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Competition has no place in music education


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It's funny, at championships in Buffalo, I was asked to help take care of and drive Fred Fennell around when he asked. He told me numerous times that week that if bands around the country would teach their kids the work ethic and drive to perfection we would have so many bad band programs. He was so blown away about the whole week.

As a band director, if DCI was good enough for Fennel, it was good enough for me. It made me very proud to be associated with competitivie bands and drum corps. It also made me laugh at people in my life who poo-pood drum corps as a non-musical activity. They should go to one brass, percussion or ensemble rehearsal and hear the education being given to those kids regarding tone quality, blend/balance, technique, and any other musical concept you can talk about.

He was a very competitive person - you should have seen him every night in the bar being the last one standing with all of the youngsters around. :tongue: I think he closed the bar every night!!

He sat through every corps that week - 3 days in the mid to upper 90's. He refused to even sit in the press box. He said it did not sound as good!!

We should all be open to learning when we are so advanced in life!!

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I don't think it would be possible for drum corps to exist in anything close to it's current form if the compettition aspect were taken out of it. Quite frankly, it is what drives the activity. Can you imagine putting your hearts and souls into a season for NOTHING but performance sake, just touring around putting on "shows". Compettition strikes us at our core. It is the variable in drum corps that allows for 110%, and not just 90%.

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I have to agree here. I know too many band directors that lament that their whole year revolves around the TOB or BOA schedules and being competitive in those arenas that sometimes their winter programs can suffer neglect because they're starting their new fall program committee or meetings to discuss show ideas.

Then that is a problem with the director having a distinct lack of priorities as to what the the role of a high school band is rather than a problem with the marching activity or drum corps.

How can a band director complain about the direction a car is going in when they are the one behind the wheel? Granted, in many instances, the marching band is the public face for most music programs, but when other aspects of the program such as concert band and jazz band suffer from blatant neglect because too much of an emphasis is placed on the marching band, then blame needs to be placed on the people in charge.

And now it's time to watch the BCS selection show.

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I owe my life in drum corps to the music education program I had as an elementary school kid. I started in my local CYO church band, and our music director was the chairman of the music department at Northeastern University - Dr. Herbert Silverman. From September to May, he taught us every genre, every muscial attribute we needed to be musicians. He was a wizard that got kids to want to play, to perform, and to love playing music.

Of course - we had a summer competitive marching band season. He was not a huge fan of the competitive nature, but he helped us to be a better marching/musical unit - and he was quite proud when we won. He only attended one contest a year - the finals - and for the first few years, I wondered if he was not proud of us? Hey - I was a little kid.

Now - after several years of this - the more ambitious group of kids wanted better competition. We wanted to prove just how good we were, and many of us went on to march in DCI corps - most of us with the 27th Lancers. One huge benefit the band kids enjoyed - was that we could read music. We didn't have the chops like the drum corps kids, but we could practice and improve.

The one thing I will never understand, is that young people in particular identify with competition. It is introduced to us in elementary school - from Spelling Bees, to Math teams, to chess clubs, to athletics. Yet adults who have the responsibility to educate these very kids, want to ignore the notion. I have found that is it the less motivated, the less determined - perhaps the slackers - that can not endure the exciting nature of winning, nor how to deal with a defeat.

Competition in music - albeit drum corps - prepared me for life. The competiton gave me self discipline, helped me set goals, and showed me that teams that work together, win together. I think it is healthy, and if a young person wants to pursue the competitve aspect, I would hope there is an outlet for them to explore it.

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It's funny, at championships in Buffalo, I was asked to help take care of and drive Fred Fennell around when he asked. He told me numerous times that week that if bands around the country would teach their kids the work ethic and drive to perfection we would have so many bad band programs. He was so blown away about the whole week.

As a band director, if DCI was good enough for Fennel, it was good enough for me. It made me very proud to be associated with competitivie bands and drum corps. It also made me laugh at people in my life who poo-pood drum corps as a non-musical activity. They should go to one brass, percussion or ensemble rehearsal and hear the education being given to those kids regarding tone quality, blend/balance, technique, and any other musical concept you can talk about.

He was a very competitive person - you should have seen him every night in the bar being the last one standing with all of the youngsters around. :tongue: I think he closed the bar every night!!

He sat through every corps that week - 3 days in the mid to upper 90's. He refused to even sit in the press box. He said it did not sound as good!!

We should all be open to learning when we are so advanced in life!!

Scott:

Those were a great three days, weren’t they? I still revel in the experience of being able to talk DCI (via Ed Dempsey, who deserves all the credit for pushing the idea) into bringing Dr. Fennell in and I am forever grateful to have been his escort for the three days he was in Buffalo. (We were personal friends via his wife, who was my first publisher…and I had the incredible honor of staying with them a few times at their condo in Sarasota.)

The most incredible part of those three days was taking him to Santa Clara’s rehearsal to see the corps and work with them for the opening ceremony. (There’s a photo of the opening ceremony shot of him in the two bottom articles linked below. There are three hard copies of the photo. One is in the DCI office as one walks in, one hung in his Sarasota condo prior to his death and one is on the wall in my house. I see it every day I’m home and have a ritual of asking myself, “Why have I accomplished today.”) I am still haunted by the rapt attention the SCV kids had when he asked to speak with them after watching them rehearse their show. He was totally taken by their performance and they couldn't believe someone of his stature was such a fan of drum corps. Thanks for Rick Valenzuela for helping set up the meeting.

Those times in the bar were really wild. You are correct about him closing the place down. He didn’t have to buy a drink all three nights he was there (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.) I don’t know where he put it. But fans kept buying him drinks to hear his remarkable stories, of which, you know, he had an endless supply.

He addresses the competition angle in the interview about drum corps. Few remember that he once was a marching band director at the University of Rochester for many years before he founded the Eastman Wind Ensemble. And you are correct in stating that he believed in competition as he believed it made musicians better and kept them accountable.

Sigh…he will be missed. But his words about competition should be heeded. It's not a bad thing. And the man really did love drum corps and knew much about it. He attended every live cinema Quarterfinals broadcast after that.

Fanfare: Remembering Frederick Fennell (Wednesday, December 8, 2004)

Fanfare: Frederick Fennell Talks About Drum Corps

Fanfare: Frederick Fennell Talks With DCI Judges

Edited by Michael Boo
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It’s helpful to return to first principles. As an optional, recreational activity, the first principle of drum corps is to be fun for those in it -- not to be educational, competitive, or even entertaining to the audience. All those things follow because they support the first principle. (Darwin even applies here!)

You can get “education” on many levels in drum corps, but, if education is your primary goal, there are other activities and institutions that do it better.

But drum corps is more fun.

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I do not believe that competition in and of itself is a bad thing but left unchecked, I do believe it can cause many organizations to lose sight of the fact that they are there generally to educate and play good music.

When competition causes groups to abandon/disregard complimentary forms of music education (e.g., concert band, jazz band, orchestra), causes members to believe that their season was a waste because they got beat by another group, administrators/board of directors measure the success of an organization on placement, etc. then I think we can all agree that competition has had a detrimental effect.

And unfortunately, this happens more than it should which causes people to come to the conclusion that competition is inherently bad. :laughing:

Edited by marimbadude
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As a teacher, what do you say to your kids when they get 23rd at your State Marching Band competition? "You guys sucked. There were 22 bands that were better than you. Clearly you can't compete with the best in this state."

I.

DON'T.

THINK.

SO.

The sad thing is, I've heard band directors say similar things to their kids. I've also heard directors say "You need to go out and be better than ____________________ High School. You saw their show and you know you're better than they are. This type of indoctrination to any group of kids is ATROCIOUS. Competition is a great motivator, and it can be used as a motivator, but it can also take a kid and completely shatter all of the efforts that he or she put into something. I marched in a drum and bugle corps that, in one particular year, was in the Top 12 for the ENTIRE season until Semi-Finals. Then, 8 people in Green shirts decided to take away our last performance. Let me tell ya - THAT was a tough pill to swallow. I felt like a failure - and I'm still bitter about it.

Success should NEVER be measured by the number or rating that a judge puts on a sheet, or by if so-and-so makes this Honor Band and that Honor Band. That's not what music education should be about. Believe me, I am just as competitive as the next guy is, but you should NEVER advertise "competition" to your kids- I HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE that word. It makes a lot of kids uneasy, and it doesn't promote good sportsmanship. When the word "competition" is used, kids start to believe that if they aren't happy with the number or the place they get, they are failures. When a kid is so proud of all that he or she has done while being in a marching band or drum corps, and judges decide that that band is the 13th best when 12 bands make Finals, or when the kid's band gets last place, how do you think that kid feels?

I will say this - I think competition is fine in the drum corps arena - we've been used to it for so long, and it has to happen (from auditions, to getting a spot vs. being an alternate, to competitions themselves).

Competition is a difficult thing to talk about with kids, but I do believe that it can be done. Every effort should be made to ensure that you and your kids will be competitive. However, as a music teacher, if the ultimate goal for you is for your kids to do well competitively, or if you and/or your kids think they are unsuccessful because they don't do well competitively, something has gone wrong.

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I am reminded of a quote by former Blue Devils director Mike Moxley. He made it during a feature segment on the .89 DCI PBS Broadcast. He said "I believe competition sparks high levels of performance."

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As a teacher, what do you say to your kids when they get 23rd at your State Marching Band competition? "You guys sucked. There were 22 bands that were better than you. Clearly you can't compete with the best in this state."

Any teacher who would approach a ranking in that manner should not be teaching. Any result can be used by a good teacher to motivate and inspire kids to keep moving forward. Any result can be used as a source of pride in their accomplishment and joy in the journey. Competition is not the culprit here...a teacher's inability to parse the result for what it was is the culprit. I'd be devastated to hear a teacher take that tact, but competition in and of itself is not the problem.

...I marched in a drum and bugle corps that, in one particular year, was in the Top 12 for the ENTIRE season until Semi-Finals. Then, 8 people in Green shirts decided to take away our last performance. Let me tell ya - THAT was a tough pill to swallow. I felt like a failure - and I'm still bitter about it.

You shouldn't be bitter about it. You had a great corps in 2003 and I know your director would have reminded the kids of the accomplishment of the entire season. The reason I bring that up is judges just don't decide to "take away" a corps' last performance. Although the corps that knocked out your corps from Finals only did so by .15, they had finished higher (by small margins) in Allentown, Columbia and El Paso prior to Semifinals. But that last margin was close enough that things could have gone either way, and being in or out of Finals (a very competitive year in 2003) should not dictate how you feel the rest of your life about that season. There is so much more to the joy of being in a drum corps.

Success should NEVER be measured by the number or rating that a judge puts on a sheet, or by if so-and-so makes this Honor Band and that Honor Band. That's not what music education should be about.

Exactly.

Believe me, I am just as competitive as the next guy is, but you should NEVER advertise "competition" to your kids- I HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE that word. It makes a lot of kids uneasy, and it doesn't promote good sportsmanship.

Perhaps not advertise it as a major reason for being there, but if a group competes, then competition has to be addressed. It's up to the director to keep things "real" and put competition in perspective.

When the word "competition" is used, kids start to believe that if they aren't happy with the number or the place they get, they are failures. When a kid is so proud of all that he or she has done while being in a marching band or drum corps, and judges decide that that band is the 13th best when 12 bands make Finals, or when the kid's band gets last place, how do you think that kid feels?

They SHOULD feel that they are in an elite league and were good enough, had worked hard enough, were viable enough that given any number of other circumstances, they could have been in Finals. But someone has to be in and someone has to be out. That's the story of life. And life moves on. If they made Finals and another group didn't, their kids should be taught the same. In life, we win and we lose and it's how we choose to address those ups and downs that makes us stronger and better able to face the realities of life's challenges. I've been on both sides of the fence and expect to be so the rest of my life. Life is a competition to just get by from day to day at times. While we aren't failures if someone else gets what we wanted, they aren't failures if we get it instead. We must remember that competition is what it is...a yardstick to measure our performance compared with the best out there.

I will say this - I think competition is fine in the drum corps arena - we've been used to it for so long, and it has to happen (from auditions, to getting a spot vs. being an alternate, to competitions themselves).

Competition is a difficult thing to talk about with kids, but I do believe that it can be done. Every effort should be made to ensure that you and your kids will be competitive. However, as a music teacher, if the ultimate goal for you is for your kids to do well competitively, or if you and/or your kids think they are unsuccessful because they don't do well competitively, something has gone wrong.

The ultimate goal of competition IS to do well competitively. If by having the goal to do well competitively is what inspires a director to push his/her kids towards greatness in musical accomplishment, that is not a bad thing. If nothing else but placement matters and the whole educational experience of how the students have improved their musicianship/teamwork and team spirit/love of the adventure doesn't matter, then that teacher has lost sight of what competition is and should be. I agree with you that it can be done. And that separates the good teachers from the bad ones.

And along the way, things do go wrong. But that's a problem with the teacher, not with the concept of competition...something that pushes us to achieve our potential and look for ways that we can constantly improve ourselves.

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