Editorial ~ 2007: March

This month we gave our opinions on what do points make, reaching a regional tipping point, and playing to the box.

What do points make?

It was the Methuselah like television entertainer Bruce Forsyth who brought us the immortal catchphrase: "What do points make…? In turn, his audience, heady with excitement and misplaced optimism would reply - "Prizes!" It somehow nicely sums up the experience brass band audiences have to go through when it comes to the announcement of the results at competitions too.

Why we need to award points to decide who gets the prizes at contests remains something of an historical anomaly. As a prescriptive indicator of the subjective opinion of an adjudicator, it is both a crass and clumsy way in which to order performances in terms of merit. Are 1 point margins really an indication of the real difference between bands placed 15th and 16th in what is really an order of preference.

As one leading adjudicator told 4BR recently; Awarding points in helping to make a decision is useful in placing bands in order, but is of little relevance when it comes to actual announcement of the results. 

What is essential is that bands are placed in a coherent and accurate order of merit (something which has been done at the British Open now for a number of years). Adjudicators can explain the reasons behind their order to the audience at the conclusion of a contest. Nothing more is required – no one remembers how many points a band was awarded, but nearly everyone remembers where they came. 

The recent Action Research Youth contest highlighted this matter fully. The adjudicator had to work to a strict, narrowly focused and very prescribed set of criteria. In trying to show minor differences numericaly in each of these areas resulted in a grossly over emphasised points differential that had a disproportionate effect on the overall result. It was a bit of a disaster waiting to happen. 

So why not get rid of points altogether when announcing the results? It won't make any difference to the reasoning to whom gets the prizes (as long as the audience is told how and why the decision was reached) and we may even be able to rid ourselves of the equivalent of Bruce Forsyth from the banding world once and for all too.

What do you think?
Send an email to: comments@4barsrest.com

Reaching the brass band tipping point?

Much has been made by the so called ‘green lobby' that the earth is rapidly reaching its ‘tipping point' – a rather prosaic phrase to describe a point of no return for what they see as our eventual extinction as a species on this earth. If temperatures rise by just a few more degrees they say, then forget about having to book holidays in the Mediterranean in 2025, Barry Island beach will be like the Costa Del Sol.

It makes you wonder if our own movement is fast approaching its ‘tipping point' too – the very number of competing bands at the Regional Championships which will signal the point of no return as we head towards our own extinction as a cultural phenomenon. That number it seems is 500.

This year there are 514 bands entered for the eight regional contests – a massive drop from the post war years or course, but also a loss of exactly 100 bands in the last 20 years. The reasons for the inexorable decline all well documented (there were 642 bands on show as late as 1988); social and economic changes, the rise of television and computer entertainment, the decline of importance of music as a core subject in education – the list is almost endless.

It may seem that in the next couple of years the road to extinction looms fast, but just like the numbers aired by concerned environmentalists, the figures do not reveal the full story.

Yes, we are losing bands, but for the past few years the numbers have remained fairly static, whilst any cultural movement that can still boast over 500 competing organisations all taking part in a national contest over 3 weekends is still something to boast about.

Changes do need to be made: A possible reorganisation of regional boundaries, a review of gradings and a relaxation of registration rules to allow players to play for more than one band in different sections may all help stave off the time at which we eventually (and we will) dip below the mystical 500 band figure.

If changes are made and made soon though, that time could well be seen as the moment the brass band movement reinvented and revived itself rather than just sat back and waited for its toes to curl up and die.

What do you think?
Send an email to: comments@4barsrest.com

Playing to the box?

At the recent Norwegian National Championships, one adjudicator told 4BR that it was his opinion that the selection by some bands of own choice pieces was being made to try and ‘second guess' the musical preferences of the judges in the box, rather than deliver a performance of pure musical merit of a work that they thought may not have the same ‘intellectual' appeal.

The Norwegians are not by nature a cynical people (especially as musicians) but you had to agree with him that in the Elite Section in particular there was an emphasis on playing hugely ambitious works, not to show intrinsic musicality, but to make a statement of musical intent.

The forthcoming European Championships may highlight this growing trend too; with it is understood, at least three new and substantial works being premiered for the own choice section of the contest.

The romantic in us should welcome such additions to the repertoire, but the cynic tends to suggest that if they were of such musical importance why the need to have them all premiered at such a singular contest?

For all the musical considerations apart (and we are sure all three will contain more showcase hoops for the players to jump through than Billy Smart's circus), it rather seems to suggest that some conductors now have one eye firmly placed on the possible make up of the judges in the box with the belief that the only way to impress nowadays is to present something bigger, flashier and technically more spectacular than their rivals – the making of music it seems is staring to take a back seat.

If true (and we do say, if), it is a rather sad indictment of misplaced competitive thinking – and hopefully something that will be recognised in the box too. 

What do you think?
Send an email to: comments@4barsrest.com

^back to top