Solo competitions can be an incredibly value experience for those who participate. Off the cuff, I decided to give a short talk about why I think everyone should consider competing in them. Here are my seven reasons (plus two bonus thoughts!). I think reason #7 is woefully neglected by performers and educators alike.
Here is a transcript of my talk in the video above:
Hey, everybody! This is James Christian with RudimentalUniversity.com. Today I want to talk to you about seven reasons why you should consider entering a solo competition.
Reason #1: More Opportunities to Perform
The first reason is: it gives you a lot more opportunities to perform. I mean, who doesn’t want that? You’re a musician. You want to play your instrument. There are opportunities here. Why don’t you take them?
A lot of people say they get nervous getting in front of an audience and want to get over their nerves more. Hey, great opportunity to play! Go out there and play. You get more comfortable with it. You just get to perform more. You enjoy it. The audience enjoys it. Win-win all around.
Reason #2: More Opportunities to Compose
The next reason is: It gives you opportunities for composing. Now, not always. Some solo compositions require you to do published literature, but many of them allow you to perform your own music.
So it’s a great opportunity composing for one instrument, if you’re doing that, and you can flex your composition skills that way, and it’s a great way to get into composition. If you try to write something for a full band or orchestra, that can get very difficult very fast. There are so many things you have to learn about all the other instruments, but YOU know YOUR instrument.
So it’s a great way to expand your ideas and put them down on paper. Sometimes they’ll work. Sometimes they won’t. But it’s a great way to just get better at writing music and enjoying music and learning it. And you get to share some of your ideas… why not take a try at composing?
Reason #3: Allows You to Perform Harder and More Diverse Music than in an Ensemble, Orchestra, or Band
Another reason is that it allows you to perform harder and more diverse music than you would normally play in an ensemble, an orchestra, or a full band. Now, although there’s some great music out there for all those situations and you’ll certainly become a better player for playing in all of those… With a solo, it’s whatever you physically can do you. You can push the difficulty on it to whatever is going to challenge you.
And you can also be a lot more creative with the different styles you can do. Even if you’re doing someone else’s work, you can be a lot more selective. You’re the one in control of what the repertoire is going to be.
Not to mention, it will make you a better player for being in the band or orchestra or ensemble, because you’re just going to gain a lot more confidence from doing that.
Reason #4: Allows You to Set Your Own Challenges
On a similar note from the last one… Solo competitions also allow you to set your own challenges. Like, say you wanted to work on your double stroke rolls… Or say you’re playing keyboards, and you wanted to play a lot of passages that had a lot of grace notes in them… or something like that. Whatever your particular focus might be. You can actually pick music or write your own music that will allow you to really develop those skills in a way that you wouldn’t be able to otherwise. Well, maybe you could on your own practice time. But as far as having a goal to work toward, it just really helps you focus on that, and you can set your goals that way.
Reason #5: Helps You Get Feedback from Judges… and Understand Your Own Philosophy about Music
The next reason is: it helps you get feedback from judges… and understand your own philosophy about music. Now you can get… there are wonderful judges out there, and you can get some great comments like, “Hey, this was really good, but you need to really work on this one thing that will really help your sound quality.” Or you may get totally awful comments that are not helpful, but they are helpful in refining why you think what you do.
For example, I did a contest once where it’s still, to this day, one of my most favorite performances. I’m most proud of that performance of just about anything I’ve ever done. And one judge just hated it. He said, “Your patterns are very common” and all of that… which was sort of true, but I had really taken… I had intended to take some fairly easy-to-read things, but push the tempos on them and just focus on great sound quality. So I was really happy with that performance, and I decided: “You know, I just don’t agree with what that judge said”—and that’s okay.
Other times, I’ve really not performed as well as I’d hoped I did, and a judge wrote, “Wow, that was fantastic!” and all of that. And I’m kind of like, “Okay, well, I’ll take it.” But I personally know that I wanted to do better on that. And so you’ll get the full range, and that’s okay.
And as you go through those processes, you learn more about what you feel about your own performances. And sometimes you also get really good comments of the things you just haven’t thought about, and judges can give you some really valuable feedback.
So the judges’ comments and the way you react to the judges’ comments… both of those are very valuable.
Reason #6: Helps You Learn Your Strengths and Weaknesses
The sixth reason a solo contest is so valuable is: It helps you learn your strengths and weaknesses better than just about any way I can think of. You learn how you do under pressure. You learn how you react to different situations. How you learn to prepare for certain things. And of course, your playing skills—as far as your strengths and weaknesses go. Because when you really focus on this, you’re trying to get it just perfect, especially for that competition level. You start to read yourself in ways that you just don’t normally pick apart in such great detail.
So it’s just a really valuable process for understanding what you’re good at and what you’re not as good at—and how you can excel, what you can do under pressure, and what you don’t do as well under pressure. And you can learn to grow in both of those areas and capitalize on your strengths.
Reason #7: Provides Exposure, Credentials, and Influence
Now, here is my final reason that I think it’s valuable to do solo competitions. And I think this is a big reason that many people underestimate the value of. The reason is that it gives you exposure, credentials, and influence.
Now, there are a lot of great players out there, but one of the best and quickest ways, frankly, to get exposure and influence for your ideas and for your playing, your skills, or getting a job, or any of those kinds of things… is by doing solo competitions. And especially if you do well at them—if you do well at them or get high up—I mean, think about Jeff Queen, Tim Jackson, Scott Johnson, Nick Werth, Mike Hodges, Jeff Prosperie—all these different people. You probably would have never heard of them had they not done what they did to start out—by winning solo competitions.
And maybe you would have. I mean, there are definitely influential people who have not won competitions or done competitions. But it’s a LOT harder. I mean, all those people that I just mentioned… they performed with some great groups at different points. I couldn’t tell you most of the other people that were in those same groups, because they didn’t do anything to get their name out there. They didn’t do anything to contribute, either musically—like, where you… And that’s the thing, you don’t have to win a competition, but if you contribute something that’s really meaningful, you get your name out there; you get your ideas out there. And people can appreciate it for that. And, of course, if you do win something, that just raises it to another level.
I’ve won my fair share of competitions. I’ve also lost my fair share of competitions over the years. And losing those competitions helped me to refine everything, so that I could take my performances to a better level and a higher level—and eventually win some of them. And that’s a big part of probably why you’re even watching this video right now.
And ultimately as musicians, we are often creative types, and we often have things we want to share with people. And as far as the influence side goes… If you want people to be open to your ideas, if you have something to share—that’s a really great way to get people’s attention, like, “Hey, this person has excelled in this area. Maybe there’s somebody I should take a look at, what else they have to offer.”
That’s great if you perform with different ensembles that perform at a high level, but sometimes… I think we’ve all met that person—they say, “Oh, I marched snare drum with this drum corps.” And then you see them play, and you’re like, “Really? You did!?”—secretly thinking, “You must have been the person that was constantly ticking, and they probably had to water down the book for you.” And then other people you see—it’s like, “Wow, this person’s amazing!”—thinking, “You must have been, like, the section leader.” And you just don’t know. You can have that on your credentials that you performed with this orchestra, or this drum corps, or went to this university, or whatever. But you never know the quality. You know they’ll probably be at a higher quality, but you never know the range of it until you get to know them personally.
So putting a solo out there—especially today with YouTube and all the opportunities we have for sharing things instantly—you can very quickly get your “level of quality” out there, and people can just instantly see in one minute, like, “Oh, wow, this person knows what they’re talking about, and I want to learn more from that person”—or “I just really like their music, and I want to enjoy it more.”
So don’t underestimate the importance of influence, and just building a credential, and just having a venue for sharing things.
Bonus thought: The Psychology Factor—Extra Motivation
Here’s my extra bonus reason: There’s something about competition that just sets the stakes higher. It provides extra motivation. So if I know I’m going to go perform something in front of people, that’s adds a certain level of preparation that I want to do. But if I know I’m going to perform in front of people AND get judged and ranked on it, then I know it’s going to somehow affect my reputation in a different way. And so I’m going to want to take it even further on that. And so most people… that little bit of edge usually helps push you a little further.
So use that. With some people it doesn’t. But you CAN use that to help you have a little extra motivation to even go just that one level higher. And so it does provide some extra motivation.
Second Bonus Thought: Character
And I have bonus #2 reason: Character. The way you deal with success and the way you deal with defeat says a lot about you. And if you do enough competitions, you’re bound to win some, and you’re bound to lose some. It’s just part of the game. And the way you learn to deal with that—whether it’s fair or not, whether you deserved to win, whether you didn’t, whether you deserved to place last, whether you didn’t—however you end up doing, it does help your character develop. Because it teaches you… just because life is that way a lot of times. Sometimes things work out in a fair way; sometimes they don’t. And how you deal with that has a lot to do with who you are as a person. And I think solo performance is a great way to learn about that.
Conclusion
So those are all my reasons that I think everyone should at least consider participating in some kind of solo competition. And I think the more you do it, the more you enjoy it and just the better experience it is all around.
I hope this has been helpful. I hope it motivates you to go and practice a bit… and maybe write some music… and perform in a competition yourself. And I hope you’re the next YouTube video I get to see of somebody performing at some big contest. So best wishes to you… and good luck… and keep on playing percussion!