On Voting

We recently had a concerto competition in the horn studio. It was to advance two hornists to the brass concerto competition at ASU, which is Wednesday this week. Five students entered, and the rest of the studio voted.

For me the order of the results in the horn studio competition was tight but pretty clear. In judging this type of competition I try to focus on things that I actually heard in the performance that day. Looking at the ballots from the studio was not a surprise in a way as I have seen it before but it was still eye opening. Some people rated the players radically differently. Four different people had first place votes. Could studio members really be hearing it the way they voted? Sure, musical tastes do vary, and it was a close competition, all the performers were good. Certainly elements of interpretation and style enter in, and while the performers were all playing in a manner I would like to hear, others can see things differently. I am however inclined to think that there were also other issues besides objective facts skewing the results.

One time, not at ASU, I saw a situation where a faculty member (!) voted very obviously not the way they could have possibly heard things, rating a weak player (their student) up as high as possible (higher than the rating of obviously much stronger players) so that they would get a result higher than deserved when averaged out. The faculty member had some point they wanted to make but this is not honest voting. I refuse to play these games. Always make your vote an honest vote.

Obviously there is an election this week. I’m not going get political and to tell you how to vote, but I do have convictions that are based on a number of issues important to me. My note would be in any voting you do to please think through the actual issues, be objective and honest. Rate clearly which issues are the most important ones to you and vote accordingly even if it goes against what seems to be popular opinion around you. Base the vote on logic and facts on the ground, be honest with your vote.