The most common errors band directors make, told from the perspective of an adjudicator, composer, and music educator.
by Mekel Rogers
PURPOSE
In March of 2024, I had the opportunity to adjudicate three different music performance festivals in two different states. In the span of three weeks, I had evaluated 134 middle school concert bands representing the entire spectrum of musical ability, ensemble size, funding, socio-economic background, ethnic makeup, and director experience. I noticed that with only a few exceptions, almost all of the bands that did not receive Superior ratings were making the exact same mistakes in programming, preparation, and performance. I thought that if I could outline these miscalculations and/or misperceptions in this essay and provide logical practical solutions, it would greatly assist others in their efforts to have a positive festival experience in the future.
DISCLAIMER
I would like to state up front that by no means do I wish to imply that getting a Superior rating is the sole purpose for attending a festival performance, nor do I claim to have the ONLY solution to any of the challenges outlined below. I simply noticed that the feedback I (and my fellow adjudicators) gave to around 90 of the 134 bands we evaluated was very similar if not identical and thought the information was worth sharing.
Finally, I do not wish to offend or sound preachy, but I intend to be brutally honest about what I have observed, without naming people or bands of course. My goal is to help those educators who need or want it, and in my opinion, beneficial growth must come from raw honest truth. I promise that every example I will describe below was something that actually happened and is not a hyperbole on my part (trust me, you can’t make this stuff up).
MY QUALIFICATIONS
I feel the need to first explain how I have developed a unique perspective in this matter, so a brief outline of my background is necessary.
As a music educator, I taught middle school band my entire career. For the last 25 years (1998-2023) I was the band director at Weddington Middle School in Union County, North Carolina. I was the first teacher hired when the school was being constructed and the last of the original staff to leave. I taught 6th grade beginners, 7th grade band, and 8th grade band by myself with no assistance. I did all the recruiting, teaching, fundraising, and directing by myself with just a tuner and a dry erase board (yes I was tired all the time).
WMS attended our annual music performance festival in North Carolina 20 out of those 25 years (we didn’t attend a few times because of new schools opening that took most of my program, and twice during Covid when the event wasn’t held). In all 20 years, WMS earned straight Superior ratings from all four judges (3 stage and 1 sight-reading). I say this not to boast, but to justify that as an educator who was in the trenches just like you, I qualify as someone who “walks the walk”.
As an adjudicator, I have evaluated concert bands at various festivals for over twenty years now, so I feel I qualify as a veteran adjudicator.
As a composer, my first published work was released in 2011. As of 2024, I will have over 50 published works for concert band and string orchestra on five different publishing labels (of which RWS is the BEST of course). About 50% of my published music is on concert band festival lists and is regularly performed (so yes, I’ve adjudicated bands doing my own work many times, which is always flattering no matter how well its performed).
I felt guilty typing all of that because I don’t wish to sound egotistical, (I’m really rather shy), BUT I wanted to make sure that those of you who don’t know me very well are aware of my qualifications. I definitely DON’T know it all, but I can safely say that I have something worthwhile to offer you as a teacher, adjudicator, and composer.
Enough about me. Let’s get into it.
REPERTOIRE SELECTION
This is it, right here. This is the #1 problem. This is where almost everyone who doesn’t get a Superior rating went wrong. Why didn’t they receive a Superior? Because they never had a chance in the first place, simply because they chose the wrong repertoire for the group and doomed their performance from the start.
Not everything on a festival list is good music for a festival performance. Quite frankly, some of it isn’t good music period. Why bad music is on the list in the first place would take five pages to explain so let’s skip that part and just trust me, its not all good.
Some music is good BUT may not be good for a festival performance.
Some music is definitely good for a festival performance BUT not necessarily good for YOU and your band.
How do you tell?
Here are some of the mistakes I’ve actually observed:
A director with three percussionists selects a piece with eight percussion parts.
A director with one trombone player and no bass instruments whatsoever (bass clarinet, bari sax, bassoon, euphonium, tuba) selects a piece in which basses have eight measures of melody and a trombone part independent of the euphonium/tuba part.
A director with 11 players in the band (including only one clarinet and one trumpet) selects a work with two clarinet parts and two trumpet parts.
A director with a band total of 30 players has 15 percussionists, selects a march with three percussion parts (snare/bass/cymbals) and then 13 of the 15 percussions sit down while no one covers the cymbal part. Oh yeah, their second number was “A Childhood Hymn”.
Now, you may rightly think to yourself “What idiot of a director would do that?”
Apparently, a LOT of them.
I always thought it went without saying, but if you have limited instrumentation, select music with the following:
unison clarinet parts
unison trumpet parts
all bass instruments (including trombone) should be exactly the same
alto sax and horn parts should be exactly the same
select music with few percussion parts
In fact, COUNT YOUR PERCUSSION PARTS and make sure you have all parts covered. At a concert festival performance, NO percussion part in the score is “optional”.
THE BIG LIE
The next issue regarding the selection of repertoire deals with the blatant lie that all young directors are told in college.
You ready?
Here’s the lie.
“You need to play a lyrical ballad for one of your selections to show your band’s diversity.”
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Did I mention this is wrong?
Proof?
Twenty years of straight superior ratings and I never once played a ballad at festival. Ever.
In fact, when most adjudicators see a ballad on the program we are preparing for the worst…because it usually happens.
Am I saying that ballads aren’t good music, aren’t great teaching pieces, and should never be played?
No, no, and no.
HOWEVER, you have nothing to gain by performing a ballad at a festival and everything to lose if you don’t play it perfectly.
Purchase them, teach them, but most of all, save them for your spring concert.
DIFFICULTY
I hope this doesn’t exist where you teach, but when I was just starting out, I was brainwashed to think I had to take second year bands in Grade 2, third year bands in Grade 3, and Grade 1 was for people who didn’t know how to teach.
I’m glad I overcame that mentality early on.
There should be no shame in doing any specific level of music. Pick the level that is best for your group. Having said that, I personally believe that a lot of bands play music at festival that is about a half-grade higher than what they should be playing. Judges can tell when the students are struggling with technical things like higher range, more complex rhythms, chromatic notes, tempo alterations, key changes, etc. My approach was
always to go just a tad easier so we could concentrate more on musical concepts like dynamics, phrasing, blend, musicality, things that make the performance sound smooth and effortless. As an adjudicator, I’d rather hear a squeaky clean Grade 1 band over a sloppy Grade 3 band any day.
Also, THERE IS NO SHAME IN GOING FOR COMMENTS ONLY.
Don’t let anyone tell you that CO stands for cop-out. It’s about learning, and you don’t need a rating to learn something. Anyone who tells you otherwise is compensating for something they’re insecure about.
SCORES
For goodness sake order your scores early…
…very early…
…very very early.
I know hardly anything is in stock anymore (thanks Covid) and it takes forever for scores to get shipped, but if you don’t order early, what happens is you end up either purchasing digital versions that you print out or you make copies yourself and attach a proof of purchase but that the scores are backordered.
Both are legal, but here’s the problem.
Most people print or copy the score on regular 8.5×11 paper on ONE side only and paper clip the loose sheets together. So, essentially, a judge has to turn pages about every five measures while looking at a low resolution and smaller version of the score. The solution is to either create a reproduction of the score you printed by copying it double sided on 11×17 paper OR place the individual sheets back to back in plastic page protectors within a three ring binder for easy page turning. You’ll make your adjudicators so happy.
CONCERT DRESS
I have to admit, when I first started judging decades ago, I used to be of the opinion that what the band wore wasn’t important as long as they played well, “who cares if they all wear sneakers as long as they nail the performance”.
After witnessing an endless parade of students who came on stage looking like rejects from a homeless shelter, I’ve changed in my thinking.
Call it getting older, becoming more traditional, my Generation X mentality to look good, whatever you like.
How the students dress matters, and to judges, it matters a lot.
Listen, I’ll be the first person to admit that its fun to wear elf hats or ugly sweaters at the Winter Concert. Fine, go for it, have fun.
At an adjudicated festival performance however, the rules change.
Like it or not, appearances matter, and many judges say they can almost always tell what rating the band will most likely be receiving based on how the students are dressed when they come on stage.
They’re usually right.
Before anyone mentions to me that some of these students are dirt poor and can’t afford to get black shoes, I’ll be happy to refer them to a thrift store where they can buy dress shoes for under ten dollars…
…or just ask the kid to find a pair on Ebay using the $400 smart phone he somehow managed to scrape up the money for.
My rule was always if you weren’t dressed properly the day of the event, you didn’t get on the bus. If the student cares, they’ll dress right, if they don’t, they shouldn’t be going.
That’s an opinion shared by every adjudicator with whom I’ve ever worked.
GUESTS
If you are a young director and you HAVEN’T had someone more experienced come in and listen to your festival group, you may as well not go. I can’t tell you how many performance mistakes I’ve heard that ANY teaching veteran wouldn’t have spotted and corrected had they been invited into that person’s band room to listen to their group.
If you are a young teacher (say, less than five years) you need to be asking EVERYONE questions on how to do things. Admit to being ignorant. There are a lot of friendly veterans that WANT to help you.
But be warned.
There is only a window of about three or four years where you won’t be expected by your peers to know what you’re doing. If you wait to ask because you’re afraid to look ignorant, you’ll keep making the same mistakes and be written off as a director that never figured out how to teach. I’ve seen it happen many times.
At the risk of sounding slightly sexist, I encourage young directors to seek advice from older female directors.
Why?
You may not know this if you are under 40, but band directing used to be an all male profession. Women taught orchestra and choir. When a few of the women from the Baby Boomer generation started becoming band directors, they had to be UNBELIEVABLY successful to be recognized properly in the profession.
Things were getting better in my generation (Gen X) but there was still an unspoken need to prove oneself as a female director, and even then, the gender balance didn’t really extend to the high school level. You Millennials out there were the first generation to REALLY close the gap in the band director gender imbalance, so props to you.
My point is, any female director in their 50s or 60s is going to REALLY know their stuff and be very happy to share it with you, especially if you are a young female director. If you are a young male director, they will gladly help you as well…
…just ask nicely.
RESEARCH
Two things about the music you perform…
First, LISTEN TO A RECORDING OF THE MUSIC, either a studio recording from the publisher or a really good performance. This should be a no brainer, but I’ve adjudicated many bands where it was blatantly obvious that the director has NEVER listened to a recording of the work. You need to know what the composer and publisher want the piece to sound like so you know how to properly interpret the piece. Sure you can tweak a few things that you think are musically valid but the essence of the work needs to be what the composer and publisher intended.
Second, READ THE PROGRAM NOTES.
I asked a director once what they were playing for festival. When he mentioned Brian Balmages’ “Colliding Visions” I asked him if he had told the kids what the piece was about since it was such a poignant work.
He looked at me questioningly and asked, “What is the piece about?”
It was a week before the performance.
The answer was extremely poignant and in the program notes he had never read.
Thankfully, he did read them that day and it changed his entire interpretation of the work.
Some pieces aren’t that deep in meaning, but every work has something to say, so find out what it is and say it.
WE DON’T NEED NO PENCILS
Yes you do.
I can’t tell you how many missed notes I’ve heard simply because people didn’t MARK THEIR PARTS.
I guess the director never made the kids mark them, or worse, the director didn’t even hear them being played wrong for the two months they were working on the music.
I always have the kids mark parts for fall and spring concerts, but for concert festival music, I mark one of each part myself BEFORE making copies so that EVERY kid has their music already marked the way I want it.
Yes, obviously mark the G# or something else weird outside the key. However, what you REALLY need to do is mark what I call “problem pitches”.
Here’s what I mean.
About 80% of middle school band music is written in either Bb Concert or Eb Concert. The ONLY note that changes between those two keys is the Concert A/Ab respectively. So, when I mark parts for festival, I go through the piece and label EVERY single concert A/Ab no matter if its obvious or not. For woodwinds, I write in the natural symbol or flat symbol (natural or sharp for saxes). For the brass, I write in the actual number of the fingering or slide position. So for example, if you are playing a piece in Bb Concert, I go through the trombone part and put a “2” over every single “A” in the piece whether you think they need it or not.
It’s not cheating the kids, it’s called covering your arse, and you need to do it, because no one else will.
I refer to this process as “idiot proofing” the music. DON’T rely on the kids to do it. YOU do it before copying and handing out the parts. As an added bonus, if the kid loses his music, your spare copy is already marked as well.
THE EVALUATION SHEET
Okay lets get into the actual judges sheets. I’m using the North Carolina/South Carolina sheets as an example but I’m assuming all states probably have something similar.
The seven captions for the sheets are listed below along with the most common critiques made by judges when adjudicating a band with performance issues. These are some actual words I’ve written:
TONE (beauty, blend, control)
tone quality is edgy and/or bright due to over blowing, work for more control and beauty of sound
snare drum and bass drum are playing way too loud and affecting the tone of the drum, play close to the head for control, use the wrist rather than the entire arm, and bounce off the head to pull the sound out of the drum instead of beating sound into the drum
clarinet embouchures are loose and causing tone to be thin and unsupported. Firm corners, flat chin, and tap barrels to check embouchure firmness
alto saxes playing too loud due to overblowing and possibly thin reeds
brass sound thin and tight due to too much mouthpiece pressure, open the teeth and support with air for a warmer sound
INTONATION (chords, melodic line, tutti)
trumpets MUST use their third valve slide to keep their low D from being way out of tune, extend the slide playing a low D while using a tuner to see how far out it needs to be
clarinet and saxophone are under pitch due to loose embouchures, work to strengthen by firming corners, flattening the chin, and tapping barrels in the classroom
work simple chord exercises so students know what a root, 3rd, 5th, and 7th of a chord sounds like
in rehearsal play short notes as long chords so the students can lock onto pitch better and hear their role in the chord
TECHNIQUE (articulation, facility, precision, rhythm)
many missed pitches due to not paying attention to key signature, mark your parts to avoid pitch mistakes
accent means to separate and emphasize
for a good march style use separated quarter notes and staccato 8ths
percussion must watch the director to avoid music phasing with the band
when playing a dotted 8th/16th rhythm, play the dotted 8th short to help with clarity
when playing four 8th notes (2 slurred and 2 tongued) you need to cut the end of the slur (2nd note) short to achieve clarity
BALANCE (ensemble, sections)
make sure accompaniment doesn’t cover melodic lines, students need to be aware of their roles in the music at any given time
percussion is playing too loud, support the winds but stay underneath their volume
snare drum is too loud
bass drum is too loud
snare drum and bass drum are too loud
play softer on the bass drum to avoid sticking out
play softer on the snare drum to avoid sticking out
play softer snare drum and bass drum to avoid covering the band
snare drum and bass drum need to balance with the band
snare drum and bass drum need to do the dynamics with the band
snare drum and bass drum need to decrescendo with the band
snare drum and bass drum need to lower their default volume
snare drum and bass drum need to play closer to the head so they aren’t too loud
snare drum and bass drum need to use the wrist instead of the entire arm so that it doesn’t get too loud
muffle the bass drum with your free hand so it doesn’t get too loud
consider using only one snare drum player to keep it from being too loud and overpowering the band
you need a sniper to take out your snare drum player (okay I just made that one up, but you get the idea).
INTERPRETATION (expression, phrasing, style, tempo)
work on stagger breathing to avoid dropping phrases and creating gaps in the sound
stagger breathe to connect phrases better
observe tempo markings as written in the score
don’t ignore a rit. or rall. by keeping the same tempo
there are many tempo alterations that were completely ignored, be sure to adhere to what is indicated in the score
MUSICAL EFFECT (artistry, fluency)
percussion volume detracts from overall music effect (here we go again)
percussion needs to do dynamics with the band for better effect
adhere to dynamic markings
all dynamic markings were ignored, be sure to observe dynamic changes
crescendos get out of control due to not playing soft enough beforehand
attention to basic concepts of tone and tuning will greatly improve overall effect
OTHER FACTORS (repertoire, instrumentation, discipline, appearance)
select music more appropriate for the ability level of the ensemble
select music better suited for the limited instrumentation of the ensemble
consider an alternative to white sneakers as appropriate concert attire for an adjudicated performance
consider an alternative to red sneakers as appropriate concert attire
consider an alternative to jeans as appropriate concert attire
consider an alternative to shorts as appropriate concert attire
consider an alternative to t-shirts as appropriate concert attire
consider an alternative to flip flops as appropriate concert attire
consider an alternative to spiked bracelets as appropriate concert attire
consider an alternative to tiaras as appropriate concert attire
(I promise you all those are true)
CONCLUSION
I sincerely wish you all the best in your festival performances. We as adjudicators WANT so badly for your bands to do well. We genuinely feel for the bands that struggle. Every judge I’ve ever worked with was at one time (or still is) a middle school band director who went through the exact same challenges you have.
We understand.
We want to help.
Please ask.
Sincerely
Mekel
