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RE: Corruption in banding

Ian

I dont know about going as far as agreeing with you about banding been
corrupt - there has to be winners and losers in all competition - that is
the idea of it.  However i do see where your points come from.  i am sure
just about every bandsman and bands-woman out there can relate to a story
where there own band has been hard done by and 'should have been placed
higher'.  I play with a band in the northern area (Darlington Contest) and
in the past 2 years we have been the (victims?) of a couple of harsh results
in that we were marked down for playing basically what we read into the
music rather than what the adjudicator wanted to hear.  However, assuming
that each band is marked to the same criteria, we cant complain too much -
and this is where my point joins yours...


So long as every band has the same criteria at a contest then i dont see how
we can say that banding is corrupt.  But i musyt admit that i and several
people i have contact with think similar thoughts - the most frequently
asked question is "why have the same bands come in the top three every year
since some people can remember?"  The answer, in my opinion could be one of
two:

1:  That a contest is rigged, corrupted (in which case i agree with Volume
"Why Bother")
2:  That the bands in question are better than us

<To a lot of people I think this is quite close to heart as to so many bands
it is a great dissapointment when they know that there over all performance
was better thean the winning/qualifying bands.> - better in whose eyes? the
bands, the audience's, or the guy in the box?  every band is likely to think
there performance was best / better than the rest - natural bias and all
that...

i dont think that the banding world is corrupt to the extent to which you
suggest - rather, i think that the system of marking should be open to a
complete re-draft where all bands at all contests get marked in the same way
or at least are told before hand what critera is going to be - i know from
personal experiance that going on what was looked for in one area contest
does not mean that the same thing will be looked for in my area contest.

it must be said that at the end of the day, an adjudicator will be able to
tell the Grimethorpes and Brighouses from 'the rest' purely on such as the
tone of the band or even the quality of tone of individual players - put my
cornet tone against Richard Marshalls and it would not take a genious to
tell the difference.  You get my point.  In effect then, you may after all
be right - they may know roughly who is on the stage, but at the end of the
day it is more than likely through quality of playing rather than
corruption...

Here endeth the lesson  ;-)

Dave

P.S  Hi to all on the list by the way


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