Are music competitions necessary?

musicprnt
Wed, 24 Jul 2013 13:10:16 +0000

Pro Musician raises a point against competitions I think, and that is many of them are one dimensional, they often tend to focus on technical brilliance (on the violin, playing with tight intonation is a biggie), though stage presence IME is often as bad as musicality and musicianship (the one competition my son got into, on the national level, had a kid win I couldn’t believe won it, technically he wasn’t that great, and he was aweful on stage, grimaced, shifted from foot to foot, had no stage presence, and his musicality was basically doing what his teacher taught…meanwhile there was this fantastic girl who was the real deal, who finished third)…

There can be benefits to competitions, they can have cash prizes that help pay for things, they often offer performance opportunities, but as to other factors, not so much, including that to be honest, many of them are judged by people who may not have a clue what is out there musically, what is going on in music programs at the college level…

This isn’t just pre college, there is a lot of argument if the competitions, even the big ones, matter post college, and there are some interesting arguments about that.