Abolish the Chopin competition!

[dizzyfingers]

Yes, it's a shame it ended! It's a good model for how to run a competition around a single composer because sure each round requires Messiaen pieces, and there's a Messiaen piano/orchestra work in the final, but they balance that with 1) composers/works Messiaen admired, and 2) composers who either directly studied with or took advice/influence from Messiaen. This could easily translate to Chopin or any other composer you want to name a competition after.

I think they should change it to the Polish Composer competition -
Include Szymanowski, Lutoslawski (not much piano solo there), who else?
Plus an honorary place for Scriabin.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

The things with comps if you don’t win or make it to finals you get nothing.  It’s a lot of time energy and resources for a *maybe* you’ll win and get some money/opportunity.  And winners are very often chosen by politics so even if you are “the best” whatever that means there’s still a very high chance you’re coming out with nothing.  Honestly it’s predatory.  You’re literally giving away your talent for free or for a small chance at not slaving away as a broke on the fringes starving musician for the rest of your life.  I wanted to explain this to Frodo but he was too busy brain rotting to stupid ai prompts

And the way you prepare and play for a comp isn’t how real life works.  Thats why everyone sounds different once they get out of it. 

So just have people audition for it like it’s a regular festival, and then pay them once they play.  There’s still a lot of pressure cause you’re playing for an audience, but you’re not thinking ‘oh I have to play a certain way’ to impress these judges.

And I think the audition process should be blind voted online by the regular population and not by a small panel of old heads who talk about how waltz’s are erotic (Garrick Ohhlson)

And yeah agreed with all of the programming ideas

[dizzyfingers]

The things with comps if you don’t win or make it to finals you get nothing.  It’s a lot of time energy and resources for a *maybe* you’ll win and get some money/opportunity.  And winners are very often chosen by politics so even if you are “the best” whatever that means there’s still a very high chance you’re coming out with nothing.  Honestly it’s predatory.  You’re literally giving away your talent for free or for a small chance at not slaving away as a broke on the fringes starving musician for the rest of your life.  I wanted to explain this to Frodo but he was too busy brain rotting to stupid ai prompts

And the way you prepare and play for a comp isn’t how real life works.  Thats why everyone sounds different once they get out of it. 

So just have people audition for it like it’s a regular festival, and then pay them once they play.  There’s still a lot of pressure cause you’re playing for an audience, but you’re not thinking ‘oh I have to play a certain way’ to impress these judges.

And I think the audition process should be blind voted online by the regular population and not by a small panel of old heads who talk about how waltz’s are erotic (Garrick Ohhlson)

And yeah agreed with all of the programming ideas

Competitions are not going to get abolished.
Need to think in incremental improvements.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

Competitions are not going to get abolished.
Need to think in incremental improvements.

 I know they’re not gonna get abolished this is an opinion piece.

The only reason why we’d talk about incremental improvements is if you’re ACTUALLY considering action.  Which none of us are.

So competitions still need to be abolished

[orgarnic]

Why does every thread with over 25 posts descend into argument and personal attacks?...

I'm still not sure how the Chopin Competition works, so can someone explain this to me?

[rachmaninoff_forever]

Why does every thread with over 25 posts descend into argument and personal attacks?...

I'm still not sure how the Chopin Competition works, so can someone explain this to me?

There’s several rounds where everyone plays Chopin for an audience, and there’s a jury that votes on who plays the best and the winner gets like 60k euros and an agent and I think there’s cash prizes for everyone up until 6th place.

I’ve already explained why this is bad in the thread

[orgarnic]

Just by getting the basic overview, it's clear that it has problems.

Biased judges, people playing the same pieces every time, not going for variety, people who have worked so hard just to get seventh place and not win anything.

Also do the judges judge pieces on difficulty or just interpretation and quality of sound?

[rachmaninoff_forever]

Combination of both

[orgarnic]

Then players would just repetitively play the same pieces over and over again, just because it is difficult and they spent years mastering the piece.

[yqxpiano]

And I think the audition process should be blind voted online by the regular population and not by a small panel of old heads who talk about how waltz’s are erotic (Garrick Ohhlson)

Erotic waltzes? Where can I listen to this?

[orgarnic]

The f*ck? Why is he even on the panel of judges?

[rachmaninoff_forever]

Erotic waltzes? Where can I listen to this?

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPo1S0FEkTT/?igsh=MTRiYjk2YW1ibXJwbA==

[pianointegrity]

The things with comps if you don’t win or make it to finals you get nothing.  It’s a lot of time energy and resources for a *maybe* you’ll win and get some money/opportunity.  And winners are very often chosen by politics so even if you are “the best” whatever that means there’s still a very high chance you’re coming out with nothing.  Honestly it’s predatory.  You’re literally giving away your talent for free or for a small chance at not slaving away as a broke on the fringes starving musician for the rest of your life.  I wanted to explain this to Frodo but he was too busy brain rotting to stupid ai prompts

And the way you prepare and play for a comp isn’t how real life works.  Thats why everyone sounds different once they get out of it. 

So just have people audition for it like it’s a regular festival, and then pay them once they play.  There’s still a lot of pressure cause you’re playing for an audience, but you’re not thinking ‘oh I have to play a certain way’ to impress these judges.

And I think the audition process should be blind voted online by the regular population and not by a small panel of old heads who talk about how waltz’s are erotic (Garrick Ohhlson)

And yeah agreed with all of the programming ideas

I am not saying you are wrong because I don't entirely disagree, but I want to offer some limitations to your arguments as food for thought.

• It does take time and resources, but specifically it's time going to the competition and preparing the pieces. However, there are benefits to even just attending a competition especially of that level, and most pianists who would bother with something as specific as the Chopin competition aren't just learning the pieces solely for this competition.
• There are politics involved but the Chopin competition has done a fairly decent job of removing some amount of bias, through outlier score compression, not allowing a teacher to vote for their student, progression through rounds, and final round voting based on a combination of scores and a pretty structured voting system. I am not saying there aren't ways to game or politick those aspects, but it's hardly all politics.
• online blind voting by the regular population could have a ton of problems, such as contestants campaigning for (or even buying/automating) votes, a lot of untrained people just voting for whatever, etc.

I do like the festival idea, though I do think it would be quite curious if it was still a competition, just everyone who participates more intensely gets paid.

[pianointegrity]

All the contestants are white and East Asian what do you mean transcend cultural and historical differences lol

There is obviously more to the world than white / east asian (there are a few others in the competition), but a competition about a specific composer from a certain historical era that invites interpretations and performances from people around the world technically still transcends cultural and historical differences.

[pianointegrity]

I think they should change it to the Polish Composer competition -
Include Szymanowski, Lutoslawski (not much piano solo there), who else?
Plus an honorary place for Scriabin.

Bacewicz, Panufnik, Gorecki, Penderecki, Paderewski, Kilar... many of them have also wrote concertos.

I feel they must get inquiries about this all the time. The organization is a Chopin organization though, so I don't know who is in charge or how it gets determined, but I would personally find that more interesting. Maybe in the future, some earlier rounds should have non-Chopin compositions, or all rounds but the final should have one non-Chopin Polish work or something. Better yet, it can even be non-Polish composers that Chopin was in conversation with (Liszt, Schumanns), or non-Chopin works that Chopin had some close affinity to. They can shift the requirements each year.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

• online blind voting by the regular population could have a ton of problems, such as contestants campaigning for (or even buying/automating) votes, a lot of untrained people just voting for whatever, etc.

Fair but I think there are ways around it.  Like the listening and voting order is random per person voting and voting is only open during a specific tine so everyone has to vote at the same time

I’m not against untrained people voting though.  Most of the people who consume the comp are untrained anyways