The first year we went to MPA after our director, Mr. Henley, retired and our new director Mr. Alvarado took over, we were all nervous.  My friends and I got onto the coach bus after we finished performing and sat impatiently as we waited for our results. It was so nerve  wracking having to sit in a bus with fifty other students while the director goes and tells the bus in front of you what scores you got, which, in  my school’s case, is the same every year, straight superiors. To come from a school that has a long standing record of achieving excellence at  the MPA level, means to become accustomed to the high standards of your playing. However, that year was different, for the first time in  almost five years we didn’t get straight superiors. It was one of the most disappointing moments in my life. We rehearsed that music for  months, practically an entire school year, to get up on a stage to have three men judge us and all the hard work we put into those songs. I  looked around that bus that day and saw how closed off and utterly embarrassed my band was and I realized that I wasn’t taught to look at  my playing that way. I was taught to leave everything on the stage and come tighter with my band to create a uniform sound, to play as one. I  didn’t want to feel alone and I didn’t want to feel disappointed because I played my best and if those judges couldn’t see that, then it was  their loss not mine. As disappointing as it was the band still had to address the post MPA analysis of our performance, which consists of  listening to a recording of the band playing, listening to the judges’ feedback, and reading the judges’ score sheet.

                    It’s Monday morning, after our MPA performance, and once the bell rings all you hear are shoes scraping across the carpet rushing  into the band room and hushed voices finishing off stories about the weekend. Our director, Mr. Alvarado, gets in front of the class, with the  intention of cheering us up, and softly utters, “your talent is not defined by those judges’ scores, I am so proud of all of you and I know you all  did an amazing job.” I was shocked at the fact that he wasn’t disappointed in us, I prepared myself for him to chastise the band and expected  him to show express his disappointment in us. These professional recordings of the performances are an important genre in this community,  one that is reflected upon with incredible criticism, especially from the band itself. Just as we did that day, every band listens back and points  out every moment that isn’t satisfactory. For our band it was mainly our intonation, which the precision and accuracy in hitting a pitch  between instruments, that we weren’t pleased with. Personally, I was upset with my piccolo, a smaller version of a flute, playing and how off  my intonation was throughout many of the pieces. It’s saddening having to listen to a recording of yourself when you know you didn’t achieve  your goal. Unlike when we listened to our performance the following year, which we got straight superiors in. The contrast in the demeanor of  the ensemble is astounding to experience. When we listened to that recording the following year, it’s as if everyone sits a little taller in their  seats, the ambience in the room is lighter, and the band feels more like a unit. Rather than how distant and curt everyone in the room is when  we don’t get the ratings we expect. As hard as it is we never let that deter us from progressing and improving as a group.

                    Professional recordings are not the only one genres found in the post MPA community, there are also the voice recording  feedbacks and the adjudicators’ rating sheets.  The voice recording feedback consists of the judge speaking into a microphone while reading  the score of the piece and simultaneously listening to the band perform that piece. In the case of this MPA, listening to their voice recording  was not something I was looking forward to. I loathe having to hear their critique when our scores are anything but superiors. Having to hear  things like, “those entrances are abysmal in measure 46,” and “the dynamic balance between the French horns and the trombones is  nonexistent.” Fortunately, there wasn’t strictly negative comments, along with them were praises like “phenomenal articulation with the  sixteenth note runs in the cadenza section,” and individual comments directed to soloists and their exceptional musical interpretation and the  combination of their warm tone and contrasting dynamics. As specific, concise, and thorough the judges’ voice feedback are, the  adjudicators’ rating sheets are everything but that. The sheet is set up so that it is uniform and fits to every ensemble. There are designated  categories for the judge to listen for, in regards to the entire ensemble as a whole. Things like dynamics, balance and blend, tone, intonation,  and such, which the judge has to assign a grade A-F to, which directly correlate to the ratings, superior, excellent, etc. Reading the judges’  sheet that class, after our performance, was disheartening. Before we got the scores I was so confident we got superiors, I truly believed it  was one of our best performances. However, after we were informed that we received overall excellent, we reflected on our performance  and began to poke through every hole and point out every mistake. In reality getting overall excellent is not terrible, it’s the equivalent of  getting a “B” on a final exam, still passing but you’ll always wish you had studied a little more to get the “A”.  We got through reading most of  the sheet, skimming over the seas of “B’s” sprinkled with a good amount of “A’s”, and made it to the bottom which is where the summarized  paragraph of the judge’s overall comments.

                 March 13th, 2014 was a mostly saddening day for me, my friends, and my director, having had broken a straight superior streak our  school had held for five years. We could’ve let the disappointment of that night interfere with our growth but we took the criticism and got  straight superiors the next year. Between the professional recording, the judges’ voice feedback, and the adjudicators’ sheets, we are given  an overall picture of our performance and the assessment the judges have of it.