Adjudication of Band Contests

[treblemaker]

I found this on my band's website and I thought it was interesting so I thought I would share. :]

 

 

About the Adjudication of Band Contests

Courtessy of George Yenetchi, Band Booster and retired Assistant Tuba Tutor, R.S. Sterling HS Band

 

It happens every year in October and November. Marching contest judge bashing gets into full swing. Online band newsgroups and forums are deluged with posts questioning the decisions of the judges of BOA, ISSMA, EMBA, USSBA, UIL, TOB, COB, DCI and every other marching contest sponsor. Many of the authors of these posts are in high dudgeon. A few even resort to language of the most impolite sort. They are not content merely to disagree. They impugn the judges' character and competency. If we were to believe these posts, then there isn't a decent panel of band contest judges to be found anywhere in America.

 

Imagine if these allegations were true. The implications boggle the brain. Oh, immitigable woe! How would we have come to a state where the finest music colleges all across America were turning out a steady stream of band directors who, when because of their success, they are considered by their peers to be fit to be judges, become biased, venial, stupid, or worse? By what misbegotten plan would the moral fabric of America have been so rent that even band was riddled by incompetence and corruption?

 

But sink not into despair. These complaints are mere teenage trumpery. They are 99.99 % nothing but adolescent asininity. A quick review of writings on adolescence by eminent thinkers from Socrates to the present reveals that adolescents have always been prone to rash judgments. Their opinions are more the result of hormone-distorted emotions than of sound reasoning. That is why they do not let 14-year-olds serve on juries. It is perhaps best not to pay too much attention to such utterances. Given time, the kids will grow up.

 

And

[b_sax_agent]

I don't care what place we get most of the time.

 

 

If the experience was amazing and we got last, it was worth the experience.

 

If the experience was terrible and we got first, who cares?

[takigan]

Where was this published (or was it even published)? I couldn't read the entire article.....I lost interest. I honestly can't figure out what kind of person cares enough about something so trivial to write a huge article about it complete with overly flashy language and presumptuous speculation.

 

A critic criticizing critics....what a crybaby .

[treblemaker]

Yeah the beginning is a bit wordy but the rest of it isn't really but I see your point about the critic criticizing critics. :]

[Xenon]

Wow. There is a lot of really good and sometimes misguided information/opinions in this article that mostly redeems itself in the last half. The problem is all of the rhetoric in the first half that clouds the rest of the article. I read the whole thing and was thoroughly impressed by the fact that the writer both had a very strong understanding of the math ideas behind contest scoring/ranking (something that I am normally the only person to ever bring up!) and was able to just completely disregard/underrepresent some problems which have a completely valid basis.

 

Talking about problems with things is not necessarily whining or "mere teenage trumpery". Discussion is a necessary means to get any problem fixed. If we were just to take everything as given to us, we would still be in the days of having uniform checks (judges with tape measures and magnifying glasses making sure everybody's uniforms fit perfectly) as a part of a band's contest score.

 

Now, he does have a valid complaint in that A LOT of internet talk is uninformed/ignorant/biased whining but he seems to be throwing the baby out with the bath water.

 

I don't have the time right now to respond to this with the fine-toothed comb that it deserves, but I will try to do that tonight.

[the terminator]

for me, I have complete trust in the judges, I might not like it, but the have more experience and insight than I will ever have. And in the end, it's usually a very fair representation of the actual event.

[Xenon]

  Quote

It happens every year in October and November. Marching contest judge bashing gets into full swing. Online band newsgroups and forums are deluged with posts questioning the decisions of the judges of BOA, ISSMA, EMBA, USSBA, UIL, TOB, COB, DCI and every other marching contest sponsor. Many of the authors of these posts are in high dudgeon. A few even resort to language of the most impolite sort. They are not content merely to disagree. They impugn the judges' character and competency. If we were to believe these posts, then there isn't a decent panel of band contest judges to be found anywhere in America.

Yes, there is often a lot of complaining, especially on other boards and especially youtube. Yes, there are posts about how some judges may be incompetent. We try to make this board a nicer and more intelligent place than others, and hopefully most posts here on such subjects are backed up with solid reasons, not just incomplete feelings.

 

  Quote

Imagine if these allegations were true. The implications boggle the brain. Oh, immitigable woe! How would we have come to a state where the finest music colleges all across America were turning out a steady stream of band directors who, when because of their success, they are considered by their peers to be fit to be judges, become biased, venial, stupid, or worse? By what misbegotten plan would the moral fabric of America have been so rent that even band was riddled by incompetence and corruption?

People aren't perfect and Band Directors are people just like all the rest of us. Sometimes judges have bad days, bad hours, aren't used to a particular judging system, have preferences, etc that may affect how they score a band. Just because you are in a position of authority doesn't mean that you are perfect.

 

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But sink not into despair. These complaints are mere teenage trumpery. They are 99.99 % nothing but adolescent asininity. A quick review of writings on adolescence by eminent thinkers from Socrates to the present reveals that adolescents have always been prone to rash judgments. Their opinions are more the result of hormone-distorted emotions than of sound reasoning. That is why they do not let 14-year-olds serve on juries. It is perhaps best not to pay too much attention to such utterances. Given time, the kids will grow up.

Again, many forums and especially youtube have nothing but stupid crap on them, but that doesn't mean that you have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are intelligent posts that complain about things as well!

 

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There lurks a nagging suspicion. These judge-bashing band members may not be expressing their own original ideas but rather those they have picked-up from adults. Not just any adults but perhaps even from their parents. And their parents are band parents. That is a disquieting thought. The mind yearns to reject it out of hand.

 

Honesty compels the reluctant admission that, perhaps, a few band parents are judge bashers. OK, it is not just a few, it is more than a few, maybe even quite a few. However many it is, it is too many. A "Kill the Umpire" mindset may be tolerated in athletics, but not in band, never in band. Band is the last great hope of humanity. (That may be a bit of an exaggeration but band is at least sort of important.)

Bad parenting is a general problem in society, not just in band. Band is a great thing that builds character, but it isn't perfect and doesn't produce perfect people.

 

 

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As stated above, some marching show spectators (especially band members and their parents) find that they sometimes disagree with marching contest judges' decisions. That is OK.

Absolutely

 

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They sometimes attribute this to incompetence or venality on the part of the judges. That is not OK.

Generally, yes, but I don't like absolutes. There are some times when judge problems are demonstrably apparent. This may just be non-familiarity or non-agreement with the judging system being used, but those are valid complaints.

 

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It is not true for a one thing. You may run across a less than ideally astute judge, but only very rarely. Contest organizers seek out the best judges available. Use of multiple judges (3 to 8) helps insure that one bad judge does not skew contest results. Venality in judges is even rarer. Judges are honorable. If they weren't honorable they could certainly find a better way to exploit being dishonorable than judging marching contests. Politics comes to mind. There is a good reason why the great criminal masterminds have never paid any attention to band. There is not much money in it. By the time bands get to contest, band parents' bank accounts are too depleted to fund attractively large bribes.

Again, generally true, but that doesn't always mean that when a problem does occur that it shouldn't be pointed out.

 

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Think about what is involved in judging a marching contest. Making judgments in artistic matters involves every known shade of gray plus a few shades whose existence science has only inferred. Many great musicians scoff at the very idea of musical contests. In athletics, things are obvious. Either the high jumpers clear the bar or they don't. A four-year-old could competently judge a high jumping contest. In the arts, what is good is always a matter of opinion. That's why there are 50 different recordings of Beethoven's 9th Symphony on the market. As a great philosopher once wrote, "1+1=2 is fact, almost everything else is opinion."

 

There are many reasons you might be in honest disagreement with good judges.

Absolutely, you will never get absolute agreement between two judges and especially among non-judges. But, that doesn't mean that all opinions are correct. When one judge says that a band is the best band that he has ever heard and another judge says that the same band was the worst at the competition (I witnessed this recently), there is something seriously wrong.

 

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Judges look for performance excellence not entertainment value.

 

Judges look at how well a show is performed. They pay little attention to how entertaining it is. A skilled performance of a dull show will score better than a mediocre performance of an interesting show. (Of course, the ideal is a great performance of a great show.) Audience members are impressed by entertainment value, as well they should be. They should not compare their opinion of a show, which was based on how well they were entertained, with the opinion of judges who were evaluating how well specific skills were demonstrated.

Absolutely, although some circuits do include entertainment value and/or audience reaction.

[Xenon]

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Contest guidelines require that bands demonstrate certain specific skills in performance.

 

For example, guidelines often require that bands demonstrate both loud and soft playing (BOA guidelines specify "all dynamic levels"). A band that only plays loudly, no matter how well they do it, will lose points. A loud thrilling show that brings the audience to its feet cheering and clapping may therefore score poorly. Another area that often lowers the scores of bands that look and sound very good is woodwinds. Increasingly, judging guidelines want the woodwinds to get equal time with the brass and the percussion. The days when clarinets could be seen and not heard are past.

Great point that a lot of parents may not understand.

 

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Judges pay very little attention to size, uniforms, etc.

 

Just like an elephant, a 400 piece band is impressive just by being there. However, judges give no points just for being there. At most contests, judges ignore who has the nicest uniforms, the prettiest flags or the best props. It is hard when you have just spent $80,000 on uniforms and the band parents have worked for 4 weeks making props to realize that the judges are more worried about how your band's feet look.

For the most part this is true, but BOA does have the General Effect caption and a GE judge that has commented (as a judge) that the flags needed more lavender color. Also, at another contest, I have seen on the colorguard judge's sheets that sequins does not go with Shostakovich.

 

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Judges can only judge the one performance they see.

 

Judges do not know how hard the kids have worked. They don't know that the soloist got sick. They don't know that the band performed the show better last week. They don't know what special adversity your band overcame. If they knew, they might be even more impressed than you are. But they don't know.

Mostly true, but you may get a judge that saw you the previous week or has already seen you twice this season (4 times with prelims and finals), although it would probably balance out anyways.

 

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Judges detect small mistakes.

 

Judges have the training and experience to detect tiny problems with intonation, tone quality, balance, ensemble, etc. These subtleties aren't even noticed by normal people. These small differences separate the very very good from the merely very good. Just because these differences are tiny does not mean that they are not real.

Something that every parent should know. Judges are judges because they know what they are looking for even if you don't.

 

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Contests that give rankings usually use forced rankings.

 

There are no ties. If 10 bands compete and earn almost identical scores, the judges will still rank them from 1 to 10. Usually the judges aren't directly involved in the ranking. They just give each band a set of scores. A computer figures out the ranking, breaking any ties by using criteria that the judges may not even know. One band must be 1st and one band must be 10th. It has to be this way. First place trophies are expensive and they only had money to buy one of them. This does not always mean that the 10th place band was a lot worse than the 1st place band. Rankings in "Consumer Reports" are always qualified by a statement like, "Differences in rankings of 5 places are not significant.". Marching contest results could truthfully carry similar advisories.

By time you get up to the State level (or Regional Finals or BOA GN Finals), yes bands are getting extremely close in performance levels. So close as to make it really hard for a non-trained person to tell any difference at all other than by preference. But that doesn't mean that there isn't a significant difference. If the judges are able to mostly agree on who the top 2-3 bands are and then mostly agree on who the next 2-3 bands are, there was a significant enough difference as to be discernable, but yeah for the lay bandparent, they might as well be the same.

 

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All artistic judgments are subject to subjectivity.

 

Even the best judges do not always agree. One judge may be more concerned with intonation while another will care more about ensemble. These are not evil biases. These are legitimate artistic differences. At some contests, you get judges who tend to pay less attention to the particular weak points of your band and at other contests you don't.

This is where judge training is supposed to come into play. Judges are supposed to judge based on the judging system and the ideals held by that system, not by their own preferences and ideals.

 

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Red Rubber Ball Stuff.

Again, bands are getting better and the differences are getting smaller, but the differences are still there.

 

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There is no perfect way to combine judges' scores and rankings. Every method is a compromise. This brings us to-

 

Fun with Band Math!

I am really impressed that somebody besides me brought this stuff up, especially the part about judge weighting and the fact that in a non-ranked scoring system a judge can give himself greater weight than the others by using a larger spread.

[Xenon]

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[Example Stats]

 

So, 1st place is going to go to a band that ALL the judges agreed belonged in 2nd place. The band that 2 out of 3 judges thought was the best will only get 2nd place.

There are already methods in place to deal with this. The "bad judge rule" basically says that since the majority of the judges in this case thought that BandX deserved 1st place, that band shall be 1st place. (in UIL 2/3 Music judges and 1/2 Marching judges have to have you in 1st, or making Finals, or advancing to State, etc)

 

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Judges prefer classical music. This is a popular complaint with people whose bands don't play classical music. It probably results from the fact that most classical (i.e. serious) music is more technically difficult than most popular music. A band which does a good job performing "The Rite of Spring" has done a more difficult thing than a band that does a good job performing "The Sound of Music". It is still OK to prefer "The Sound of Music" but recognize that it can't showcase as wide a range of musical skills as some other music.

Another great point that lay bandparents don't often understand.

 

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Judges are influenced by a good band's reputation. A popular complaint with people whose bands are new to a particular contest. Perhaps some judges are so influenced but this is as likely to cut one way as another. The judges may (perhaps even unconsciously) expect more from good bands and judge them harder. It is just not practical to prevent judges from knowing the identity of the bands they are judging in a marching contest.

Absolutely, reputation cuts both ways. But this gets back to the fact that reputation can matter to a judge, and when it becomes obvious that it may have been an actual issue, it should be pointed out not completely ignored as if it wasn't there.

 

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The (insert name of any band that outranked your band at contest) Band violated practice time rules. This charge, when not completely unfounded, is usually the result of misinformation. The practice schedule for both a non-varsity and varsity band may have been mistaken as being that of the varsity band only. What appears to be an early start to practice may only be a legal basic-skills training period scheduled very late in the summer. The seemingly improper practice may be for a parade or other appearance for which additional practice time is permitted. Significant practice time violations are unlikely because so many people are involved with a marching band. It is very hard to keep secrets. Someone is going to blab.

Most band schedules are published and there are enough nosy people out there that are looking for any reason to get somebody disqualified, so if there actually was somebody violating the rules then they would be called on it in an official way.

 

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Judge "Smith" was offended by us a few years ago and has it in for us. When not totally unfounded, it invariably turns outs that the judge just happens to have the same name as the mistreated person. There are many "Smiths" out there. The vast majority of contests take pains to minimize possible conflicts of interest.

I don't know that this specific example is the most likely case, but there is almost always some sort of misunderstanding that leads to a band parent/student having this kind of impression. And this also goes back to reputation with cutting both ways.

 

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The way they calculate the ranking is unfair. It may be meaningless from a rigorously mathematical point of view. It is not unfair, as long as it applies the same way to all the bands.

 

...

 

The judges' guidelines penalize our type of show. Entirely possible. If so you have many options. Do a show that is in-line with the guidelines. Try to get the guidelines changed. Go to a different contest where the guidelines favor the kind of show you do. And, the ever popular, sit around and complain about it while doing nothing. For maximum effect, BP'00's recommends doing the latter option with friends in a nice restaurant.

Everybody agreed to the rules up front when they signed up for the competition. If you don't like it, do something about it, find something else to attend, etc.

 

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The contest is too far away./The contest ran too late./The weather on contest day was terrible./ We feel your pain and hope you could at least afford comfortable buses.

Sometimes things just happen. That is life.

[JediSaxSolis]

I thought I was reading a dissertation at first.

[Danpod]

  Xenon said:

Most band schedules are published and there are enough nosy people out there that are looking for any reason to get somebody disqualified, so if there actually was somebody violating the rules then they would be called on it in an official way.

 

This reminds me of the day (Early to Late 90's) when a program would send "spies" to other program's rehearsals to make sure that the eight-hour rule was being followed right down to the last minute.

[TxRaider13]

I think everyone should re-visit this topic.

[takigan]

I've gotta admit I still didn't read the whole article, but I appreciate it more now than I did when it was first posted.