THE OLYMPICS, DEATH & OUR MUSICAL JOURNEY
Like many of you, I have been fixated on the Winter Olympics for the past 10 days. The beauty, the graduer, the sheer DANGER of it all. It's must-see TV on an international scale.
I don't understand how I didn't notice this before, but virtually EVERY sport in the Winter Olympics involves the significant possibility of death.
Skiing downhill at 70 m.p.h. = possibility of death
Throwing someone in the air over frozen concrete = possibility of death
Puck traveling at 110 m.p.h. = possibility of death
Luging headfirst down an ice tube on a small sled = definite death
Even in the benign and festidious sport of curling, there was an altercation this week. Sure, the possibility of death is low - but still there, IN CURLING!
Given all of the danger, you would think the most important people in Milan are the medics, but they're not. It's the timekeepers and judges.
In many of these competitions, the difference between winning and losing is often decided by fractions of a second. Since the 1932 Olympics, it's been a single company responsible for ensuring that it is correct, EVERY TIME. The company is Omega, and they are more than just a watchmaker. In fact, Omega's business of keeping results at the Olympics has grown so large and sophisticated that a delegation from the company is already in Los Angeles preparing for the Olympics' return in 2028.
And it's much more than timekeeping...
In Milan, Omega is using extraordinary technology to ensure accuracy. We're talking 40,000 images per second at the finish line. Cameras and clocks so precise that they can detect the difference between gold and silver by what is imperceptible to the human eye. It's dazzling. It's scientific. It's seemingly irrefutable.
What about things like ice-dancing and free-style snowboarding? Things that aren't binary or black-and-white? Things that require human judges to interpret not just the technique, but the art as well. Things are not so clear there, and certainly not as definitive.
(Hang tight for a hairpin turn here on curve #3)
As we speak, many of you are preparing for a contest or an assessment. A pressure-filled time in which, similar to the Olympics, you will be judged on your ensemble's technique and its art. Yes, we:
Sit in auditoriums instead of arenas
Have cut-offs instead of a finish lines
Deal with double bars and not double blades
Wear tuxes instead of skin-tight flying suits
But still, the pressure is real. (The danger, not so much.)
Similar to the Olympics, to the outside world (parents and administrators), contest results look clean and objective. Score sheets. Rankings. Captions. Numbers that appear to settle the matter once and for all. First place. Division I. Superior rating. Case closed. After all, I am no more qualified to question a ski-jump judge's score than my principal is to question a music judge's score.
But anyone who has ever sat at an adjudicator's table — or stood in front of an ensemble waiting for scores — knows the truth.
It's not that simple.
In this, skating and conducting have similar demons: human judges with human flaws and biases.
One judge hears expressive rubato. Another hears an unstable tempo. One calls it daring interpretation. Another calls it risky. One hears a resonant chord; another hears the third sitting a hair too high. The decision appears concrete, but it is layered with human interpretation.
Just like the Olympics.
Even with impartial judges, the performance does not always align with the preparation.
Look at "Quad God," the young man who can land quadruple jumps like most of us land in a chair. From what I understand, he nailed every jump in practice. He nailed them in prelims. He soared through combinations that defy gravity and common sense. Then — on the world stage, under lights bright enough to interrogate your soul — he missed the ones that mattered most.
Weeks, months, and years of preparation distilled into a single element. A detail. A millisecond. A fraction in time.
Sound familiar?
I have had ensembles that rehearsed for months only to have the trumpet crack in measure 47. Or the sound shell pushes the snare to be determined "too loud." Not because they weren't prepared. Not because they didn't care. But because performance lives in the fragile space between preparation and reality.
The missed jump or missed note does not erase the mastery it took to get there.
The imperfect performance does not diminish the discipline, resilience, and growth that happened along the way. The Olympic clock may freeze a moment in time, but it cannot measure the journey.
And neither can a contest score.
From the outside, Olympic timing feels absolute. From the outside, contest scoring feels definitive. But when you lean in close, both are shaped by human beings interpreting tiny details in high-pressure moments.
And that's okay. For the Olympics, but not for your group. There is no time clock at contest. There are no absolute winners. There is no photo finish or judges' review. There are just three judges who know very little about you, but have lots of opinions and advice.
We are not training children to win. We are teaching them how to prepare, how to persist, how to handle disappointment, and how to stand back up after a missed landing.
When the numbers are posted, and the applause fades, what they carry with them is not the score. It's the discipline. The friendships. The courage to step into the light and risk falling.
The journey is the goal.
The months of preparation are the prize.
No high-speed camera can measure that.
Have a great week, my friends.
Scott