Brass Band Logo

NJH Music Logo

Some of the contents of the pages on this site are Copyright © 2016 NJH Music
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: New Grading System

In message <000201c0b78f$38400560$fe07893e@wznhfnxm>, Andrew Dodd
<andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
>Fair point.  So is there an ideal solution or are there faults with any
>grading system?

At root, there is a fundamental fault (in terms of fairness) in the
bands being placed by a subjective decision on the part of the
adjudicator. This undermines any system, even if it should appear to be
otherwise perfect. Even assuming that there is a foolproof and
unarguable way to rank all bands in every contest, there's still room
for unfairness - suppose one band rehearses every piece intensively, and
plays it very well parrot-fashion, while another is filled with
wonderful sight-readers who pick up the musical content of a piece much
quicker, but lose on the day to the group that has rehearsed their piece
to death in the interests of consistency. Perhaps the result is clear,
but the deserved ranking order certainly isn't - quite probably the
better ensemble has (and will consistently) lose out on contest day.
A fairer way of doing things might be to have a panel of assessors for
each section in each area that would travel around sitting in on band
practices and observing engagements for each band over a few weeks, and
to compare every aspect of a band's performance thus - without taking
the vagaries of contests into account at all (unless they happened to be
observed at one). But who would do this?

>Instead of getting points for each local contest a band
>enters maybe some sort of average should be calculated, so that bands who
>enter every local contest aren't given a great advantage over those who
>enter just one!?  But surely local contests should count for something.

Again there's too many variables here - like is not being compared with
like; how many bands see the same opposition line up at every contest
they do? Some contest sections are an absolute walkover, while others at
nominally the same level are closely fought at a higher standard. Even
then, that's undermined further if local contests devise their own
sections. I think I missed the start of this thread - is there now some
directive compelling local associations to only use the national
sections? For example, the Oxfordshire association contest I can't see
working under these rules - the entry is simply skewed too far towards
the lower end. You'd have umpteen 4th section and ungraded bands, no 3rd
section, 1 or 2 2nd section, no 1st section, and maybe 1 or 2
championship bands. SCABA has it's own sections too, I believe?

Dave

--

[Services] [Contact Us] [Advertise with us] [About] [Tell a friend about us] [Copyright © 2016 NJH Music]