A few weeks ago Canadian Dressage ‘Mountie’ Karen Robinson was Eurodressage’s ‘Guest columnist of the month’. Karen, always good for a ‘snappy’ blog, wrote a piece titled "The Trouble with Ten", putting her finger right on the sore spot.
She only forgot to mention there's an answer to this, at least in the Freestyle, and it’s called EQM.
This week the World Dressage Championships are taking place at the WEG in Kentucky, and we (my team and I) look forward to Friday - Freestyle day!
There's room here for confidence in one respect; our good friend Günther Alberding is responsible for the sound department in Kentucky. This means, amongst other things, that he is in charge for the supportive musical underscores for the Grand Prix and Grand Prix Special, and professional sound-checks for the riders. All the Freestyles will be played using Günther’s computer system, avoiding all kinds of errors that could occur using traditional CDs and CD-players.
Let’s pray the WEG organisers have provided a top-class PA (sound) system. It's an outdoor competition and hopefully there will be good weather conditions. Spectators should experience an optimal sound quality with the Freestyle (they paid a considerable amount of money for a ticket) while riders need an efficient monitor system. Some riders like to hear their music as loud as possible while other riders prefer a level that's just enough for them to get in sync with all the cues, tempi and rhythms of the music, a level that won't disturb their horse's mood and concentration.
Unfortunately there's also room for a little less confidence in another respect: the lack of a good technical aid in the judging department of the Freestyle.
The major concern of the EQM developers is the judges' lack of in-depth, technical knowledge of music. Don't get me wrong, the best judges are at the WEG; highly skilled judges with a rich experience in adjudicating dressage. And I'm sure they all love music, play music and listen to music. But is there anyone else out there who has noticed that the artistic marks of the Freestyle are always just a few percentage points higher than the technical marks? We’re pretty convinced about one thing with this WEG; the best (and winning) rider/horse combination on Friday will have the ‘best’ music too, with the highest B-notes, the best artistic scores. And the rider/horse combination placed second will have the second best scoring music; and so on.
Is this really logical, and if not then what is the explanation behind it? It’s only a wild guess but first of all judges seem nowadays to be more and more influenced by ‘musical atmosphere’ rather than assessing what the music should really do, i.e. be connected, correlated and synchronized (in harmony) with the floorplan; with important ingredients like tempo, rhythm, time signatures and supportive musical transitions.
It is wrong to focus so much on atmosphere as this is a matter of taste, an emotional judgement, which is by definition subjective and does not contribute to an objective score. It’s quite easy to select many current Freestyles that do not adequately contain and support the required musical elements; and all these Freestyle productions create a certain ‘atmosphere’.
The FEI describes in its dressage facts: “The music of a Freestyle test is not just a background: performing in synchronisation with the rhythm is the ultimate aim.”
However, the Directives for Judges – FEI Freestyle tests 2009 says:
“The 5 (in our opinion this should be 8) artistic marks: Rhythm, Energy and Elasticity; Harmony between Rider and Horse; Choreography; Degree of Difficulty; Music and Interpretation of the Music are scored by half or full marks and multiplied by their coefficients.
All artistic marks are more or less depending on the quality of the technical execution.
It is especially important that the artistic marks for Rhythm, Energy and Elasticity, Harmony between Rider and Horse and the Degree of Difficulty should correlate with the technical score.”
But how can artistic marks correlate with a technical score if there’s no correct tempo, no correct rhythm/pulse, no correct time signature used? This is one of our most important questions. The only answer is: you have to measure it.
It was the Dressage Task Force that reported: The DTF is of the opinion that every new technical development should be looked at and be evaluated for its usefulness in dressage sport. (Source: Report of the FEI Dressage Task Force October 16, 2009.)
The EQMusync system is just such a new technical development. And it could have been used at this WEG as part of an intensive test-program, objectively assisting the judges in their adjudication, with a real time HDA (horse data analyses) and MDA (music data analyses).
If only the responsible FEI representatives had shown any interest and had investigated the extensive applications of this system over the past 2 years, this 2010 WEG could have been a major step forward in adjudicating the Freestyle, resulting in a ‘foolproof’ system at the London 2012 Olympic Games. A system that will prove its worth to each Olympic official, each Olympic and International dressage jury member and each national Federation, rider, trainer, coach and stakeholder.
Using the EQM system doesn't change anything in what we’re used to seeing in the Freestyle - the horse/rider combinations perform, the spectators enjoy, the jury adjudicates.
EQMusync doesn't recognize horse or rider, it doesn't see or measure the beauty and elegance of the horse, neither does it hear or measure the impact and emotion of the music. EQMusync measures without taste, without emotion. It doesn’t change horses into machines. EQM measures invisibly: making objective data analyses in real time.
The interpretation of this objective data analyses is still up to the judges, and so is their final verdict.
A ‘perfect” 10 (ten) does not exist when measuring the Freestyle objectively, we’re sorry to tell you. A 100% scoring Freestyle is impossible. EQM analyses ten objective elements in the Freestyle music production (MDA) and all the objective measurable horse technical elements that are involved in the Freestyle to Music; like the numbers of gaits, changes and transitions, the correlation between horse/rider combination and used music, the correlation between horse/rider combination and the performed choreography (floorplan) and the synchronisation and correlation between horse and rider, music and choreography (also called the harmony between music, horse and rider).
Riders and Freestyle producers should be happy too, as this system will help them to improve the quality of their Freestyle productions, as well as getting an accurate and objective analysis of it.
EQMusync is developed by specialists in many different disciplines for specialists. It is developed for top dressage jury members, who understand that technical aids, besides being a useful educational tool, will help improve the quality of dressage, improve Freestyle productions and the quality of adjudication.
A ten is impossible but it makes sure that dressage can truly celebrate its 100th anniversary at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Anything wrong with that?
By Cees Slings (thanks to Jayne Caudle, EQM editorial department)
Cees Slings is a renowned Dutch composer and producer who has written pop music hits and TV music, as well as producing bands. He was responsible for all of Anky van Grunsven’s Freestyles between 1995 and 2005, including the famous Bonfire Symphony and L’Esprit Chanson. He has now created Freestyles for many other top riders including Laura Bechtolsheimer, Matthias Alexander Rath, Victoria Max-Theurer and Beatriz Ferrer-Salat. He is also co-inventor and musical consultant of EQMusync systems, a newly developed technical judging aid for the Freestyle.