Why Use Recorded Adjudication at your Brass Band
Competition?
At a UK brass band competition or brass band
contest the adjudication is traditionally in
written form. It can often be difficult to relate written comments
of the judges to the
actual performance after the event. With taped adjudication (as used
in many Australasian and American competitions), the band performance is
recorded. The adjudicator speaks his comments live into a microphone and
his words are added over the music recording.
For the first time brass and
silver bands can hear the
comments alongside the performance.
Why use Dr Jekyl for Taped Adjudication?
Dr Jekyl Mobile Recording has been pioneering
recorded adjudication or “taped adjudication” in the UK for
several years at the annual Phoenix Brass Festival competitions at
Hungerford – The adjudicators have included Mike Kilroy, Michael Howley, Roger
Thorne, David Morris and Roy Sparkes. Please go to the
Audio Page to listen to some examples.
What is the reaction from Brass Band players and
competition judges?
Response has been very positive and this has been the subject of
discussion on forums such as The Mouthpiece (www.themouthpiece.com).
See selected extracts below to get the flavour: -
- “... Many other countries have their adjudication verbally
instead of on paper. I have taken part in Hungerford contest
several times and they also do this. The band is recorded as they
play and the adjudicator speaks in a soft voice over the top. I've
found this a brilliant way of adjudicating there is very
little lee-way for disputing the adjudicator's comments, when he
says it is out of tune you can hear it, wrong notes can be clearly
heard etc. etc.! You get much more of a view of how the adjudicator
has heard things rather than the distorted hearing you can get from
up on stage. Has anyone else had adjudication like this and what do
you think?”
- “The comments are wonderful, particularly for future
teaching, as you can often hear exactly the parts that the judge
marked down”
- “They do this for the besson national concert band festival.………
I certainly think it’s a good way of doing it.”
- “Wow!! That sounds amazing!! I wish we did that! We could
have done with that at the areas... find out WHY and WHERE he said
our dynamics were rubbish...: mad”
- “I too have played at the Hungerford contest and
the recorded adjudication work brilliantly why this can’t be
used or trailed in the likes of butlins or pontins I don't know”
- {Roger Thorne} “I adjudicated this contest a few years
ago and agree that it is a better alternative. It's also worth
mentioning that the bands actually have a choice how they receive
their adjudication. They can have just a written account or just a
verbal account or can have both! The difficult part for the
adjudicator is that the verbal and written accounts be different for
those that have requested both. With this particular contest the
host band (who aren't actually competing) play Number 1 to give the
adjudicator a 'dummy' run to familiarise themselves with the set up.
In this day and age of modern technology it does seem rather odd
that 99.9% of UK contests still use a pencil and paper! -
Congratulations to the Hungerford Contest Organisers for being a
world leader in the development of UK Adjudication!”
How is Recorded Adjudication achieved?
  During a
competition (e.g. Brass Band Contest) my high quality
microphones (Picture below) capture the sound of the band as it performs. At the same
time, the adjudicator (picture left- adjudicators station) speaks his comments on the performance into a
separate microphone. I mix these two elements together and
record them
live onto CD (Picture right) – which the competitors take away
with them afterwards. The microphone signals can also be recorded to
multitrack hard disc recorder for later balancing and editing with or
without adjudication commentary.
What does the Recorded Adjudication Service Include?
This adjudication service is purchased by competition organisers. The service
includes:
- Setting up of microphones in the performance area to capture the
live activity.
- Provision of hand-held or headset microphone for adjudicator.
- Digital mixing to produce a master stereo signal of music with
adjudicators comments over the top.
- Production and supply of a single copy recording of the
performance in one of the following formats: - Cassette or
CD-R.
- Multi-track recording of each individual microphone to allow for
production of replacement copy in the case of media failure or other
technical problem.
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