4BR has teamed up with Steven Mead to pioneer a new ‘Judging Criteria’ experiment through our coverage of the 158th British Open Championships at Symphony Hall on Saturday.
Video
Watch Steven talk about the experiment:
Advocate
Steven has long been an advocate of implementing a criteria based adjudication process at contests, and with the opportunity to download both the marking sheets and explanatory notes, it is hoped many other listeners at Symphony Hall will take the opportunity to try the new system for themselves.
Industry standard
Steven told 4BR: "This is the first opportunity to try out what I hope will become an 'industry standard' approach to brass band adjudication. Everyone who goes to band contests has an opinion on performances they listen to, and whilst this particular system may not be by any means the finished article, it can be seen as a useful first step in establishing such a system."
This is a forward looking, innovative approach that deserves scrutiny as well as understanding from everyone in the banding movement4BR
Fully supportive
4BR owners Anthony Banwell and Iwan Fox are also fully supportive of the system and are looking forward to using it as part of 4BR’s live coverage of the contest.
"We believe that Steven is providing real food for though here," Iwan said. "This is a forward looking, innovative approach that deserves scrutiny as well as understanding from everyone in the banding movement."
Aspects of performance
This system has been devised to allow an adjudicator to precisely reflect the aspects of a performance they have just listened to, with 10 categories, each scoring 1-20 points.
Both Steven and 4BR hope that the experiment will also encourage more bandsmen and women, as well as loyal supporters of the contest, to stay in the auditorium and listen to more of the competing bands.
Vibrant interaction
"We want to try and bring a much more vibrant interaction between performers and audiences at contests. Hopefully this approach will do just that as well as getting more people to listen to the performing bands," Iwan added.
Comparison
And to make the process even more interesting Steven and Iwan will try to enhance the comparison between the 'new' and the 'traditional' methods of informed contest day opinion making.
4BR’s live coverage will include Iwan’s own comments, observations and overall impressions on each performance, whilst immediately following them will come the breakdown of Steven’s deliberations on all 17 bands.
Discussion
After the contest 4BR will be taking the opportunity to discuss the 'results' on a post British Open podcast.
Download
To download Steven’s Judging Criteria mark sheets and explanatory notes, go to:
http://www.euphonium.net/home.php?newsID=206
For more information go to:
