Composer Opportunities and Tacit Criteria
I’ve been thinking about writing this post for a while without finding the time. It’s something that is often on my mind because I both think about modes of assessment at work, and also often look at composer opportunities. While I rarely apply for the latter myself anymore (a combination of available time and a currently full schedule) I still regularly read them to send on to PhD students or other people I know who might be interested in applying or taking part.
Rightly, there has been much discussion (and derision) of “opportunities” or “competitions” that work on a pay-to-apply model: many other people than me have pointed out how application fees can be discriminatory, and also how most often these don’t represent a small admin cost but a substantial contribution – often the organisation offering the “opportunity” may be making many times over the cost of running it and the prize money just from these fees alone! Similarly, hidden costs have been discussed: where composers are expected to attend workshops, rehearsals, and performances with no budget set aside to support that, people may be ruled out from applying since these costs may greatly exceed any fee or prize money offered (where, indeed, it is offered).
Discrimination through the use of fees is easy to spot and to discuss. Since many people now explicitly boycott paid competitions or opportunities, this model may even be slowly on its way out (with people largely regarding it as a pay-to-publish model so that it no longer carries any prestige). However, I’ve reflected on how many opportunities that don’t carry fees still contain the potential for discrimination. In particular, this has been highlighted to me by some considerations that I have had at work. Organisations have been quite enthusiastic about unconscious bias training as a way of signalling that they are against discrimination and try to avoid it. In my own experience, many layers of decision making come with reminders and refreshers about unconscious bias. Yet, I’ve also recently been presented with evidence that unconscious bias training my be ineffective (see part 2.2 of that report: ‘backfiring effects) and may potentially entrench previously held biases (especially because those who undergo it may receive the message that biases are unavoidable, so nothing can be done to avoid them).
This leads to a familiar situation: the public-facing approach to addressing inequality may cause an institution to ignore continuing inequality within its workings. So it is with composer competitions. The focus on whether or not payment is required – and perhaps the addition of a sentence inviting women and BAME composers to apply in particular – may distract attention from other ways in which inequalities might persist within these competitions. I know this myself, because I personally feel a great deal of luck has been involved in my own experiences of success and failure. Thus, when advising others who are applying for composer opportunities, I don’t feel able to say that my own successful applications are demonstrably better than those which were not successful, and I have also frequently advised people that these things are “like a lottery”. This isn’t much help to anyone wondering where to apply or what to do next in their work.
The lottery comment actually points to where some of the problems might be found. Beyond asking individuals to take ownership of – and to try to eliminate – their unconscious biases, current advice rather looks towards the elimination of tacit criteria. This is more likely to be effective because it asks institutions to take responsibility for this by making all levels of a process fair and transparent, rather than relying on individuals to decide whether they feel they have been fair or not (and, of course, most often they will feel they have been fair because they believe their own tacit criteria are fair). I encountered an example of this in a workshop on assessing composition for AdvanceHE where we observed how some aspects of decision making were based on internalised values such as the presentation of notation, the value of experimentation, or the realisability of a composition in only a short workshop. That experience really emphasised to me the importance of clearly communicating to students the expectations that I have on assessment in advance. But although important in education, this is not the only place that the elimination of tacit criteria are important. Below are some examples of how composer competitions and opportunities may be allowing tacit criteria to be used in selection, and how that this could be changed to avoid bias:
Use of Language to Describe Applicants
The term ‘emerging composer’ is much maligned for good reason. Yet this term is frequently used to describe people who may apply to an opportunity. Its vagueness undoubtedly covers the organisation in terms of justifying their outcomes, but also may encourage or discourage individuals from applying depending on their interpretation of it. I would compare this term to ‘Early Career Researcher’: this is also a vague term when used by universities but – for example – the AHRC have a clear definition of who this should apply to in their funding schemes. Thus, although there are still problems with that definition (it doesn’t account for maternity or career breaks automatically, for example), individuals can be sure that they are eligible for ECR schemes or not.
The ambiguity for composers created by the term “emerging” could be eliminated by using unambiguous language that cannot be interpreted differently by different individuals and so eliminates the possibility for tacit criteria to be used. For example: “the organisation seeks to work with a composer who has completed their higher education within the last 5 years”; or, “the organisation seeks to work with a composer who has not yet written an orchestral piece that has been performed by a professional orchestra”. In the case of the first, adding the possibility of extension to the 5 year limit for maternity/parental leave would also be fair. These two criteria reflect two possible definitions of “emerging” but clearly communicate to applicants whether or not they are the type of candidate who is actively being sought. They also should prevent retro-engineering by the institution in order to choose a candidate who does not quite fit the published criteria but was desired for another reason.
Requirements for Supporting Examples
Linked to the above, the requirement to provide supporting examples can be another area where tacit criteria may be allowed to influence a decision. While asking a composer for, say, three works written in the last 3 years might seem fairly neutral, this has the potential to discriminate against individuals who may have had parental leave in that time, or even those who may have spent that time period working on one large piece such as an opera.
Adding the requirement for a live recording may also compound this problem where such recordings might be embargoed or have other issues (e.g. a poor recording as the result of a technological failure on the day of the performance). Unlike others, I am not in favour of midi-realisations. Allowing these can introduce a further opportunity for inequality and tacit criteria as some people will be very good at programming these and others not, and of course this is often not actually the skill that is needed for the outcome of the competition or opportunity (on a personal note: unless the piece has been written specifically for midi instruments, I’d rather just see the score!).
There are a few ways that tacit criteria can be guarded against in the review of example materials. The first is to take away the time limit. While it may discriminate as described above this post by composer Sam Watts also outlines how this may enforce another tacit inequality in the music industry: the idea that if you are not very busy all the time this is a reflection on the quality of your work (while I think Sam’s post is a good one, I don’t agree that he was wrong to take the time he needed to make his album; I think people were wrong to treat him the way that they did). Rather than from a recent time period, organisations should ask for relevant samples of work, and give examples of what they would be. For example, asking the composer to send three pieces that demonstrate writing for a small ensemble (up to 5 players), and for electronics. In offering those guidelines, the institution will also be saying that they are looking for someone who has already written those types of pieces, and they ought to make that explicit in their call. If recordings are requested, the reason for those recordings should also be made explicit: for example, they could be required as evidence that a live performance has taken place, or they might be needed for a member of the jury who cannot read notation. This would then allow the institution to consider whether other types of evidence of performance, or informally made recordings, are adequate, and to communicate this to applicants.
Application Format
My final example for this post is of application format. Gone are the days when you had to send three copies of all of your scores in the post (or, I hope so!) and this is extremely positive as it has reduced an unacknowledged cost to applicants and probably in a small way reduced an environmental cost as well. Hopefully it has also reduced the potential for bias in terms of the types of binding used by composers (this seems ridiculous, and yet at a workshop run by the Experimental Studio in Freiburg I witnessed someone proudly state that one composer’s self-published score would get through a shortlist even before he had opened it because its bound presentation was so attractive).
However, despite the accessibility of online applications, another potential tacit criteria can be found in the use of technology. An increasing number of applications ask for a video submission or a video as a part of the submission. As above, the purpose of this video should be clearly stated. While anyone can make a video using a smartphone, it must be clear that the selection process cannot be influenced by variation in quality that occurs because some people own better equipment or are able to edit a video more professionally. It should be considered that being able to see the candidates might introduce other biases relating to race, gender, or age that the institution may not have considered. Similarly, making a video to speak about one’s work does not come easily to everyone, and there maybe composers – for example, those who are not neurotypical – for whom this method of presentation is not preferred or natural and who may end up being selected out for that reason.
Indeed, my thoughts about this have been that this method of application is probably on the rise because it feels contemporary and seems to speak to uses of video in, e.g., Instagram stories or snapchat and perhaps some institutions have been quick to adopt this without considering possible inequalities it could introduce into their process. If one purpose of the video is to assess how well the composers might speak spontaneously in public about their work, then it ought to be made clear what aspects of public speaking are a non-negotiable part of the project, for example. If the role is to assess how the composers might use technology and social media to promote the project, then those aspects of the process should also be made clear. If making a video is an option – a possibility to allow individuals to choose their preferred method of submission – then the information on which the application will be assessed need to be made explicit, and it must be ensured that, e.g., production values are not allowed to factor into any shortlisting decision.
These are just three areas of applications that could introduce tacit criteria that I have recently felt aware of in many opportunities I have read. Of course there are potentially a lot more, and also where and when they occur will vary for different types of applications involving different skills and types of music. The types of tacit criteria that I have discussed here are also ones that favour applicants with good networks who are able to advise them on these types of requirements or expectations that are not otherwise communicated by institutions.
The comments that I made about costs at the beginning of this post are still important in conjunction with this. Of course, costs to applicants should be £0 or as close to as can be made to work and it goes without saying that financial inequalities definitely entrench other inequalities within music. However, eliminating application fees is not on its own enough, as is now clear to me when looking at the wording and requirements of many composer calls. Eliminating tacit criteria does not have to be difficult, but comes down to both clearly stating all criteria, and their purpose, in advance and making sure that it can be demonstrated that only those criteria were applied in the selection process. This can be through having an independent observer whose job it is to make sure comments that don’t relate to those criteria are discounted, or through having a structured process or form for selection that does not allow other criteria or ideas about the candidates to be expressed. While this perhaps seems bureaucratic, this is a method by which all applicants and jury members can be satisfied that the best attempt to eliminate inequalities in the selection process was made.
