Choosing Music for Contest

March 2003

The choice of music for competition is often an area of concern for chorus directors, music teams and quartets. This article aims to shed a little more light on the subject.

The current judging system encourages competitors to feel free to choose the music that suits them, within minimum requirements to preserve the characteristics of the barbershop style (particularly the percentage of barbershop sevenths and Circle of 5ths progressions). At Education Days over the last couple of years Music Judges have tried to demystify these basic requirements, with some success. Most groups can now recognise whether a song/arrangement is or definitely is not barbershop. However identifying the borderline material is more difficult (for the judges as well as the competitors!), especially when it ultimately depends on how the song is performed rather than the written music.

One of the roles of the Music Judges is to reduce the score if a performance of a song does not exhibit the essential characteristics of the style. This means that a group could be performing at a B level in terms of their musicianship (say around 65) and then receive a score reduction of -10 for lack of barbershop sevenths resulting in a mark of 55. Where all of the Music Judges give similar marks the combined effect can have a significant effect on the groups' ranking. This happened to two choruses in the LABBS Convention 2002 for the song 'Zing went the strings of my heart'. The choruses concerned wished to understand why they were marked so low, especially as the song has been sung by other groups in previous years and the marks given did not suggest that a penalty had been given.

The same song will inevitably gain a variety of scores from the Music Category on different outings, as it is the performance by the competitors of the arrangement that is being judged and not the arrangement itself. After each contest, performances and scores are reviewed. In this way we can confirm whether the panel judges were right to reduce a score or not. Sometimes this process brings to light a song/arrangement that has been given the benefit of the doubt by the judges on the day, but on a more detailed review by the whole group of judges, shows up a deficiency that should warrant a lower score. This is what happened with 'Zing' between the last time it was sung in a LABBS competition and last Convention. (For the record, 'Zing' has a low percentage of barbershop 7ths, does not use Circle of 5ths progressions as its predominant flavour and the II7 present is not featured primary harmony, suggesting a reduction in score in excess of -10 per judge.)

We also meet with the Music Judges from SPEBSQSA in the US at intervals and share in their email network where borderline songs are discussed. This of course has the effect that the next time we hear a particular song in competition we are likely to be listening out for the stylistic issues but I must stress that a score will NOT be lowered unless we actually hear (or more likely don't hear) the anticipated deficiencies.

So how are the competitors supposed to stand a chance of knowing what is safe to sing? - I hear you ask!

The members of the Education and Judging Committee and the Music Category have discussed how we can be fair both to the competitor and the guardianship of the style. It is generally agreed that issuing a hit list of songs not to sing will do more harm than good. Few of us would want to be restricted to singing the same old songs in competition and to have no scope for experimentation.

Instead I would encourage you to ask for your music to be checked by a current LABBS Music Judges before the competition you wish to sing it in. We are all listed on the website. We do usually need to see a legal copy of the printed music as the same song can be suitable for contest in one arrangement and not in another.

For our part, the Music Judges will tell each other what we have said about particular songs so that we give you consistent advice. There are occasions when this hasn't happened in the past and we are anxious that it does not occur again. (In the case of Mountain Harmony performing 'Zing' at Convention, the Chorus Director did seek guidance from a Music Judge but unfortunately the advice given, that the arrangement would not score highly, was not sufficiently clear. This therefore meant that the chorus were surprised to receive a style penalty in the competition and thus were ranked lower than they expected. I am very sorry for any confusion caused in this case. As you can see from this article we are taking steps to ensure that this kind of mis-communication does not happen again.)

If you wish to use the detailed music analysis service provided by Music Resources you may still do so, in addition to having it checked for its suitability for competition by a Music Judge. We will, of course still be judging what we hear on the day and not what we may remember of the dots on the page.

On a positive note, we were pleased to have Roger Payne, Immediate Past Music Category Specialist for SPEBSQSA as our Educator at Category School in February 2003. Over the weekend we worked on improving our evaluation technique to make sure that we are giving you valuable tips for future progress. We were very encouraged to have Roger's endorsement of the way the category is developing and we are committed to continuing to improve for the benefit of the whole association.

Apologies for the length of this article but it's not an easy issue to deal with in a few sentences. If you have any queries about it please contact me by email: joyce.stroud@which.net

Good Luck for Prelims!

Joyce Stroud
LABBS Music Category Director

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