Winning a contest - think like a judge

If you are involved with an organization that dabbles in competitive art, I guarantee there is a powerful mythology built up around judges.  They are special.  They are not like you and me.  They can watch a whole performance, compare each moment to an ideal model, calculate the differences with unflagging precision, add them up and distill it into a number.  They are never wrong.  Like the oddly mutated ship captains in Dune, they do what they do by a kind of magic that we cannot hope to understand.

OK, wake up – you’re dreaming!

First of all, although the judges talk about an ideal model, there is no such beast.  The ideal model is an abstract concept.  How could there be an ideal model when every performance is unique?  No judge can know ahead of time what your performance would look like if it were perfect – that’s nonsense.  There is no ideal quartet sound, because every voice is unique.  There is no ideal musical approach – that is the realm of creativity.  So before we do anything else, let’s take the judges off their mysterious pedestal.  They are human.  They have been trained to watch an ensemble and give out the “right score” meaning a score that is as close as possible to all the other judges’ scores in their category.  But they arrive at this number more through a holistic, intuitive sense (read the judging manual and look for the phrase “your lifetime of musical experience”) than some scientific, repeatable and accurate process.  We’re attempting to measure the impact of art here, not calculate pi, so it can only be subjective.

And since the poor judges are human and therefore inherently intuitive, emotional creatures, they know what you’re supposed to score, more or less, before you even start singing.  They are not wired up differently from you and me, and the universal human tendency is to make a snap judgment, and then collect evidence to rationalize that judgment.  So if the judge sees a quartet that looks and acts like a group that scores in the A level, they are expecting an A level performance, and they will gather evidence to support that foregone conclusion.  People hate to be wrong.  Opinions have inertia.  They may adjust their score based on what you actually do, but usually no more than five points in either direction.

Don't believe me?  Imagine you're a judge.  There you are in the pit, in a darkened theater, holding a pencil, and facing a blank scoresheet.  The master of ceremonies comes to the podium and announces the next quartet.  “Can I have the doors closed please.  Ladies and gentlemen, representing the Seneca Land district, please welcome The Allentown Four!”  The audience applauds a bit tentatively as four men between 70 and 85 years of age walk slowly in from the wings, dressed in black pants and white shirts, with red sequin bow ties.  Their shoes and belts are mismatched. One is dragging an oxygen tank.  What do you expect is their maximum score?

Now imagine another quartet.  The master of ceremonies comes to the podium and announces them, “Can I have the doors closed please.  Ladies and gentlemen, representing the Mid Atlantic District, please welcome Crossfire!”  (Disclaimer: This might be the name of a real quartet - I don't know, I just like the name.)  The audience started clapping and chanting “Cross Fire! Cross Fire!” in rhythm, five minutes before they came on stage.  Now the audience leaps to their feet and screams and whoops and applauds with enthusiasm.  The quartet walks energetically and confidently on stage.  They are all between 30 and 35 years of age, slim and attractive, wearing casual black suits.  They radiate confidence and humility as they accept the audience’s heartfelt applause.  After gesturing for the applause to die down, they gather at the microphone…”  What do you think they will score?

If you follow this blog, you know that I went through this very exercise not long ago.  It's remarkable how accurate this method is.

So as just one example of their humanity, let's agree that the judges can’t avoid having an impression of your score before you even start singing.  In the barbershop world, this reality is captured in the judges training.  They are trained to make an initial mark on the scoresheet to represent their initial impression, and they won’t move the mark very far from that original point.  If you think I'm making it up, ask a judge!  It goes without saying that you want that impression to be higher than your “real skill level” if possible, not lower.  And that is the topic of our next article.