.
GO PLAY!
LEARN FROM IT!
GET BETTER!
