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Re: New Grading System

To: brass-band@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: New Grading System
From: David Taylor <dtaylor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 12:07:25 +0100
In-reply-to: <006301c0b4ab$02fe4740$7edc893e@wznhfnxm>
References: <006301c0b4ab$02fe4740$7edc893e@wznhfnxm>

In message <006301c0b4ab$02fe4740$7edc893e@wznhfnxm>, Andrew Dodd
<andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
>Mac wrote:
>
>>But if in the 5th contest you were comfortably beaten by a band who did not
>>enter the other 4, who deserves to go up?
>
>And what if the band who comfortably beat us at the areas had competed at
>several of the contests which we had won?

Well, as Mac said, you've got to compare like with like. Besides, who's
to say that the other band wouldn't have put a bit more work into their
performance if they had known that it would have counted towards their
grading? - certainly the area contest tends to attract the most worked-
on performances of the year from bands.

But this is all symptomatic of the problem with any grading system -
there are simply far too many variables to arrive at any solution which
is demonstrably fair to everybody. So what's the problem in your eyes?
Grading on one performance a year is unfair because you could play badly
as a one-off? Have more grading contests a year. Then watch as
complaints roll in from bands who, while they enjoy (sort of!) being
ranked, aren't willing to spend more time every year rehearsing up
pieces to area standard. I think you'll find that, while bands generally
recognise the desirability of being effectively seeded for contests in
this way, they wouldn't be keen on having to put in any more effort to
get those gradings - and in the interests of comparing like things, you
couldn't have any band opting out of gradings events without suffering a
penalty - if a good band opted out, then they could well end up in a
lower section than was appropriate. In fact, I think that some bands (no
names, as I don't particularly wish to offend anyone, especially if I'm
wrong) play the current system in this way, withdrawing from area
contests when their rating puts them in danger of promotion. As I said,
there's simply too many variables in the equation to ever arrive at a
solution that suits everybody and eliminates unfairness.

Dave

--

References:
- Re: New Grading System
  - From: Andrew Dodd

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