CHSAA Music: Gearing up for State Competitions

Hard work, time and dedication: three of the most crucial things that go into a student-musician’s life as they gear up for local and state competitions.

Employing these attributes will prove to be crucial with solo & ensemble festivals starting Feb. 16 and large group festivals kicking off April 3. To see a full calendar of events follow the link here.

Pieces and techniques that students have been working on all year are going to be at the forefront of the competitions, with receiving an I rating being the main goal.

Unlike some of the other sports and activities, music isn’t about who does the best and which team wins, instead it’s based on ratings given to each band and performer.

But, that certainly doesn’t stop each of the students at the school from truly enjoying the feeling of performing better than their competition.

“Students sometimes get in their own little bubble,” said Karen Stacks, Legacy High School choir teacher. “It’s really good for them to know when they’re doing something really well when compared to other schools, it’s also great for them to see other schools may be doing something better than they are. It’s kind of like ‘that challenges me, I want to be on that level.’”

Ratings are given on a I-V scale: I. standing for superior, II. standing for excellent, III. standing for good, IV. standing for fair and V. meaning unprepared.

Each band plays a prepared song, as well as doing a sight reading component which means bands are given a piece of music in which they cannot play, but can prepare and go through it for six minutes before actually performing it for the first time for the judges.

“You can sing the music, you can clap it, you can do all kinds of stuff but you’re not allowed to play it at all,” said Neil Guy, the Director of Bands at Cherokee Trail High School. “You just have six minutes to study and then you have to immediately play through the whole song from beginning to end.”

The rating given on the sight reading component of the competition doesn’t just come from the performance itself.

It has two factors, how you prepare in those six minutes and how well you play the piece after that preparation.

“It is initially difficult,” Guy said. “I always talk to the kids about it and it’s no different than when you learned to read in the first place. We’ve been working on how to do this for years. So you get better at it. It’s one of my favorite things.”

Certainly for most people, reading didn’t come very easily. As people grow up and start to read more, they get better and better at it and can read more advanced things.

In music it’s similar. Not everyone can just pick up a piece of sheet music and play it perfectly, it takes many many hours of work and practice to be able to perform at a high level.

“The time preparing depends on the level of difficulty, for beginning choirs it could be 10-to-15 minutes per day, for more advanced choirs, it’s more like 30 minutes per day,” Stacks said.

While that might not sound like a lot initially, once things like: a student’s education and any other extracurricular activities are factored in, 30 minutes seven days a week certainly adds up.

While shooting for the I rating is undoubtedly a big time commitment, it all becomes worth it when your score is posted and your hard work gets recognized.

“It really means everything,” said Jack Seltenright, the District 3 music coordinator for the Widefield School District. “From day one I’ve just been all about the kids. Are they having a good experience? Is this something that’s going to grow them personally, professionally and musically? So it really does mean everything watching the students get on the stage and perform well and interact with the clinician who is there to help them be better.”

For everyone participating in music competitions, they obviously have a lot of meaning.

But for Widefield School District and districts around the state, these competitions mean a lot more than just a rating. At the end of the day, these are the kinds of things that bring the entire community together.

“It’s kind of the Widefield way,” Seltenright said. “We believe in music here in Widefield, we advertise that we have award winning performing groups. You wouldn’t expect it from a lower-income district, but when I was first hired they said ‘it’s a secret gem in southern Colorado Springs.’ I’m like ‘I’m not sure why it’s a secret, why are we keeping it a secret?’ So getting kids out there to perform in front of as many people as possible is a big mission of ours.”