THE UNFAIR MUSICAL JUDGEMENTS

 Today, not much is considered by most musical performances adjudicators during competitions other than to select the best groups and dismiss all other entrants into the competition with a wave of hand. Choirs mount platforms to compete each other; but in the end, the judgement is not fair. Music awards are also organized and contestants win by their fame and popularity, instead of their technical capabilities.

I am much impressed about the rate at which institutions and individuals have established performance platforms to reward deserving performers in our country today. However, I was shocked when, in one of our popular and ancient reality shows, a contestant from the Western region, of Ghana, was retained in the contest, because there was money home, and people were just voting. After the contest, the contestant who was passed did nothing musical in life while the contested who felt cheated recorded an album. Where is our sense of ‘music adjudication’?

On our television channels, there are a lot of music reality shows, where contestants perform every week to be judged by a jury and their audience. I ask myself, are those judgements fair or they are just ‘business judgements’. Business judgements in the sense that sponsors advocate for people to vote for their favorite contestants, whether they are performing well or not, and the contestant with more votes win. On our blind side, there more you text, the more the sponsors ‘eat’. Do people vote because they are affiliated to contestants or they vote because they monitor the progress of contestants right from the beginning of a contest?

Church choirs organize music competitions and in the end, Christians go home doubting the ‘sense of Christianity’ in the adjudicators. I have been on several panels and some of my colleagues did shoddy jobs, which greatly affected the right jobs. At some instances, scores needed to be annulled so that a re-scoring could be properly done – taking much time and resources.

While others are doing good, some event organizers organize award systems and in the end, unfair judgements are made or given. People vote by text, without any experience of what and who they are voting for. You may see a category like best music show of the year. Now I ask myself, were all the voters at that particular even? Can voters get a video of the particular show that qualified the organizers for such an award? Will people give fair judgements or vote for just the people they know?

Another category may be best vocalist of the year. Again, I ask myself, can the event organizers get voters the particular ‘vocalization work’ that qualified the contestant? Sometimes, I may know the contestant, and so I ask again, was it the performance he/she gave in the Easter concert or Christmas concert that qualified him/her to the contest? We may also have a category such as best composer/songwriter, yet organizers will not provide voters with the particular work that qualified them contestants to be there.

What is a musical competition? Simply put, it means a contest for a prize or award. It is a public event designed to identify and award musical ensembles, soloists and musicologists who perform extremely well within the contest. Preparing to showcase one’s musicality goes with inconsiderable hours of rehearsals. Such preparations in turn raise every contestant’s level of musicality. Competitions go beyond engendering the spirit of competitiveness to fundamental personality shaping.

In his personal account, Foley (2010) recounts: “When I was a student I looked with dread upon the fearsome weeks of the local music festival. I would prepare my pieces for months beforehand, work them up to a performable level, then walk in terror up to the piano and play my piece with varying degrees of success. From the testimony of Foley, entering for competitions or festivals go with high degree of preparation which could span through months. And such preparations require each candidate to rehearse his/her pieces to performable level. This obviously involves setting targets and meeting them up.

How fair will it be if contestants go all this way and receive an unfair judgement? Will the jury, whether professional juries or ‘street juries’ be doing good to the industry? However, I believe the unfair judgements are either caused by the event organizers, the professional judges and the street judges.

Most organizers of music contests should try and equip the event with the much resources; such as qualified juries. If organizers really want to build the industry, they may not have to bow to every ‘deed’ of their sponsors. I believe there are sponsors who want to sponsor ‘quality’ and not just make their money from the blind texters. Again, organizers of music awards systems that seek to award industry players, over a particular period, should provide voters with audiovisuals of the particular performances, pieces or works that qualified each contestant into the contest. We should not ask panel judges, who will happen to be professionals in the industry, score over 30% and ask texters to score over 70%.

Organizers also need to prioritize what they expect from the contests they organize. They can also set a criterion for the adjudication. The Bands of America adjudication system is a criteria reference system, in which a band showing proficiency in particular criteria, or meeting certain criteria at a certain level, falls within a scoring range. It is the position of Bands of America that music is the more important aspect of the performance, with marching as the presentation and visual enhancement of the program. Similarly, more emphasis has been placed on the effectiveness of the general effect judges than on fine-line perfection of the performance judges. The weight of the numbers places 60% of the value on music and 40% on visual, as well as 60% on general effect and 40% on performance. Each judge is assigned a specific area on which he or she focuses, ensemble and general effect judges are located at a vantage point from above (i.e. press box), individual performance judges are located on the field.

Once, I was on the bench with others; they scored a choir very low because they believed the choir made some mistakes in their performance. Yes, the choir had some challenges interoperating their PITCHES, but their NOTES were well interpreted. All these judges didn’t know the difference between a NOTE and a PITCH. Some performance juries have less technical knowledge on what they are asked to judge. Most of them are on the seat because they are popular personalities. When they are there with a technical person on the bench, the technical person sometimes becomes the ‘bad – judge’, when he/she gives a true reflection of the performance.

If we really want to build our industry, street judges or texters or voters should not make their decisions all because the contestants are their friends or relatives. Let’s all make decisions of what we have experienced at the time or within the time of the contest. If voters vote like this, contestants will be charged to put up their very best at every performance in the contest. Music adjudication also goes a long technical way other that what ‘audience-judges’ see. Dear audience, sometimes, it is best to allow the professionals or technical men speak because your ‘audience-score’ may not be a ‘technical-score’; it might have just been influenced by your affiliation to the contestant or the popularity of the contestant.

Some of the objectives why musical competitions or contests are organized are to provide an opportunity for contestants to meet, share and demonstrate their musical achievements and creativity; as well as to evaluate and reflect on musical achievement and creativity in a constructive focused way. Others are to encourage the study and performance of music, whether formally or informally; and to foster and promote a lifelong interest in music as a basic human experience. I await a period when the contestant who secures the last position will appreciate the adjudication and understand why he/she chalked that position, and be encouraged to work more another time. Let not make our musical judgements kill the industry and its patrons’ spirit.