Are Competitions good for Traditional Music

[celticturntable]

Thought I would ask the same here:

(Original Discussion)
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/27621

Peter Corfield
http://www.CelticTurnTable.com

[Steve Bliven]

Here are some comments on the topic from a non-Highland piper that might apply....
http://theotherpipers.org/index/?p=980

It must be the season for this topic as it's also being discussed on the Northumbrian Pipers list.

Best wishes.

Steve

[highland-piper]

Highland piping has been closely associated with competition for over 200 years now. There seem to be several results (mostly good, from my point of view).

Here is the fundamental truth to understand: competition of this type is, by nature, an evolutionary system. If there is a contest with 10 pipers, then at the end of the day there is one winner, and the other 9 go home and figure out what they will do differently next time. So if you have widespread competition, then you will have change, and it will be at a faster rate than you would otherwise see.

When a judge calls you over and tells you that your playing was pretty good, but that your tuning isn't, well I can guarantee you never want to hear that again! So you work on it. Same thing with all the other comments. At higher levels (especially in bands) pipers are motivated to write new music for competition. At a contest, if two people play equally well, but one has more difficult material, then he'll probably win. Highland piping music tends to be more complex, and more difficult, than in ITM. If I set out to learn a tune like the Silver Spear, I can have it 90% down in a couple hours, but competition marches on Highland pipe take me days, or even weeks.

In competition piping, there are fairly high standards of play. We are all expected to actively work on improving our abilities. An effect of this is we tend to know fewer tunes.

In my mind, you can't really ask, "are competitions good for tradition Highland piping?" because you cannot separate them. A large part of that tradition is competition. It really just boils down to another reason to play. In Irish music today you mainly have sessions. But that wasn't true not too many years ago. I think an equally interesting question to ask would be: "Is session playing good for traditional music?"

Since Steve mentioned the article on theotherpipers.org, I will mention that my experiences in competition are different from that author's. The competing pipers I experience tend to be humble, and not snobbish.

[mutepointe]

Thank you for starting this thread. I hope to hear more folks speak up. I have nothing to say on this matter but I do want to hear what folks have to say.

[Innocent Bystander]

When I was a we'an, I participated in a lot of musical festivals, but not playing music. Don't tell me, that sounds really Irish. It was Ireland, after all. I was doing verse-speaking. Elocution. It wasn't simply verse-speaking - there was sight-reading and a range of other stuff. I do have experience of Musical Festivals on both sides of the divide.
Generally speaking, I would say Musical Festivals are a good thing. People will go to Musical Festivals to test themselves, to see what the opposition is like, to see what they're up against. You get a feel for your own ranking. They improve whatever they are examining.

I think this goes for Traditional Music as well. They promote excellence. They have to. At very least they get people practising. I can foresee an argument they constrain the music to a particular mould or model. That may be true as far as it goes, but it only holds good outside that particular festival if it is a really renowned one. As soon as that starts to happen, another festival will spring up with a differing approach.
One thing I've noticed, at the risk of getting political - although it's cultural IMO - is that Music from the gaelic tradition is so popular that the northern scots in ulster are trying to encourage their own strains of music in an attempt to identify their own culture. You can see this as seperatism, and I've witnessed and participated in fierce arguments about it. The fact is that the north IS culturally different. I agree there is an air of desperation in it. Trying to suppress a minority culture - as they see themselves - is not going to help anyone. Even simply in terms of whistling, I see tonguing identified as an Ulster style and legato (in general) as a Clare style. Fair enough, so long as you don't continually deplore the tonguing style. There is also a tendency in Scotland and Ulster to give uneven barred quaver pairs "bite". Jay Ungerer remarked on it when he compared Scots and Irish performers playing his Ashokan Farewell. He preferred the Scots for the "bite". It will depend on the tune.
One of the saddest things I have seen was a recorder competition on one side of the divide which signally failed to even approach the standard of a whistle competition on the other.
But yes, I'm for them. You need to test your strength once in a while. It can't all be for the crack. Or at least, it can be a different kind of crack.

[pancelticpiper]

I've been seeing for years many comments on thesession.org from Trad Irish players in Ireland which indicate a widely held belief that the Comhaltas competition system is destroying regional styles, individual styles, and making Irish music generic. Many other musicians in Ireland feel that the Comhaltas competitions have a positive effect. I know nothing about any of that.

What I do know about, and have in involved in for over 30 years, is the Highland Pipe Band competition scene. In that scene, I feel that competitions have an entirely positive effect. The judging is nearly all about basic music: "are you playing in tune? are you playing with good rythm? do dance tunes sound danceable, having good pulse and lift? are you playing clean or are there errors?" etc.

So much so that I wager than any good musician, one who knew nothing of piping, would, if asked to judge, come to about the same conclusions as the experienced Pipe Band judges.

Another thing people complain about are the bad attitudes and feelings, the egos and backbiting, that competition supposedly engenders.

In the Pipe Band world it is completely the opposite. The people from all the bands mingle at the competitions, have a beer and a chat. We are a large community. The camaraderie and friendships that we develop are the best things about the competition scene!

[highland-piper]

Another thing people complain about are the bad attitudes and feelings, the egos and backbiting, that competition supposedly engenders.

In the Pipe Band world it is completely the opposite. The people from all the bands mingle at the competitions, have a beer and a chat. We are a large community. The camaraderie and friendships that we develop are the best things about the competition scene!

Agree 1000%.

I'm starting to think that part of this might be that the kind of competition we engage in almost guarantees a certain humility. Since there can be only one winner, most pipers don't win most of the time. That, and one only remains competitive by working really hard -- so you automatically have something in common with all the competitors.

[MTGuru]

In the Pipe Band world it is completely the opposite.

I think that individual competitions and group/band competitions can be very different things, with different psychology and goals. And it's the individual competitions that are usually more the target of the controversy above. So comparing the individual Comhaltas trials with highland piping is somewhat apples and oranges. A music in which group competition has become normative and institutionalized is different. The Comhaltas competitions are quite artificial, in the sense that if they were to disappear tomorrow, the fundamental practice of the music would be affected not at all.

[pancelticpiper]

I should clarify and mention that the Highland Pipe scene has band and solo competition, more or less equally divided, and my comments apply to both.

[gariwerd]

I see the whole concept of music as a competitive pursuit as pretty barren. If you need the stimulus of competition to get you practising and improving your playing then what you are pursuing is not really music, its success and self-image. If you're really into music you'll be practising and improving anyway and loving doing it. And you'll do it with whatever style and expression best expresses you and not according to a standard determined by a group of music power-brokers in whatever field your in. You don't need competition judges to tell you your weaknesses - your teachers, fellow players and your own intelligence can do that just as well or better.
I've been in the GHB band competiton scene myself and not been impressed. You concentrate on learning a very limited repetoire and play and play and play it till it becomes as near perfect as you can get it, which is about the time you have become totally bored with it and the joy has gone.

[highland-piper]

can get it, which is about the time you have become totally bored with it and the joy has gone.

Those of us who really enjoy competition don't become "totally bored with it." It's not for everyone, for sure, so it's nice that there are options.

What you say has some merit, but in a limited way. I don't think I know anyone who practices regularly without some reason to do so. If you play in competition, if you play in sessions, if you play gigs, if you play for friends, then you have a reason. I'm sure there could be some people out there who play only in their own house, and who never play where other people could hear them, and who do practice regularly, but those people aren't (by definition) part of any tradition.

I don't know anyone who would get up every morning and practice piobaireachd for the joy of it if there were no opportunities to play it for an attentive audience, and that is one thing that competition guarantees.