[this is a version of a post which first appeared on my blog From the Front of the Choir]
It’s that time again here in the UK: Choir of the Year 2012 auditions are under way.
Quite often choir members come up to me to ask why we don’t enter. I tell them that’s it’s just not something I’m interested in.
I heard a radio programme recently about the philosophy of sport.
There was a discussion about what philosophers have to say about sports. One philosopher (I forget who) basically said that sports competitions – especially grand slams and knock-out competitions – are for losers.
That is, everyone except the one eventual winner loses. So sports people and knock-out competitors need to get used to the fact that for the vast majority of the time they will be losing.
Same with choir and singing competitions.
Why do people want to go in for these sorts of things?
I guess it’s for those who need some kind of external validation about their self-worth (see an interesting post about Where you get your personal worth from).
As a choir leader, I know when we’re good and when we’re not quite up to scratch – and the singers pretty much know too. We’ve made CDs and performed regularly to appreciative audiences. Even when an audience has been luke-warm, we often know we’ve done really well.
And sometimes even exuberant ovations can’t hide the fact that we weren’t at our best (I’ve touched on this disparity between the audience’s experience and the singers’ experience in a previous post Not everyone experiences a concert in the same way).
We know when we’re doing well, without the need for outside judgment.
What if we do go in for a competition and lose? What will that do to the choir’s self-confidence? Perhaps it will spur the choir on to work harder so they can do better next year. But then surely the focus becomes on the competition and not on the joys of singing?
And what if we actually win?
That will boost our confidence enormously (but we could always sabotage this if we’re not feeling inner confidence: the judges weren’t that discriminating; the other competitors weren’t of a very high standard; not many choirs went in for the competition; etc. etc.).
But it may well only last temporarily. Where do we go then? Bigger and better competitions? Or do we just enter again the next year with even more pressure to win? We’ve won once, won’t it be rather devastating to come second the next time?
(This reminds me of those restaurants who boast that they won an award in 2002, or the village that won Best Village in Bloom in 1998 – how come they’ve become so bad in the intervening years?)
For some choirs, competitions are pretty much their sole purpose. Most barbershop choirs exist to compete and attend conventions. There is, of course, room for this, but personally I’m in it because I love singing!
Chris Rowbury: chrisrowbury.com
