I refer to the letter in BB5087 from Mr. T. Newiss regarding adjudication and criteria.

As the adjudicator in question I thought it only right for me to enlarge on the comments I made at Troon on completion of the 3rd Section, particularly in view of the positive response of T. Newiss and other comments made to me personally.

The letter from T. Newiss contains a scenario that is all too common and a dilemma for all brass bands and their conductors at all levels. It has also been interesting to read other recent letters that complain that the brass band contest and in particular the somewhat controversial and vexed question of adjudication has largely remained unchanged for the last 100 years.

I have had certain thoughts about adjudication criteria for many years now, but my mind was driven into overtime by the events at the Brass in Concert Championships in Spennymoor last November. Let me state here and now that I do not wish to criticise any result or adjudication, only to suggest ways of improving the system whereby we get the correct result at contests. ie the best performance of the day wins the contest. Not necessarily the best band in the contest, not necessarily the best conductor, nor interpretation, but the best performance, which is what I think, brass band contests should be about.

At Spennymoor several bands went to town on entertainment and presentation and obviously spent a lot of time, energy, thought, and probably money in gearing their programme to gain marks from the 3 entertainment adjudicators. The band that won the entertainment section and subsequently the whole contest made no effort in this direction and merely sat on stage in formation and played what some would consider an average programme. The band in question, most people will know are very close to my heart so I have no axe to grind, but in conversation with them only days after the event, told me that they were informed that the entertainment adjudicators did not want the `razzamatazz` that other bands were already working hard at and rightly geared their programme accordingly. It appeared that one band had the criteria but other bands were not informed. I do not wish to make issue with this as the contest is now done and dusted, but it did set the thinking in motion as to why bands are not given the criteria so we can spend our rehearsal time working on what we know adjudicators are looking for. I can also accept that this is slightly different because it was entertainment adjudicators, but why can't music judges do the same?

Let me add another dimension to this debate. I have been an Associated Board Music Examiner for almost 10 years. The Board issue a detailed list of criteria for every graded examination and the examiners are standardised and moderated regularly to the criteria. Every candidate and teacher entering examination knows exactly what the examiner is looking for and can work precisely to that end. I am sure we could do something similar in brass band contests, which would take away the `blind` rehearsal time we all put in.

In my 30 odd years in banding I have been fortunate enough to win many contests as both a player and a conductor, but like many others I have probably lost 10 times that number and a good proportion of those I have felt that if I had known what the adjudicator was looking for beforehand I could have made a better job of it than the winning band.

The issuing of criteria could take several forms. The Association of Adjudicators could issue broad outlines for each section and standardise each adjudicator to conform to them, or an individual adjudicator could set out his own criteria in written form to be distributed to competing bands several weeks prior to the contest. These details could vary from one adjudicator to another, but that wouldn't matter as the bands would know in advance who was adjudicating and what he was looking for.

The comments I made in Troon did receive some derision. An eminent name said to me on the day `Ey what's all this about adjudicators telling the bands in advance about how the piece should go?` as if it was totally outrageous to even suggest such a naive idea, and the report in the BB made a comment about keeping the Association busy for months dealing with it. I say to both, Why not? if the end result is to make contests fairer and to reduce the effect of a single opinion on the overall result then let's at least discuss it.

The Cambridge Contest has been very innovative in its adjudication system, a system with which I totally agree, but in my opinion it can still be improved and this is a way of doing it. But more to the point, the hours and hours of rehearsal time that all levels of bands put into contesting, particularly the Area Contest series, would be time better spent and take away some of the lottery element in our contests.

It would be interesting just to see what other people think of this and if it is consigned to the waste bin, so be it, but at least it shows we can still think about improving our system without being too radical in the overall structure.