Competition has no place in music education

[JimF-LowBari]

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.

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. I think he closed the bar every night!!

LOL, can you imagine the response if someone had posted about closing the bar during DCA weekend.

Thinking back to the earliest days of todays Drum Corps. And no I wasn't around to remember it. The first corps were started by local Posts to show pride in the Post and the local community. And for the guys in Podunk to show they were just as good (or better) than the guys in Capital City they had to be very competative in how they approached what they did.

Yeah, Off Topic to music education but let's not forget that being educational has only come to the front in the last part of DCs long history.

[audiodb]

I don't think the purpose of education is to teach you how to compete. It is to provide you the tools so you will be able to compete.

Well, I guess I simply feel that experiencing competition is one of those tools; therefore, you cannot educate someone quite as effectively without ever exposing them to competition.

[siuehist]

Back in the old days, drum corps was a rational alternative to reform school. Now it's treated like an honors symposium.

As far as competition is concerned, every aspect of life is a competition. You are evaluated at work, you're evaluated on a football field. You compete for a significant other. Everything is a chore, everything is graded. There is no difference.

Edited December 3, 2007 by siuehist

[MikeD]

Sure, but education should prepare you for the competition...not be the competition itself.

That's how it works in drum corps and marching band. The education received learning and perfecting the show prepares the group for the competition.

There is education and learning even IN the competition as well, IMO. A lot of it is not pure music, but rather other "life lessons", but there is education going on. Actually, there is even music education going on as well....learning how to crank it up and perform as opposaed to rehearsing is musically valid, IMO.

[MikeD]

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.

That is 100% true, but it reflects badly on the person, not the competitiion itself.

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 tell our band this every season before champs....

There are three things that determine where we place...

1) Our performance

2) The rest of the performances

3) What the judges think....

...and that we control only number 1).

We always strive to go out and compete against ourselves first and foremost...to raise the bar on our performance level each week. After that, the rest takes care of itself.

The members know they are competing, and they know it's up to them to perform their show to the utmost. I have no issues with competition, as long as it is handled in an appropriate manner by the band staff.

[MikeD]

... 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?

The State of NJ NJMEA is against the idea of competition, sad to say. They have that "look down their noses" posture that IMO is ridiculous. That goes waaaaay back to the 70's. They created the NJ State Marching Band Festival that highlighted the top bands in the state, but only as an exhibition, not a competition. It started out well, as the circuits were not yet firmly established state-wide. You really DID get most of the top bands at the show. As TOB matured and EMBA and later CMBC/USSBA came along, fewer and fewer of the better bands would bother applying to the show, as it took away a weekend for little return.

Funny thing, they would have one 'judge' do tapes for the bands, just like at a competition. In the 70's it was usually Dr. Baggs, drum corps hall of fame member.

[IamtheTubaKing]

My private lesson teacher seems to be stuck on the idea that DCI is an evil corporation and could not help me musically in any way becuase its "marching band" and only about playing as loud and as raunchy as possible... I told her she was crazy. After marching contra this past season I grew so much having marched and learned so much about music and musicalitly. She inadvertently agreed with me but tried not to and only pointed out my "flaws" from having marched although all of my band directors had to disagree with her and thought I was worlds better then I was before summer.

[corps-mudgeon]

My private lesson teacher seems to be stuck on the idea that DCI is an evil corporation and could not help me musically in any way becuase its "marching band" and only about playing as loud and as raunchy as possible... I told her she was crazy. After marching contra this past season I grew so much having marched and learned so much about music and musicalitly. She inadvertently agreed with me but tried not to and only pointed out my "flaws" from having marched although all of my band directors had to disagree with her and thought I was worlds better then I was before summer.

Unless she imparts some phenomenal knowledge, it might be time to change private tutors to one who respects your musicianship goals.

[O.P.]

One of the great debates.

I am officially weighing in on the value of competition being beneficial to students; however, learning to compete correctly is the key, which means, learning to lose correctly, respectfully, is of equal value. After all, there should be honor and respect given to those who win, and ultimately that is what all competition is about, the earned respect of your competitors. As a teacher, I tried to teach this principle, that what my students were actually winning, more than a trophy, was the respect that comes from accomplishment and achievement. It is both an internal respect and external. It has value. Just like we respect the the tough competitor who, though loses, loses with effort and accomplishment. But the I never agreed with those who preached to not compete but to just do your best and that should suffice.

Competition often brings out levels of success not known to individuals, who surprise themselves just by trying to reach a number, a level, a win. I always remember Mohammad Ali after the third and final fight with Joe Frazier when they beat each other to a pulp and exhuasted albeit victorious, Ali could only muster a response when asked about the fight said of his competitor, "Lord that man is great." That is what we sould be teaching.

Too many teach the fear of failure, when they should be teaching the excitement of accomplishment. And when we fail and we all do and will continue to, we need to do it well because it is part of winning. Effort is what defines greatness, and competition facilitates effort, frames it, and defines it. Many of you know Teddy Roosevelt's quote from his diaries in which he begins, "..the credit belongs to man who is actually in the arena, and whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood...who at best, if he wins, knows the thrills of high achievement and if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly...."

Competition and only competition brings this to us.

[CVQuesty]

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.

You can say that, but once your principal is standing on your head to bring visibility to the program, lamenting out loud to you and your peers (as well as superiors) that the marching band isn't as good as "insert director's name here"'s band across the county is, and the parents are starting to cause trouble for you, the stress and pressure of that situation cannot be underestimated. I've seen a lot of educators crumble under misapplied expectations of administrators.

Yes, I agree with you that the curriculum should most certainly be well balanced across all ensembles and playing opportunities for students. I encourage my sone to get involved in ALL KINDS of ensembles.

THe idea that the band director is in the "driver's seat" is less common than we would like to claim.