Are music competitions necessary?

musicprnt
Wed, 24 Jul 2013 00:14:39 +0000

I am of mixed mind about competitions, in that a lot of them to be honest may not measure a lot, there are a ton of the competitions out there, some are probably indicative of playing ability in that they draw high level students, others, well, may not measure much…

I think the value in them is in learning to prepare for things like auditions, it is about learning to focus on a piece and prepare it for performance, and how to deal with nerves and such. In terms of real world value, though, I don’t think they are the be all and end all either, auditioning for summer programs, for chamber programs, for youth orchestras and such can be just as valuable, and if I had my choice, it would be not to focus on competitions to do other kinds of auditions…but that is me. Again, you have to be careful of competitions, there is a kid locally to where I live people make a big deal out of, he has won all these local competitions, people think he is the next heifetz, and quite bluntly, he probably would not get accepted on violin into a top level pre college program, yet he has been concertmaster of all state and all region, yada yada…

In terms of the value of them on entrance to music schools, I can’t speak for every music school in the country, but for conservatories especially, they basically don’t matter other than for any experience it gives in doing auditions. Having them on a CV might help get into an academic program as an EC, much the same way being in some of the top level music prep programs can lean heavily in admits, but in terms of music schools, they won’t matter, it is all going to be the audition and potentially if any of the panel members already knows you (that primarily for studio placement), it isn’t a a combination of things, that audition pretty much is going to be it.

Again, using competitions as an opportunity/learning experience is a good thing, but they may or may not say much about your abilities, and in terms of predicting your future, or helping get into music programs by winning them, they matter little if at all.