A popular attraction at the state fair, amidst the fried candy bars and corn dogs, is a soccer-playing chicken. A deposited coin launches a little soccer ball into the chicken's pen; the chicken kicks it into the goal, earning a reward of a few kernels of seed. For many band directors in our schools, watching the chicken brings to mind several parallels.

Throughout the course of a school year, many articles and workshops are devoted to increasing the level of performance for secondary level music students. Curricula bulge to incorporate many components of a quality education, including multi-cultural awareness, music theory, music history, and proper instrumental technique. Simultaneously, however, many of the hours spent each week in rehearsal halls center on preparing for large ensemble competitions such as concert and sight-reading contest. This overemphasis on competition distracts from the purpose of a healthy band program.

Does the chicken understand the game of soccer, or any other games? Our goal is for students to graduate from our band programs having gained a fundamental working knowledge of music, its structure, theory, history, and relative placement within academic subjects. National and state standards stress improvisational skills, composition techniques, and listening proficiencies, while scheduling conflicts and pressure from outside activities affect the time limitations of students. Often, cursory comments thrown to students during rehearsals aim to pacify curricular requirements, or satisfy checkpoints within standardized testing lesson plans, leaving little time for exploration of listening, composition, or analysis.

For a "superior" contest experience, approximately ten to twelve weeks of rehearsals are required to bring the level of playing to a point where it can satisfy the highest playing standards of a panel of adjudicators. The director and school administrators, then, must decide if the contest experience is worth sacrificing other music education objectives.

In a program that emphasizes contests, the students graduate from high school intimately knowledgeable of a few dozen songs, while seldom experiencing a wider range of repertoire. Over the course of a typical school year, marching contest, for those schools that march, depletes the fall months and concert contest exhausts the spring months. Whatever energy and resources remain limits the director to preparing for solo and ensemble contest, all-region band auditions, jazz band, and other school obligations such as pep rallies, musicals, and assemblies. Proper perspective about contest would free the director to devote more of the rehearsal time to objectives such as appropriate pedagogy, while enhancing the technical and musical needs of the individual students.

How many times can the chicken play the game before it tires of the game? For many band students, the repetition of preparing for a contest fails to instill within them a lifelong interest in continuing to play their musical instruments. Instead, they learn that playing an instrument involves the drilling of individual passages until the music is played in an automatic way. To truly provide lifelong skills to students, directors must offer playing opportunities that mirror the types of experiences students will participate in as adults - community bands, church orchestras, or playing for family and friends at holiday times. I treasure those moments when former students tell me they are playing in their college's flute choir, their town's community band, or have put together a brass ensemble at their company. I have never had a former student return to reminisce about getting a "Superior" at contest.

Those who embrace competition, in music or any other academic subject, hold perfection as the true measure of a successful program. Proponents state that knowing a few pieces extremely well greatly benefits students, allowing a student to strive for perfection by setting goals and working within the ensemble to reach them. However, what can occur in this situation is that students and teachers learn to manipulate instruments and sounds in order to achieve a result mandated by inflexible established standards, and ultimately a reward of a first division trophy. Gone is the attempt to recreate the composer's intent, or to play with passion and emotion, leaving little room for errors or mistakes. Favorable results, for the competitive band, require students to strip the music to the notes on the page, with minimal imagination or interpretation. Moreover, for many of the independent school bands, unorthodox instrumentation prohibits the group from playing with the composer's instrumentation, further hindering the "accepted" sound sought by adjudicators. Several times at contest, our band has received comments about needing more bassoons or tubas, when we did not even own those instruments.

Will the operator replace the chicken if it quits performing consistently? The pressure mounts for a director who manages a program with its focus on trophies, medals, ratings, and ribbons. The pressure comes from parents demanding first divisions as tangible evidence of a successful program. School administrations and communities touting their schools' offerings easily glean contest ratings as confirmation that their schools are achieving success, becoming all the more attractive to potential applicant families. Directors concerned with maintaining their current positions may continue to feel driven to produce acceptable results at contest.

Abolishing all contests and ratings might be too drastic, but directors willing to support non-competitive events may find the expectations of students, parents, and administrators for superior performances unchanged despite ratings. The worth of a thriving program should not be determined by one twenty-minute performance during the course of the school year. Obviously, a contest rating signifies what happens on the stage on that given day, but many directors find themselves comparing their programs using that particular rating as the measuring stick.

A healthy band program's calendar will be a mixture of contests, chamber music performances, recitals, attendance at area concerts, commissions of new pieces, hosting visiting artists, and non-competitive performances for the large ensemble. Those adventurous directors who want to see an example of a highly successful program that made a lasting impact on band repertoire and programming may want to read One Band That Took A Chance, by Brian H. Norcross. The book details the period during the 1950s and 60s when Frank Battisti directed the Ithaca HS band and highlights his philosophy of student composition, rehearsal preparation, and commissioning pieces. Although incorporating non-competitive events during the year can be tricky at first - a quick Google search of "band competitions" garnered 17.5 million documents, compared to less than 150,000 documents for "non-competitive band event" - a creative director will find plenty of opportunities to showcase student talent once the emphasis is placed on musical growth and maturity instead of trophies or medals.

Our regional association, ISAS, hosts an annual non-competitive festival to celebrate all areas of fine arts. The opportunity of performing for friends from other schools provides ample motivation for the students to perform at their highest level. Our band's annual community service performances for nursing home residents, hospitals, and the local Salvation Army distribution center consistently are events that former students talk about after they graduate. Our jazz combo, a student led group, performs for local charity and fundraising events, often performing pieces that they have composed and/or arranged. Little direction regarding correct phrasing, tuning, articulation, interpretation, or enthusiasm is necessary from me when a roomful of eager jazz fans is listening and analyzing with their applause [a roomful of eager jazz fans listen and analyze with their applause ?]. Our decreased emphasis on contests allows our percussion ensemble time to work on recital pieces, the African drum ensemble to perform for local events, our upper school band members time to learn a second instrument for big band or woodwind choir, as well as providing space within our rehearsals for listening or analysis. Playing soccer with a square ball or without a net may frighten some schools or directors, but there are plenty of alternative programming ideas for the independent school band.

Responsible music education leads students through the adventure of music making and teaches the proper techniques of instrumental playing so students can negotiate their way through as many musical experiences as possible. It prepares them for a lifetime of playing an instrument, creates discriminating listeners, and produces consumers of music. Graduates are the future patrons of the symphony, members of community bands, and customers of classical and jazz radio stations; and they may one day sit on boards of directors for operas, ballets, civic choruses, and other arts groups.

After a worthy performance the middle and high school music student should take a bow with pride, knowing that she has performed to her very best ability without the added anxiety of receiving a rating or ribbon. Successful programs strive for excellence regardless.

Works Cited:
Norcross, Brian H. One Band That Took A Chance. Meredith Music Publications, 1994.

Brian Donnell is in his 19th year as band director at Greenhill School in Dallas. He has a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of North Texas and a MLA from SMU. Specific information about the Greenhill band program can be found on its band's webpage: www.greenhill.org/band.

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