How Do Jury Members Listen to and Evaluate Performances?

2016/04/06 | コメント(0)  | トラックバック(0)  | 
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How do jury members listen to and evaluate performances in competitions? Many of you would be interested in it. Recently, PTNA sent out questionnaires to jury members to survey their own criteria of judging. The questionnaires, based on multiple choices system, ask which element(s) they put priorities when listening to performances. Here is the result (473 responses).

1. Beauty of the sound and sonority
2. Appropriate musical time and rhythm  
3. Understanding of musical structures
4. Balance between melody and accompaniment
5. Stylistic understanding of 4 periods
6. Enjoy one's own music
7. Appropriate use of pedaling
8. Accuracy and clarity of notes
9. Appropriate execution of dynamics
10. Tempo setting
11. Memorization of scores
12. Stage manner

Here are additional comments from some respondents. 
They observe --- How to play each voice, how to identify, differentiate, or blend each other in Baroque pieces, including those of counterpoint form / Whether they understand harmonic progression, musical structure and appropriate phrasing, etc. / How to keep physical attitude during performances, in regards of posture, breath, the balance between relaxed shoulder and arm, and accurate movement of wrists and fingers / How to play notes as if you are singing, besides appropriate understanding and execution of tempo, rhythm, phrasing, harmony, structural understanding / One's own musicality and individuality. 

Miwa Yuguchi, a pianist and one of jury members, picks up 3 points that she thinks important.

1. Potential ability: There are two kind of performances;  those who are well taught and trained by their teachers, and those who play with their own sensitivity and endeavor. There is no definite answer whether jury members have to evaluate performances fitself or ftheir potential ability, though, it is one of the important tasks for us to see their future in the long run.

2. Intellectuality: It is significant to observe if they have own idea, and express it accordingly. The important thing is the natural flow of music and image, in other words, how to understand the music objectively and face with it with well-balanced sensibility and clear image. 

3. personality: Performances reveal everything they have; how to live, how to think and behave.  Sometimes I see those who play music to show off their abilities. Although I don't underevaluate those performances, they will possibly have problem afterward even if they have abundant talents. Anyway, I always listen to performances while paying attention to a lot of things, including those not being heard or obviously expressed. 


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