Everything Related to the Steelpan Instrument and Music
JUDGING THE JUDGES
http://www.tntreview.com/?p=427
JUDGING THE JUDGES
Trinidad and Tobago Review
Posted on 10 April 2009
One of the practices that really irked me was the awarding of .5 of a point by some judges. As you will see, there are a few judges who, for no apparent reason awarded a band .5 of a point in a couple of areas. When I say that there was no reason for the .5 of a point I mean that there was no explanation or justification for the .5 of a point. In a number of cases the .5 occurred under the criterion of “Tone.” I had score sheets from seven bands in the large band category, and after separating the score sheets by a judge’s name, there was one judge who gave every band listened to 4.5 for “Blending of pans/Consistency” and 4.5 for “Rich quality of sound”.
Tone has always been part of the criteria for the judges to use when adjudicating Panorama, but for 1993, the description was modified. When judging that criterion, the intent was to have the judge listen to the overall tuning of a band, and unless the ear perceived some real bad tuning/blending, the band should get ten (10) points. So when these judges give a band 4.5 for “blending of pans/consistency”, and 4.5 for “rich quality of sound” I am baffled as to how they are able to discern that the tuning and/or blending of over a hundred instruments is off by .5 of a point. They cannot be human. Each large band has between 25 - 30 lead or tenor pans, and given the fact that each band had to have a maximum of 100 players for this year’s semis and finals, this leaves 70 - 75 players playing more than a single pan. So the real number of instruments in an orchestra is probably more like 250 - 300, and it is just impossible to ascertain that the tuning or blending of all these percussion instruments is off by .5 of a point.
Here are the actual score sheets of two judges who awarded 4.5 each under the overall heading of Tone and their comments from the semis. The score is on the left and their comments on the right. Some of the writing was not legible, and I solicited my friend to assist me with deciphering some of the handwriting. Whenever we were unsuccessful, the writing we could not understand is indicated by question marks (????)
Another area of concern to me was Arranging. As one who has been trained as an arranger, I was taught to employ various techniques such as melodic development, motivic development and re-harmonization. In 1992, when I heard Panorama, arrangers were using these techniques in their arrangements without having any musical training; however, these techniques were not part of the criteria.
I felt that since the arrangers were already utilizing them, they ought to be included in the criteria and assessed. After a series of meetings with arrangers and judges, this was accepted. Arrangement was allotted 40 points; Performance was allotted 40 points; and Tone and Rhythm were allotted 10 points each. There was no specific numeric breakdown for any of the criterion.
Initially when the criteria was changed, judges would have had to exercise a substantial amount of listening skills, recognize these nuances-melodic development, motivic development and re-harmonization in the arrangement-and appropriately award points based on what they heard. All these nuances were to have been weighted at the discretion of the judge.
In 2006, a “high music person” in Trinidad convinced Pan Trinbago to change the text accompanying the criteria and allocate a specific number of points to each sub-category of Arrangement, Performance, Tone and Rhythm. Based on my experience, the text that now accompanies the sub-categories is detrimental to the manner in which a judge has to mark a band. This inevitably sets up a situation where the judge is forced to mark a band one way and the band is going to be subjected to inaccurate points from a judge.
The awkward and regressive outcome was that re-harmonization is now weighted the heaviest-twelve (12) points, even though it is the least utilized of all the arranging techniques. So, based on my analysis of the comments from the judges at the semis in February, my opinion is that the judges do not have a full understanding of what re-harmonization means. I am basing this on the paucity of specific comments on the re-harmonization process. Since the judges are now required to award the most points in the Arranging category to re-harmonization, this approach inevitably yields organized chaos.
In the score sheets in Table 2 , the judge on the left made the comment under Performance, “Colour appropriate with the conversation between the pans.” This is an example of a comment which, in my opinion, is totally useless to an arranger; and it exemplifies how the text has forced this judge to write a comment that is incomprehensible. What is an arranger supposed to do with that comment? There really is not anything that the judge on the left said that focuses on the music being played. However, the judge on the right made an attempt to address how the leads were functioning. It was without specificity though, and unless the leads were unclear for the entire arrangement, it would have been a challenge for the arranger to embrace the comment, know where in the arrangement the judge is referring to, and then go back to the yard and work on clarity of leads.
Let’s move to the judges’ score sheets in Table 3 (above). Now, the judge on the left begins with the comment “Uniquely suggestive opening” and I believe that this was meant to address the Introduction. Wait!! Wait!! I am asking myself the same question you are asking-what dat mean? With regard to the comments from the judge on the right, there is specificity regarding re-harmonization, but the comment is under Performance as opposed to Arranging. I did not want to compromise on what was written on the score sheet, so what you see is what was written. Nonetheless, the comments from both these judges demonstrate again that there is a need to have a common understanding of what the criteria mean. As you can see, the dreaded .5 appears again-without any comment.
In Table 4, while the judge on the left really says nothing particularly constructive, I am, however appalled by the number of times that the judge on the right uses the phrase, “fairly good”. It leads one to wonder whether this judge is a rookie who is yet to develop a vocabulary necessary for judging, or, a judge who was totally bored with the performance and just wanted to get to the other band.
At the root of this myth is the belief that a panman-because he could play or arrange-understands the myriad techniques in a Panorama arrangement. I would argue that such is not the case. It appears to me that this individual just took an adjective, placed it either before or after the text describing the criterion. The norm in Trini is to call every panman a musician, and anybody who utters anything about steelband a musicologist; but we have to be very careful how we use these words. There is a big difference between a musician and an instrumentalist. Michelle Huggins-Watts-the arranger for Valley Harps is a musician and she can also be called an instrumentalist. Nalo Sampson, the front line lead player for Trinidad All Stars is an excellent instrumentalist. While Michelle has served as a judge for the Junior Panorama, I suspect that Nalo would need some training before she is able to serve in that capacity. I use these two female members of the pan sorority in the most positive way and mean no disrespect to Nalo; but the point I am making here is that as far as this judge is concerned-an established pannist/arranger-I am very sorry to say that the method used to judge this band supports my theory about the use of pannists/arrangers as judges.
SOME OBSERVATIONS
I received score sheets from nine bands altogether-seven of which were in the large band category. Printing all the score sheets would make the article much too long. To see all the score sheets I received, please visit www.tntreview.com.
In my opinion, the objective of a judge’s comments is to provide some guidance or feedback for the arranger to improve his/her arrangement. There ought to be specificity with a judge’s comments, because if the comments are too broad or vague, the arranger has nothing to go on in terms of improving his/her arrangement for the next round. I happened to be in Trinidad when the show Dancing With The Stars was aired recently, and have been told that the show is quite popular in Trinidad. The judges on that show epitomize the responsibility and accountability that judges should have when they critique a performance, and Panorama judges should strive to achieve that level of detail with their comments. Furthermore, it might not be a bad idea to institute aural comments when judges visit the yards in the preliminaries; I have a strong feeling that attendance at pan-yard judging would increase two-fold.
Quantitatively, about 1 percent of the comments on the score sheets I received specifically addressed the music played by the bands. I read all the comments and there were six comments-and I am placing myself in an arranger’s shoes-that I could have taken back to the yard to work on my arrangement. Here’s an idea of what I might write on a score sheet if I were in the role of a judge:
I liked the way you coupled the first few bars of the verse with the hook of the chorus to come up with your intro, and the transition from the intro to the first verse was very effective. Or, when the background pans played the melody of the verse at about 3:16 into the arrangement, there was too much activity with the front line pans, and this hampered the clarity of that section. I suggest you temper the tenors a bit, or strengthen the bass part with the guitars or cellos.
Several arrangers I spoke to said that they don’t even look at the comments; this is sad because somewhere among the variety of comments, there should be something of consequence that the arranger could use to make the arrangement better. However, because the majority of comments are not focused on the music, I can well understand why arrangers’ attitude to the judges’ comments.
The process of adjudicating is a very responsible undertaking, and with that undertaking comes a certain amount of accountability. For too long, the executive of Pan Trinbago has not called on the judges to be accountable for what they write on the score sheets, and judges have not voluntarily demonstrated such accountability. So when a judge uses “fairly good” seven times to describe a band’s performance, and the same phrase from the same judge is seen several times on the score sheets of other bands, one can understand the demand by arrangers for foreign judges.
Another concern of many arrangers was Pan Trinbago’s decision to discontinue throwing out the highest and lowest scores. This year’s Panorama saw an aggregate of all the scores, and while I do not have any specific philosophy on scoring, I believe that giving the steelbandsmen some empowerment could bring about some healthy dialogue on the best methodology with regard to scoring.
One arranger reported a conversation with an executive member of Pan Trinbago who encouraged him to furnish a list of names whom he thought would be good for the judging process. He did so and took the list to the executive only to have another member of the executive shoot down all the names. Arrangers are supposed to have a say in the selection of judges, but my interviews with several arrangers suggest that they have very little- if any- input in selecting judges. Several executives of Pan Trinbago are affiliated with one band or another, and when you have these same executives choosing judges to adjudicate a band with which they have some affiliation, you have a major conflict of interest-major! This situation obviously needs to change.
In conversation with an arranger who was totally fed up with the adjudication process, I suggested the idea of having a band’s score projected on a screen immediately after a band’s performance-just like Dancing With The Stars- as one way of ensuring accountability on the part of adjudicators. He replied that he had already made the suggestion only to be told that “dey go pelt the judges if dey eh like what dey see!” There are competitions world-wide where the judges have to expose their scores immediately after each performance, and while this sort of change will be difficult for the steelband movement to embrace, it could raise the level of accountability on the part of the judges. Here it is in 2009- before the scores are released, Pan Trinbago ushers the judges out from the judging area. What is the problem?
RECOMMENDATIONS
There are a number of recommendations that I would make to Pan Trinbago in the interest of reducing the level of rancor that follows each Panorama competition:
(1) Training
The judges must attend a training session before the Panorama season starts-every Panorama season. The arrangers should be included in these sessions and the session must be facilitated by a qualified musician and/or an individual who has studied music that is not limited to classical music, is an arranger, understands what arrangers are doing, and has a substantial amount of credibility.
(2) Criteria descriptions must be removed.
The Introduction sub-category of the Arrangement category says: “the count should be clear, demanding attention and the right tempo, execution flawless, good balance.” In assessing an intro in a Panorama arrangement, this language is just ludicrous. Nobody counts a band at Panorama; the person responsible for starting the band knocks the side of the pan, and that person is not going to start to knock the pan unless s/he is sure that everybody is ready to start. So to talk about the right tempo, execution flawless, and good balance for an intro is just asinine.
(3) As previously stated, the points allocated to all
the sub-categories must be removed.
In the category of General Performance, the descriptions of the sub-categories are just awful. Dynamics has two sub-categories and with texture, there is the description “Use of melodic/harmonic strategies to complement expressiveness and style.” One does not use strategies in an arrangement; one uses techniques. So again, the “high music person” who convinced Pan Trinbago to incorporate that text into the criteria is misguided. Creativity is a tool that arrangers use when they are doing an arrangement so it ought to be in the Arrangement category, not General Performance. If you listen to Trini to de Bone on the Reid, Wright and Be Happy CD, when I take my piano solo you will hear that from an improvisational point of view, I super-imposed a number of Kitch’s melodies-Dr. Kitch, Trouble in Arima, My Pussin and [All Day All Night Miss Marianne]-over the stop time; that is creativity. So to tell a judge that creativity is limited to “the artistry and skill with which the arranger modifies the melody” is very narrow from an arranging perspective. Creativity covers much more than that one sentence.
If you have a formula that is supposed to produce a specific outcome, and you change the formula, you cannot expect the same outcome. The text accompanying the criteria is bad, real bad, and when you combine that text with judges who have varying interpretations of the criteria and what the text means, you are bound to have chaos. When you look at all the score sheets you will see a comment from a judge under Performance that says, “expressive textural strategies.” This is an example of a judge who was driven to respond to the text under Performance, and this begs the question, what dat mean boy?
CONCLUSION
On Carnival Saturday on a news segment on i95.5fm, the President of Pan Trinbago said that in order to add more elements to the finals, Pan Trinbago planned to have some entertainment while the judges deliberate. And also, because the same six or seven bands keep emerging in the finals year after year, they are working on bringing the zonal finalists to the finals. With all due respect to Mr. Arnold, the judges are not deliberating. As far as I know, the scores are being entered into a spreadsheet that is calculating all the scores as soon as a band completes its performance, so within five seconds after the last score goes in to the spreadsheet, the results are available. It is better to say that entertainment will be added while some administrative tasks are coordinated and completed. He said that after Carnival, Pan Trinbago intends to sit down and do some planning. I trust that this planning will include a review of the adjudication process.
In announcing his candidacy for the presidency of the United States of America, Barack Obama’s mantra was change I believe that the time for change has to come to the most prestigious steelband competition in the world. It has to start with the judging. When the President Obama comes for the Summit of the Americas, ah go try a ting to see if ah could have him buss a lime with one or two executives and some steelbands men so that he could institute some change.
For complete story go to http://www.tntreview.com/?p=427
JUDGING THE JUDGES
Trinidad and Tobago Review
Posted on 10 April 2009
One of the practices that really irked me was the awarding of .5 of a point by some judges. As you will see, there are a few judges who, for no apparent reason awarded a band .5 of a point in a couple of areas. When I say that there was no reason for the .5 of a point I mean that there was no explanation or justification for the .5 of a point. In a number of cases the .5 occurred under the criterion of “Tone.” I had score sheets from seven bands in the large band category, and after separating the score sheets by a judge’s name, there was one judge who gave every band listened to 4.5 for “Blending of pans/Consistency” and 4.5 for “Rich quality of sound”.
Tone has always been part of the criteria for the judges to use when adjudicating Panorama, but for 1993, the description was modified. When judging that criterion, the intent was to have the judge listen to the overall tuning of a band, and unless the ear perceived some real bad tuning/blending, the band should get ten (10) points. So when these judges give a band 4.5 for “blending of pans/consistency”, and 4.5 for “rich quality of sound” I am baffled as to how they are able to discern that the tuning and/or blending of over a hundred instruments is off by .5 of a point. They cannot be human. Each large band has between 25 - 30 lead or tenor pans, and given the fact that each band had to have a maximum of 100 players for this year’s semis and finals, this leaves 70 - 75 players playing more than a single pan. So the real number of instruments in an orchestra is probably more like 250 - 300, and it is just impossible to ascertain that the tuning or blending of all these percussion instruments is off by .5 of a point.
Here are the actual score sheets of two judges who awarded 4.5 each under the overall heading of Tone and their comments from the semis. The score is on the left and their comments on the right. Some of the writing was not legible, and I solicited my friend to assist me with deciphering some of the handwriting. Whenever we were unsuccessful, the writing we could not understand is indicated by question marks (????)
Another area of concern to me was Arranging. As one who has been trained as an arranger, I was taught to employ various techniques such as melodic development, motivic development and re-harmonization. In 1992, when I heard Panorama, arrangers were using these techniques in their arrangements without having any musical training; however, these techniques were not part of the criteria.
I felt that since the arrangers were already utilizing them, they ought to be included in the criteria and assessed. After a series of meetings with arrangers and judges, this was accepted. Arrangement was allotted 40 points; Performance was allotted 40 points; and Tone and Rhythm were allotted 10 points each. There was no specific numeric breakdown for any of the criterion.
Initially when the criteria was changed, judges would have had to exercise a substantial amount of listening skills, recognize these nuances-melodic development, motivic development and re-harmonization in the arrangement-and appropriately award points based on what they heard. All these nuances were to have been weighted at the discretion of the judge.
In 2006, a “high music person” in Trinidad convinced Pan Trinbago to change the text accompanying the criteria and allocate a specific number of points to each sub-category of Arrangement, Performance, Tone and Rhythm. Based on my experience, the text that now accompanies the sub-categories is detrimental to the manner in which a judge has to mark a band. This inevitably sets up a situation where the judge is forced to mark a band one way and the band is going to be subjected to inaccurate points from a judge.
The awkward and regressive outcome was that re-harmonization is now weighted the heaviest-twelve (12) points, even though it is the least utilized of all the arranging techniques. So, based on my analysis of the comments from the judges at the semis in February, my opinion is that the judges do not have a full understanding of what re-harmonization means. I am basing this on the paucity of specific comments on the re-harmonization process. Since the judges are now required to award the most points in the Arranging category to re-harmonization, this approach inevitably yields organized chaos.
In the score sheets in Table 2 , the judge on the left made the comment under Performance, “Colour appropriate with the conversation between the pans.” This is an example of a comment which, in my opinion, is totally useless to an arranger; and it exemplifies how the text has forced this judge to write a comment that is incomprehensible. What is an arranger supposed to do with that comment? There really is not anything that the judge on the left said that focuses on the music being played. However, the judge on the right made an attempt to address how the leads were functioning. It was without specificity though, and unless the leads were unclear for the entire arrangement, it would have been a challenge for the arranger to embrace the comment, know where in the arrangement the judge is referring to, and then go back to the yard and work on clarity of leads.
Let’s move to the judges’ score sheets in Table 3 (above). Now, the judge on the left begins with the comment “Uniquely suggestive opening” and I believe that this was meant to address the Introduction. Wait!! Wait!! I am asking myself the same question you are asking-what dat mean? With regard to the comments from the judge on the right, there is specificity regarding re-harmonization, but the comment is under Performance as opposed to Arranging. I did not want to compromise on what was written on the score sheet, so what you see is what was written. Nonetheless, the comments from both these judges demonstrate again that there is a need to have a common understanding of what the criteria mean. As you can see, the dreaded .5 appears again-without any comment.
In Table 4, while the judge on the left really says nothing particularly constructive, I am, however appalled by the number of times that the judge on the right uses the phrase, “fairly good”. It leads one to wonder whether this judge is a rookie who is yet to develop a vocabulary necessary for judging, or, a judge who was totally bored with the performance and just wanted to get to the other band.
At the root of this myth is the belief that a panman-because he could play or arrange-understands the myriad techniques in a Panorama arrangement. I would argue that such is not the case. It appears to me that this individual just took an adjective, placed it either before or after the text describing the criterion. The norm in Trini is to call every panman a musician, and anybody who utters anything about steelband a musicologist; but we have to be very careful how we use these words. There is a big difference between a musician and an instrumentalist. Michelle Huggins-Watts-the arranger for Valley Harps is a musician and she can also be called an instrumentalist. Nalo Sampson, the front line lead player for Trinidad All Stars is an excellent instrumentalist. While Michelle has served as a judge for the Junior Panorama, I suspect that Nalo would need some training before she is able to serve in that capacity. I use these two female members of the pan sorority in the most positive way and mean no disrespect to Nalo; but the point I am making here is that as far as this judge is concerned-an established pannist/arranger-I am very sorry to say that the method used to judge this band supports my theory about the use of pannists/arrangers as judges.
SOME OBSERVATIONS
I received score sheets from nine bands altogether-seven of which were in the large band category. Printing all the score sheets would make the article much too long. To see all the score sheets I received, please visit www.tntreview.com.
In my opinion, the objective of a judge’s comments is to provide some guidance or feedback for the arranger to improve his/her arrangement. There ought to be specificity with a judge’s comments, because if the comments are too broad or vague, the arranger has nothing to go on in terms of improving his/her arrangement for the next round. I happened to be in Trinidad when the show Dancing With The Stars was aired recently, and have been told that the show is quite popular in Trinidad. The judges on that show epitomize the responsibility and accountability that judges should have when they critique a performance, and Panorama judges should strive to achieve that level of detail with their comments. Furthermore, it might not be a bad idea to institute aural comments when judges visit the yards in the preliminaries; I have a strong feeling that attendance at pan-yard judging would increase two-fold.
Quantitatively, about 1 percent of the comments on the score sheets I received specifically addressed the music played by the bands. I read all the comments and there were six comments-and I am placing myself in an arranger’s shoes-that I could have taken back to the yard to work on my arrangement. Here’s an idea of what I might write on a score sheet if I were in the role of a judge:
I liked the way you coupled the first few bars of the verse with the hook of the chorus to come up with your intro, and the transition from the intro to the first verse was very effective. Or, when the background pans played the melody of the verse at about 3:16 into the arrangement, there was too much activity with the front line pans, and this hampered the clarity of that section. I suggest you temper the tenors a bit, or strengthen the bass part with the guitars or cellos.
Several arrangers I spoke to said that they don’t even look at the comments; this is sad because somewhere among the variety of comments, there should be something of consequence that the arranger could use to make the arrangement better. However, because the majority of comments are not focused on the music, I can well understand why arrangers’ attitude to the judges’ comments.
The process of adjudicating is a very responsible undertaking, and with that undertaking comes a certain amount of accountability. For too long, the executive of Pan Trinbago has not called on the judges to be accountable for what they write on the score sheets, and judges have not voluntarily demonstrated such accountability. So when a judge uses “fairly good” seven times to describe a band’s performance, and the same phrase from the same judge is seen several times on the score sheets of other bands, one can understand the demand by arrangers for foreign judges.
Another concern of many arrangers was Pan Trinbago’s decision to discontinue throwing out the highest and lowest scores. This year’s Panorama saw an aggregate of all the scores, and while I do not have any specific philosophy on scoring, I believe that giving the steelbandsmen some empowerment could bring about some healthy dialogue on the best methodology with regard to scoring.
One arranger reported a conversation with an executive member of Pan Trinbago who encouraged him to furnish a list of names whom he thought would be good for the judging process. He did so and took the list to the executive only to have another member of the executive shoot down all the names. Arrangers are supposed to have a say in the selection of judges, but my interviews with several arrangers suggest that they have very little- if any- input in selecting judges. Several executives of Pan Trinbago are affiliated with one band or another, and when you have these same executives choosing judges to adjudicate a band with which they have some affiliation, you have a major conflict of interest-major! This situation obviously needs to change.
In conversation with an arranger who was totally fed up with the adjudication process, I suggested the idea of having a band’s score projected on a screen immediately after a band’s performance-just like Dancing With The Stars- as one way of ensuring accountability on the part of adjudicators. He replied that he had already made the suggestion only to be told that “dey go pelt the judges if dey eh like what dey see!” There are competitions world-wide where the judges have to expose their scores immediately after each performance, and while this sort of change will be difficult for the steelband movement to embrace, it could raise the level of accountability on the part of the judges. Here it is in 2009- before the scores are released, Pan Trinbago ushers the judges out from the judging area. What is the problem?
RECOMMENDATIONS
There are a number of recommendations that I would make to Pan Trinbago in the interest of reducing the level of rancor that follows each Panorama competition:
(1) Training
The judges must attend a training session before the Panorama season starts-every Panorama season. The arrangers should be included in these sessions and the session must be facilitated by a qualified musician and/or an individual who has studied music that is not limited to classical music, is an arranger, understands what arrangers are doing, and has a substantial amount of credibility.
(2) Criteria descriptions must be removed.
The Introduction sub-category of the Arrangement category says: “the count should be clear, demanding attention and the right tempo, execution flawless, good balance.” In assessing an intro in a Panorama arrangement, this language is just ludicrous. Nobody counts a band at Panorama; the person responsible for starting the band knocks the side of the pan, and that person is not going to start to knock the pan unless s/he is sure that everybody is ready to start. So to talk about the right tempo, execution flawless, and good balance for an intro is just asinine.
(3) As previously stated, the points allocated to all
the sub-categories must be removed.
In the category of General Performance, the descriptions of the sub-categories are just awful. Dynamics has two sub-categories and with texture, there is the description “Use of melodic/harmonic strategies to complement expressiveness and style.” One does not use strategies in an arrangement; one uses techniques. So again, the “high music person” who convinced Pan Trinbago to incorporate that text into the criteria is misguided. Creativity is a tool that arrangers use when they are doing an arrangement so it ought to be in the Arrangement category, not General Performance. If you listen to Trini to de Bone on the Reid, Wright and Be Happy CD, when I take my piano solo you will hear that from an improvisational point of view, I super-imposed a number of Kitch’s melodies-Dr. Kitch, Trouble in Arima, My Pussin and [All Day All Night Miss Marianne]-over the stop time; that is creativity. So to tell a judge that creativity is limited to “the artistry and skill with which the arranger modifies the melody” is very narrow from an arranging perspective. Creativity covers much more than that one sentence.
If you have a formula that is supposed to produce a specific outcome, and you change the formula, you cannot expect the same outcome. The text accompanying the criteria is bad, real bad, and when you combine that text with judges who have varying interpretations of the criteria and what the text means, you are bound to have chaos. When you look at all the score sheets you will see a comment from a judge under Performance that says, “expressive textural strategies.” This is an example of a judge who was driven to respond to the text under Performance, and this begs the question, what dat mean boy?
CONCLUSION
On Carnival Saturday on a news segment on i95.5fm, the President of Pan Trinbago said that in order to add more elements to the finals, Pan Trinbago planned to have some entertainment while the judges deliberate. And also, because the same six or seven bands keep emerging in the finals year after year, they are working on bringing the zonal finalists to the finals. With all due respect to Mr. Arnold, the judges are not deliberating. As far as I know, the scores are being entered into a spreadsheet that is calculating all the scores as soon as a band completes its performance, so within five seconds after the last score goes in to the spreadsheet, the results are available. It is better to say that entertainment will be added while some administrative tasks are coordinated and completed. He said that after Carnival, Pan Trinbago intends to sit down and do some planning. I trust that this planning will include a review of the adjudication process.
In announcing his candidacy for the presidency of the United States of America, Barack Obama’s mantra was change I believe that the time for change has to come to the most prestigious steelband competition in the world. It has to start with the judging. When the President Obama comes for the Summit of the Americas, ah go try a ting to see if ah could have him buss a lime with one or two executives and some steelbands men so that he could institute some change.
For complete story go to http://www.tntreview.com/?p=427
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Kurleigh Lowe on -
This is the first time I have ever seen the judge's sheets. Who is the writer of this article? It could not have been said any better. I agree with many, many of the points, arguments gripes and complaints. Also, I realize that it can be tough to make "real-time" analysis and so can sympathize a bit with the judges -- but then comments like "color appropriate with conversation of pans" did leave me scratching my head...were they referring to the color of the band's costumes? or the color of the music the band was playing? which leads one to wonder color=texture? or color=sonority? or color=overall shape? My point is color is too vague a word....but then "conversation of pans???" meaning??? the interaction of melodies and counter melodies??? the interaction of bass and lead pans?? the interaction of rhythm against melody?? Again this comment is too vague and then coupled with the color gripe -- maybe I can interpret that it means red, black and white is most appropriate when playing pan? -- arrgggg
So judges may need to be aware that their comments are now subjected to increased scrutiny and they must be given the opportunity and forum to defend such. Yes it is challenging to listen and make decent comments, but when the performance is completed, there is a break of at least fifteen minutes before the next band comes on-stage. During that time, judges should recall and develop their commentary so that it is sensible and can withstand scrutiny. Basically they should build their case why a band gets 4.5 instead of 5 for tonality. Or why they give a band 37/40 for arrangement -- use the time to explain to the arranger (and now public) how the band could have secured all 40 points for arrangement if that is even possible...you have 15 minutes at least!!!!
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Permalink Reply by JJ on -
y not get your score sheet and listen to pan down memory lane and pan in d 21 century tonite and tomorrow nite and see if you measure up with the judges. I think all pan lovers especially those who are quite critical of the judges should do just that after reading the article and getting some mini lessons on how to judge, Use the score sheet, listen and mark and write your comments and see if they can do a better job than the judges. Then send them to the writer of the article for his comments.
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Permalink Reply by Kurleigh Lowe on
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I would absolutely love to get that opportunity. It would be tough to judge online though, because you are going to be restricted to competence of the engineers, camera men and your internet connect speed - but I would absolutely be down for judging (sign me up coach)...I would make my comments and I would ensure there are specific reasons in support for any particular comment.
Further, I believe that whilst music theory is necessary for judging, it is not the key element.
-Intense concentration and focus for 8 minutes or 10 minutes at a time for 7+ bands are the absolute essentials;
-then the judge's ear should be sufficiently trained, to recognize the different scales (major, minor, chromatic, pentatonic are the most popular in panorama arrangements); arpeggios; harmonic progressions, melodic motifs that are often repeated to a fault...
-Then there is the rhythmic awareness that a judge should possess...is the drummer/engine room speeding up, slowing down...are the "drops" together...(because when they are not, the band sounds "muddy," "hazy," or "unclean"), does the arrangement use a variety of rhythms, is a rhythmic pattern or drop over-used, under-used...
-Then the judge should consider the musical structure, is it "intro-verse-chorus-variation-chorus-outro" for example, does the piece end in the same key it began? Does it end in a modulated key, is that effective or distracting? Does the outro climax effectively? Some final "drops" are resounding, but sometimes just too repetitive for example...
Now the challenge is to be aware of all these things (among others not mentioned here) and make quick notes in REAL - TIME....and I would agree that can be near impossible especially if you cannot even recognize a major scale on a single listen....and some panorama arrangements absolutely FLY...so you better have the talent to keep up if you are a JUDGE
When the performing band completes its arrangement, the quick notes you the judge made are most USEFUL only to you because they are yours and your thoughts are still fresh in your mind...this is the point where your music theory and english writing skills will be put to use, because you now have to translate your quick notes into useful and solid information that a discerning public and keen arrangers can now make use of...
So in response to JJ; I am not being critical of judges because they "robbed my band" or any such silliness...I am being critical of judges because they are not helping me to improve my arrangements/music with useful commentary. I know many of the judges are extremely capable musicians and individuals (with impressive resumes) but at the end of the day, your word, your scorecard must be able to withstand the scrutiny and make my next performance an improvement...for example we should know exactly why MY BAND'S arrangement was only worth 28/40 in your eyes. This way, I can improve the next time I am at a Panorama...
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Permalink Reply by JJ on
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You have made extremely great points here. But according to the article, are you aware of how many arrangers read their remarks? Their main interest is a mark....... Why do you think this is so? Others who read theirs tend to be quite cricital of their remarks, and others try to change, only to be told somewhere later that it didn't work....... Whatever happens, lots of changes need to be done. The necessary stakeholders need to meet without fear of being ''attacked'' verbally, but to really sit and listen to ideas and make healthy changes - a forum, without personal attacks. People have become very passionate about "their" band and I think it all boils down to 'money' - something which i think is going to kill panorama. But I do agree with you especially about all the things that a judge has to listen to, remember, and write.
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Permalink Reply by Salah Wilson on -
Well done ...this could not have been stated any better.. I really hope that Pan Trinbago, adjudicators wherever they are and Steelpan Arrangers wherever they are would take the time and read this article, ponder on it and then act accordingly. Keep on writing Mr. Wright ..Steelpan competition world wide needs this information...nuff respect
Salah Wilson
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Permalink Reply by Jeannine Remy on -
Who wrote this?
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Permalink Reply by evan lobo on
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even with all the controversy - would u like to sit through 6hrs of pan - after a while they may all start to sound the same - except for the normal big guns - every year we know how this thing works - the worst on my memory is PHASE 11 birhtday party losing by 1/2 a point - come on then it should be re written - a point or not - this is not maths class - pan for the people - beautiful as always
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Permalink Reply by GospelPan on -
Very good article, Mr. Wright!
Still, even if all the changes were implemented, folks will still complain and they may be correct to do so...judging is a subjective matter, it boils down to what a particular judge likes and dislikes, which will impact how they score. This is an inevitable result of judging music as part of a competition...which is why, there will always be some bacchanal when the results come out.
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Permalink Reply by Sidd on -
Although Mr Wright is a musicologist and music technician, I disagree that all the judges should be highly qualified from a music theory specialist point of view. Pan is an instrument born out of non technicians and non musicologist and non music theorist. This does not mean that today pan can't contain such elements. Pan must also retain it's simplicity. It is in it's smplicity it defies sometimes pure music theory principles. Therefore judges should be mixed both of theorists and non-theorist, musicologists, instrumentalists, music producers, and past pan arrangers from all over the globe. Then the truth will come out. Points will be distributed fairly even if one band wins by .5 No harm then. But simply technicians as judges does nothing for panorama as well.
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Permalink Reply by Bugs on -
I agree with you Sidd - there has to be a mixture of different types of people who are involved in the music. The biggest problem is the one Victor Prescod addressed in his WST interview. The judges need training. Even the NBA has constant mandatory training and reassessment classes for the referees, coaches and players. Similarly, PanTrinbago need to hold workshops, with the arrangers, judges and players to make sure everyone is on the same page.
A few years ago the NBA was concerned that their product was getting boring because the defense was getting too strong. There simply was not enough scoring. Their marketing studies told them that their fan base would increase if they had more scoring. They made rule changes in addition to changing the distance of the three point line. The fans, players, referees and management were all informed of the rules changes - but moreover the referees went through an intense training period.
bugs
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