I like to know what other teachers think. Thanks.

Teachers must do their homework and find out the nature of each festival and competition. Enter the average students in the less competitive ones, and enter the really talented students in the more competitive ones. It's really not that complicated.

There is no dominant ethic of fairness that should govern how every event is run. There is instead a diversity of goals and norms.

I think the fairest competitions are based on level of playing - where they have a list of what pieces they consider to be "advanced" "intermediate" etc. and the competitors choose from that list.

who actually punish the talented students in the easier categories

They keep on sending kids in method books to the most challenging events.

By saying so, you mean competition at your branch is base on easier or harder categories (level) but not age?

This is really weird. Don't those events have a pre-screening? Top auditions require students to list the repertoire they have played for the previous year or 18 months. The organizers can then limit the competition to students who have achieved at least a certain minimum level of proficiency.

Well, the person who enters a nine year old playing level 2 into any kind of competition has judgment issues.

That's the way the Federation state level competition in Virginia was (is) run. They take the various levels (oh, perhaps twenty of them) and bundle them into three super levels. You still wind up having early intermediate students competing against early advanced students within the same level, but that at least narrows the field a bit.

But I would hesitate to call this "fairest" in any objective sense. As AZN notes, you can have an advanced student go back and clean up in an easier category, both because they are older (and more musically mature) and because they are simply better. That's not fair to the students who are younger and who have just begun to mature into their current level.

In my area, we have a major scholarship audition for high school and below that is divided into junior and senior categories, by age. Thirteen and under is junior. Fourteen and up is senior. Period. Clearly, a fifteen year old intermediate student has no chance in the senior category. Many have tried, and for them it's just a performance opportunity. That's OK with me. I don't find that particularly unfair. These high schoolers aren't allowed to go compete with the juniors. Likewise, there are some juniors who are as good as the top seniors. In the junior category, these wind up the winners! What a surprise. That's life. The juniors who are not at that level have something to which to aspire! Everyone is invited to listen to all the performers, so every contestant has the opportunity to hear the others, if they wish.

I have ALWAYS had a problem with competitions for students. Young students in particular.

Music should be about SHARING MUSIC, not competing.

At all levels and ages.


Grrrrr....

end of rant.

Folks, I'm going to reiterate that there are competitions, and there are COMPETITIONS.

When we're talking about events at which many thousands of dollars of scholarship money are given out, this is a serious business. At an event of this sort, it's unlikely that the organizers are interested in hearing a fifteen year old play Mozart's K545. At events of this sort, age-based criteria seem quite sensible. Scholarship auditions are about "the best," and as fraught as that judgment may seem, the "best under ten" has some meaning.

I have no problem with students who seek out competitions as performance opportunities. But there is a reasonableness criterion. It's a waste of just about everyone's time, including the performer's, to have a young person playing a repertoire that is completely out of line with the event. Teachers should do some due diligence to ensure that there is an appropriate match between the student's ability and training, and the event for which they are entered.

. Basically it meant you could only enter if you had started around age 7, otherwise you were way behind everyone.

Fully half of my students don't start at the 'normal' age of 7. The whole learning picture is much more diverse.