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This Contesting Malarky!

Hello there fellow listees,

I also read with no small amount of interest the highly charged -
thought provoking - radical even revolutionary thoughts of Chairman Alec
with regard to abolishing brass band contests.  ;->  This is just the
kind of cross-list discussion that I hoped I would find on this mailing
list.  I have also read with great interest, (and amusement), some of
the responses that have been sent in - from the knee-jerk reactions of
our beloved bass player extraordinaire, (keep 'em coming Dave, I love
it), to the more reasoned arguments put forward by people far more
intellectual than what I am!  So - as I participated in my first band
contest in 1966, which we won, and am about to participate in my latest,
The Masters, with an awful lot in between that we didn't win, I am about
to throw in my two penn'orth for what it's worth.

Contesting in general is a tricky business to evaluate in terms of
success or failure.  Some respondees have said that contesting is
"subjective" - then another counters - "but not completely".  If we all
try to remember that above all else,  we are  musicians, we play music
off the page, on a musical instrument usually of our own choice in an
attempt to give a musical performance.  Surely this is our holy grail.
If we allow ourselves to be diverted from this cause in an attempt to
please an adjudicator, what we are doing is false and has no meaning.
I'm not advocating bad tuning or split notes etc., obviously we try to
practice them out, but surely a contest performance should be about
providing the bloke in the box with a performance where musical
interpretation, style, class and inspiration are paramount, (always
supposing that the bloke in the box can recognise these attributes in
the first place). In my mind, success or failure is not about whether we
win or lose, but whether we can walk off the contest platform and say to
ourselves, "Yep - I/we played well today".  If we are convinced that we
couldn't have done any better, then in a sense the effort was worthwhile
and we can say that we have won.  The cynical amongst us will of course
say there is only one winner - "Them what come first".  I remember
personally and as a band the angst and depression that came over us for
days, sometimes weeks, after a contest hadn't been "Won".  It took many
years and many losses before I realised that the pain was all futile -
nobody cared but us.  The adjudicators decision was always final, and
always will be!  After all this I love contesting now - as a player or
conductor.  I get from it what I can on a personal level, I know when I
have performed well and that is enough pleasure for me, I don't need a
judge to tell me anymore whether I have won or lost!  The social side of
contesting is worth showing up for on its own.  I would like to see
however more consistency from our adjudicators - if they would only
reward superior musicianship instead of taking the easy way out by
counting split notes or wrong entries etc. contesting emphasis would be
in the right area.

Imagine a scenario at Wembley for instance - may be at a cup final.  A
player from Team A shoots and swerves the ball over the wall past the
goalie and it dips under the bar for a stylish well executed skillful
goal.  In the goalmouth of Team B, the ball bobbles, there is a mad
scramble with players on the floor kicking wildly, the ball is half
cleared by a prostrate defender and hits the Ref. on the back of the
nut, 'cos he isn't looking, then rebounds into the goal!  At full time
and after extra time the game finishes 1 - 1.  Both goals are perfectly
legal.  The "Panel of Experts" sitting in the stand award the match to
Team A on the basis that in his opinion the goal didn't have any
technical mishaps!   Imagine the uproar this would cause.   This is the
principle of how brass band contests are decided!

In the early seventies, I was in on what I like to think of as the start
of what has now become the modern entertainment contest.  The B.B.C. ran
a radio competition called Challenging Brass.  It was a knockout affair
over numerous rounds which ended up with a final at the Royal Festival
Hall.  Coventry Band got through to the final on four consecutive
occasions.  We lost to Brighouse under Walter Hargreaves the first
year.  They deservedly won because they not only were a better band, but
in their 20 minute program they included a new arrangement that Walter
had done for the occasion called French Military March.  This may be the
first occasion when a piece was arranged specifically for a contest.  We
lost again next year to Hammonds Sauce Works under Geoff Whitham - more
contentiously this time.  The next year we won against William Davis
under Dr. Jon Hall I think, and the following year we won against
Desford under Earnest Woodhouse with a youngish James Watson playing a
dazzling cornet solo.

I too remember the first Granada Band of the year contest held at Kings
Hall, Belle Vue, Manchester.  How these contests have evolved and for
the better.  The first year they wouldn't allow any applause in between
pieces "To keep the show moving".  It was weird, but after a few bands
had endured this false quiet the audience ignored the warnings and
clapped anyway.  The next year we were there again under Ray Farr and of
the first four bands, we were drawn fourth, three of us had finished
with the William Tell overture, to great amusement of the crowd.  It
didn't take long for Howarth, Snell and Farr to realise that to win,
they had to play something that nobody else had.  And thanks to them,
and now many others, the brass band repertoire has increased many fold
as a direct result of attempting to win these type of contests.

The brass band movement as we know it is where it is as a result of
rapid evolvement of recent generations.  It is there because that is
where it wants to be.  It's not perfect, but in the absence of anything
better, I'll take it.  Change for changes sake, as I know from personal
experience, rarely improves things.

These are my personal thoughts and opinions - I await to be challenged!

Colin Randle.


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