Botswana: Talent Should Be Judged By The Most Credible Of Musicians

 

Botswana: Talent Should Be Judged By The Most Credible Of Musicians

Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)

COLUMN
November 20, 2006
Posted to the web November 21, 2006

Rampholo Molefhe

There are some encouraging signals coming from the Botswana Musicians Union music awards. I gather from the executive of the organisation that a panel of five judges was appointed to determine the entries that would qualify for final judgement on December 3.

About the judges I will only say that I am confident that two or three carried the kind of musical credentials that were worthy of the task.

I am also informed that those who might have held more convincing credentials shirked responsibility. They either had something else to do, or they simply did not turn up when they were expected by the BOMU executive to take up duty.

So, in a sense, the musicians are partly responsible for the ambivalent state of the competence of the judges who were assigned to judge for the music awards. My perspective on this issue is derived from the unwavering conviction that only the most creditable of the musicians should be allowed to judge prospective future talents. I use that phrase deliberately '...prospective future talents'.

Creative endeavour is a serious thing, and it is not a matter to be taken lightly. If you are not a musician, you do not qualify to judge musicians, except in those areas of their activities that have little or nothing to do with the art and craft of making music.

The making of a record does not make one a worthy musician. A worthy musician is one who has earned the respect of fellow practitioners. Only they possess the sensitivities that qualify one to judge a good work of music.

The rest of the other people can only say whether they like a particular song, composition or arrangement and that is where their mandate ends.

That is precisely the point that I will want to discuss in the next issue of Musika: What is it exactly that we are judging? And how?

For now it appears that the executive of BOMU has done its best to craft a tender procedure that represents an improvement of the pat practices of moving the awards process.

Not having seen the advertisement to tender - I would have tendered if I had seen it - I can only deduce from the amount of foot work that the BOMU executive has had to do even after the tender was awarded, that not enough provision was made in the tendering process to tie the winner to a set of outcomes by which his or her work would be judged.

For now the important thing is that BOMU initiated the idea of tendering this time around. Secondly, they are working hard to close the gaps that might have been left open in the award of the tender.

Thirdly, some in the private sector have woken up to the importance of encouraging musical enterprise and they are giving money to prove it. The artistes appear to be eager to participate, except for the few who should have known better than to submit late or to give old recordings. Things are looking up at the BOMU music awards