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Who cares about the music?
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Web Posted -
Saturday,
August 21, 2004 Dear Editor, I finally came to the conclusion that Panorama in TnT (Trinidad and Tobago) and New York, is about a band's performance. In my biased estimation, I would say a band's performance yields around 85% of their score while the other 15% would be allocated towards the musical content of the arrangement.
When I speak to the average person about "who should have won the last panorama?" of any year regardless of whether it be TnT or NY, the common response is something similar to "... that band really beat well, they really performed ..." Very rarely do I hear a response that relates to the musical content of the arrangement. Biased fans, notwithstanding of course. So I wonder what criteria the judges use. How does a judge in fact "judge" one arrangement to be better than another? I've decided to stop asking. By judging the "performance" of bands and focusing less on the arrangements, I am now beginning to see what the judges are seeing, and I can see that Panorama in TnT and NY is about a band's performance.
This would explain CASYM's wins, for obvious reasons. This would explain Pantonic's wins and loss. They perform well every year. When they lost, CASYM was perceived to have performed better, but not necessarily played better music. This would explain Despers USA string of victories ("Fire" notwithstanding, nobody can explain that one!) Who executed better during their winning years? Who cares about the music? This would explain Sonatas' years of reign. The CASYM of their day, but better. The overwhelming response to Metro winning in 1987 with "Say Say" was how tight the band sounded. Not how great the arrangement was. Need I go on... So, can Pantonic win from the one stop [playing position #10? Maybe, but it will have little to do with Bradley's genius and more to do with what the other bands "didn't do." Namely - perform very well. Who cares about the music?
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In TnT, some bands are able to make up significant deficits in scoring and
ultimately final placement from semi-finals to finals. The most
significant changes that the bands seem to make are always performance-related. Not only do the bands' execution or "performance" improve, but
the adjustments that the arrangers make, tend to be performance-oriented.
Additional stops and more crowd-pleasing riffs tend to make up the bulk of
changes from semi-finals to finals. The core arrangement, however, remains
the same. The music-oriented changes, such as varied harmonies or
smoother transitions, etc., tend to have less of an affect on a band's
ability to improve their position. I think Exodus demonstrated this very
well this year. The significant change in their arrangement was an
additional crowd-pleasing riff, and this catapulted their score into
hyper-space. All Stars demonstrates this almost on a yearly basis. Go
ahead and compare semi-finals arrangements to finals and attempt to
classify the types of changes made to the arrangements.
In NY, the luxury of [preliminaries or] the semi-finals is not afforded those bands.
Pantonic tends to perform very well on stage hence their recent string of
victories. I'd like to think their arrangement had something to do with
their victories, but I'm convinced their performance was the "kicker" for
the judges. CASYM's first win was certainly a performance to remember.
Sheer entertainment value was above and beyond anything that the other
bands did, including Pantonic. CASYM is entertaining every year and are
destined to do well year after year in NY.
This would explain the string of victories for Renegades and recent
losses. Jit [Samaroo, arranger] hasn't lost his touch, but the band has. This would
explain Exodus' success. The band has become one of the best executing or
performing bands in the world. Unfortunately, Pelham's arrangements have
neither improved nor declined in musical competence since his first win in
1992.