Competition has no place in music education

[wolfgang]

... according to several Music Ed profs I had back in the day.

I would guess the same mindset is still prevalent on many college campuses, and MusEd majors who have had valuable educational experiences in either marching band or drum corps know differently because they have lived it.

Anyone have horror stories from your college days when a Music Education Professor would rail on about the horrors of competition?

One thing that always seemed ironic to me- the highest level of musicianship is dependent on competition.

By that I mean when you go to hear a professional symphony play, how did their musicians get their jobs? They competed before an audition committee. Same for many other professional music jobs.

While their job is not a competition, how they got the job certainly was.

Even in non-competitive school music programs, somebody has to audtion for wind ensemble, or show choir, or the lead in the school musical, or in many cases who gets the solo....

When winning becomes the main goal, then I agree there is a problem, but that is more on the directors priorities than on the benefits of competition itself (when priorities are in order).

Thoughts or interesting stories/exchanges you guys have had on this topic?

Edited December 2, 2007 by wolfgang

[sobe]

Whenever I meet a professor that goes on and on about how horrible marching band and drum corps "are", I just laugh and assume they were a major tick-bag wherever they marched.

:-P

[PurpleKnights]

Yes, that's the funny thing. The 'real world' in music is EXTREMELY competitive.

[BD2Rings]

I had a Junior College music instructor who called our beloved activity 'Dumb and Bungle'. He was not please with the competitive nature of the marching acitivity.

The hypocrisy was that we entered jazz competitions every year. The last year I participated in that big band, the competition was on the University of California at Berkeley campus. Our competitiors were a variety of Pac 10 campus big bands, major universities throughout the mountain zone states, and a collection of others.

This lowly little junior college walked away with top honors. The only thing we didn't do was march. But we did compete.

The funny side of this is that one of our performance numbers was Buddy Rich's Channel One Suite, only this time I was playing a Bach Strad 36 B trombone instead of a piston rotor baritone bugle IN G. I find it funny how this chart keeps finding it's way to me.

Edited December 2, 2007 by BD2Rings

[Tekneek]

As much as you may not believe it, there are studies out there that do indicate that a competitive environment is not the ideal one for learning. If your goal is only education, I believe it is better to have the smallest amount of competition involved as possible. While some may thrive and even desire this element, overall it is not the best for real education, IMO.

It's just one reason why I would like drum corps to not sell itself as nothing more than a venue for music education. It is never going to do that as well as other programs can and has so much more to offer without intentionally trying to limit itself.

Edited December 2, 2007 by Tekneek

[Dave]

I don't buy it for one second. Competition is real life, and education is supposed to be about real life, not the furthering of an insular world of education. The minimal competition that exists in the world of education for an average student--marching band and drum corps shows, auditions for various honor bands, getting into colleges, etc., absolutely pales in comparison to the real music world. There's no, well, competition. However, that little amount of competition goes a long way to preparing students for real life...if they've been taught how to deal with and approach competition. My band has to compete with lots of other bands for gigs, media attention, radio slots, CD sales, etc. We don't get shoved into a neat little category and judged by two or three panelists, we get judged by the entire public, and the results are shown in how much money we take in and how well we keep our business afloat. In or out of music, that's reality, and the notion that we shouldn't prepare kids for it by injecting a tiny amount of that into their education doesn't make any sense to me.

[tubamann]

As much as you may not believe it, there are studies out there that do indicate that a competitive environment is not the ideal one for learning. If your goal is only education, I believe it is better to have the smallest amount of competition involved as possible. While some may thrive and even desire this element, overall it is not the best for real education, IMO.

It's just one reason why I would like drum corps to not sell itself as nothing more than a venue for music education. It is never going to do that as well as other programs can and has so much more to offer without intentionally trying to limit itself.

The reality is that humans are naturally competitive. No matter what we choose to endeavour, their will always be those who wish to be known as the person who does it the fastest, longest, or best.

[ToferVis]

my college professors believe competition is key to music education. lol. When i mentioned drum corps he said he never really gave it much attention...but said...i see you have such a passion for it, so why don't you come by my office and explain it to me....now he loves it. :)

[Latrobe's Finest]

I agree with all of you that competition in education is good and necessary, but I think the question should be how much competition is good. Here is what I mean: I can think of several HS programs that I competed against in my day (who still do this) that only exist for competition, meaning their only purpose was to compete. I think that those groups miss the point. They rehearse under top 5 DCI conditions, cut all kinds of prospective members etc., in search of that championship (in this case ACCs). So, in that type of music education, those kids are missing the entire point of music which is to express one's self, work as a team and have fun.

I think that a good music education program does include some sort of competition because competing teaches people how to win and lose with class ($1 to Roman Blenski). In drum corps, our activity is based on competition and that's not necessarily bad, but there has to be a line drawn between competition as a tool to help a group improve and competition for the sake of competition and making competition you're only reason for being on the field.

[Piper]

Competition is the nature of the human beast, and I see nothing wrong with it. A better question might be "Where would Drum Corps be today without competition.?"