Music competitions

I recently read an article about competition music - ie, where performers of an instrument pit their technical and interpretation skills against one another in front of a panel of judges. The article goes on to say that while competition is good in that it raises the expectations and pushes people to improve themselves, the pitfalls of having a competition for music include: (1) creating performers who put too much emphasis on technical perfection (read: no mistakes) rather than musical interpretations; and (2) and then stick to the tried-and-tested formulas (read: familiar pieces, familiar composers, etc).

This is something which I agree whole-heartedly. How can someone judge who is better - a guitarist who plays say, Albeniz's Asturias (leyenda) note-perfectly, superhumanly fast compared to another who plays a never-before heard composition, not necessarily demonstrating equally amazing finger dexterity but instead showing off a well-polished, well thought through musical journey of expression?

Granted, as classical guitarist we'd always favor a fuller, rounder tone compared to a thin, harsh one - but who is to say that it is not the repertoire that demands the usage of such a tonal expression? Is someone who expresses a nice warm/mellow tone throughout the song necessarily better than another who constantly changes his tonal colours throughout the piece?

Another gauge that people often rely on (to judge a guitarist's skill & technique) - his sound projection; whether he is able to fill a hall with his playing or if he is simply stroking the strings but in fact making no sound! Again, this is very subjective. While sound projection generally gives an indication of a player's right-hand technique and his level of confidence, one can alway argue that being able to control the volume dynamics whilst playing is a much more important skill to possess than having this "raw power". Well, like they alway say, "power without control is nothing".

At the end of the day, such music competitions are usually very subjective in terms of the finaly judgement. For even were the performers to play exactly the same repertoire (e.g. like a set piece) - which they often do not ; it would come down to whether the judges liked your way of presenting the song. Of course, if the technical abilities of the competitors are way apart, then the decision can be pretty clear, but often this is not the case.

In Singapore, we have the bi-annually held SYF (Singapore Youth Festival) whereby music groups representing the various Secondary schools and Junior Colleages will present their song items. These items are then judged by a panelist comprising prominent musicians from the various fields, and at the end of the competition, each team will be awarded a medal - Gold with Honors, Gold, Silver, and Certificate of Participation. I like this format of awarding a tiered awards instead of having the schools directly 'compete' with one another for 1st, 2nd, 3rd prizes, etc. On one hand, it provides the recognition and reward schools (instructor, teacher, students) for putting in the effort to prepare for the event, and on the other hand, it provides the necessary motivating factor for schools to either maintain or improve on their previous rounds' awards ratings. Obviously there are some cases where I may not have agreed with the judges' decision on the award type given to a particular school/performance, but like I said before, all music judging is subjective in the first place, so there's really little point debating "rights" and "wrongs".