JAD Competition Weekend

This past weekend marked my first barbershop contest experience at the district level. I arrived early Friday and was able to catch the entire quartet competition that evening. I decided to go straight to my folks' place and crash rather than hang around at the HQ and catch the JADQC show so I could be well rested for Saturday's chorus competition. Saturday proved to be a very long day as we competed early in the competition and then hung around the entire day awaiting the scoring results and score review sessions.

In one sense, the results were very disappointing. We had high expectations for ourselves coming into the contest based on how we performed at the divisional level, and when all was said and done we ended up scoring slightly less than with our prior hit. We finished fifth out of fifteen choruses (PDF) behind some very good chapters. The judges gave us some useful feedback at the review sessions, and those of us who were present for those sessions all seem to agree on what we need to look at going forward.

On the other hand, the fact remains that this is the very first district competition of a chorus that has existed less than one year. What we've been able to accomplish as a chapter in the past 10 months is simply incredible and gives us every reason to look with hope and anticipation towards future competitions. While it would be easy to get discouraged by our growing pains, I am eagerly looking forward to what this chorus can and will accomplish in the coming years. I came out of this weekend that much more hooked on barbershop and determined to be the best barbershopper I can be.