XVI Colloquium: July 12 - 19, 2005:
The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
"Discourses and Practices of Hegemony, Power, and Exclusion in Music Education"

Band Festival Adjudication Forms: Text as a Social Influence
Melissa Edwards
University of Victoria, British Columbia

This study examines the influence of text on social relations within a concert band organization at a middle school. The text chosen for this study was an adjudicator's form from a band festival. In a band festival, a panel of adjudicators critique a concert band's performance. Their comments and suggestions are written on an adjudicator's form, which is given to the director who uses the comments and suggestions to improve areas of weakness in the band program. Festivals are not intended to be competitive, yet there are pressures for band directors to well represent their educational institutions when they perform at festival. Such pressures may be detrimental to the educational process of learning music through performance.

Findings from the interviews conducted with the participants revealed discrepancies in opinion about the educational value of attending festival and the festival adjudicator's form as an effective assessment of a band's yearly progress. Each of the four participants held different views about the adjudicator's form and the importance of it as an evaluative tool. While the band director felt the festival experience is an important educational opportunity for students and directors, students stated they would not want to participate in such a performance again and they did not value the educational experience. The former adjudicator interviewed for festival indicated that festival can be an important educational experience for students, but only if it is a part of a well rounded curriculum.

Some band directors spend the year preparing for festival performance, creating a type of "teaching to the test" environment in the classroom. Information from this study indicates that festivals are approached by some band directors in a similar manner as so called "academic" teachers approach standardized tests. Festivals provide an opportunity to assess a single performance, yet many consider these performances to represent an entire year of instruction. Such importance placed on festival performances creates an atmosphere of pressure for the band director, where some decisions are made that are not educationally beneficial to all students.

By investigating the festival experience from the perspectives of student, band director, and adjudicator, one can begin to understand the pressure associated with such performances. Further areas of interest for research are: How do such pressures affect students? Is it beneficial? Do band directors feel able to work with all students or do they feel pressured to work with the most talented, who are going to assist in creating that outstanding festival performance? What are the external pressures that affect educational decisions band directors make?