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When should a group start competing?

Measure for Measure

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We also welcome readers to offer up their own statements for our writers to consider, Measure for Measure.

This week's topic: For new and developing collegiate a cappella groups, it is a good idea to start performing in competitions.

 True: There are so many ways in which competition can be good for a young a cappella group. First and foremost, participating in a competition gives a group the opportunity to test itself, and get honest, unbiased feedback on its work. It’s easy to listen to friends and fans tell you your group is great. It’s far more meaningful to get real feedback from experts in the field. Your new group actually is as great as you had hoped? ICCA adjudicators will tell you what made you great, and where you still have room for improvement. Your new group isn’t as strong as you thought? Get a point by point analysis of your areas for improvement, and figure out how you can take your group to the next level.

Beyond word from the judges, competition can be a great opportunity to see what other groups are doing. Great writers need to read great books. Great athletes need to watch game film. A new group doesn’t need to copy more experienced groups, but is going to be useful to watch veterans, to get a handle on what kinds of songs work for what kinds of groups, where choreography works, what’s already overplayed. In addition, other groups can be a great source of informal feedback on your set.

Lastly, there’s something to be said for the sheer experience of competing. Competition can give your group a new and much larger audience than group’s often get on their own campuses. Beyond that, it’s a high pressure situation, that can bring the group together, and bring out the best in its members. It’s a way of testing the group, to find out just how great the group is. For a new group, each passing year in competition can demonstrate how the group has improved and matured.

False: While there’s a lot that a group can learn from competition, competing shouldn’t be a high priority for new ensembles. Just picture it—your group has come together, learned a respectable selection of songs. You’ve got your soloists. You’re figuring out perc. You’re starting to incorporate some movement…

You take your group into competition, and you get stomped.

Your members are nervous, and choke on the stage. Another, more experienced group performs the same songs as you, and their arrangements rock the socks off your own. You find that the movement you thought was so innovative, is actually played, and only the most basic piece of another group’s choreography.

Competition is a great place to learn, but for a brand new group, the experience can be discouraging, if not flat out embarrassing. This experience may scare a group off from competing again. If the competition was at or near home, it may make your group less appealing to potential auditionees. All in all, the experience can set your group back a full year or more.

Beyond that, a new group needs to focus on rounding out a full group, establishing an identity, building a repertoire. Focusing on three or four songs to bring to competition limits what a group has the time and energy to do. Competition gets a group too focused, too soon, on too limited a number of pieces, when a group should be experimenting, and discovering itself.

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