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About the "separate categories" thing: I would hate for there to be more competitions that do that, and I don't think I'd ever go to one. I pray that the Cliburn, at least, never does it.

.....The only way is to still join the degree category.....

.....I think two categories is reasonable. They cannot put a person like you who do not a degree in music to be in the degree category, but you can request to be moved from non degree to degree category if you want to.

Regarding Abel in Boston last year, Tim Adrianson hit the nail on the head...his repertoire in the final round was insane (to me anyway). He is superb!

If there were a "non-degree" category and some of the contestants were people like me, I guarantee you it wouldn't be long before there would be complaints about that!

Many people would feel competitors who don't have a piano degree but who have studied seriously most of their lives and have done a lot of serious public performing aren't "real" amateurs either and have an unfair advantage over people who fit the more usual concept.

....We can ignore public performances, because very few people who have this experience, may be only you, Ricker Choi, and Chris....

Well you sure chucked that off pretty easily.

No, you can't ignore that, if you want to be serious about suggesting new approaches for the competitions, among other reasons because there are more people of this type than you think.

And you also disposed pretty offhandedly with the issue of how seriously people have studied music and piano. If you're going to ignore whatever you feel like, then sure, things become very simple.

Regarding Abel in the previous post..yes I did mean in Chicago, that weird contemporary thing which of course he played perfectly I'm sure, but I don't know the piece (nor do I wish to). Now regarding this discussion of Competitions and rules, maybe we should have a Competition for people that aren't very good (just kidding) and call it the Losers Competition, the Lower Level Competition or the Bring your Earplugs Competition. ? ? Maybe it should be like some little kids summer camp game where everyone gets a gold sticker. A Competition is a COMPETITION and there are many good pianists regardless of degree or not. Just buck up and do it! After you have done this a few years you recognize names. If you don't want to compete against a really outstanding Pro-Am then don't enter, or withdraw. Isn't every Competition a learning experience anyway, no matter if you advance or bomb out or whatever??

We can use you as a sample to build the model for a real amateur competition. You are basically close to the top tier of real amateur. People like Ricker or Chris are not common, therefore, we can ignore these two for building the competition rules. Even a real amateur like you is not common, very few who can reach your playing level. We should not worry about people who do not represent the population like you, Ricker, or Chris, especially the last two. If you think every single possible permutations, you will never come up with rules. More over if we still allow the real amateur compete in the degree class, it will be more exciting for those amateurs who are able to compete against semi-professional. Therefore, people like you who are on the top of non degree category can join the degree category if you want more challenge. Or if you want to win, you can just stay with other real amateurs.

I really do not see what makes you object to this proposed format. It allows you to choose which category you want to compete. But it will prevent people with Doctorate degree from Moscow Conservatory to compete against somebody who just took lesson once a week between the age of 8 to 15, or even worse people who started late in their life. In addition, it is not fun to watch a fluctuation of quality in a competition. Mr. X graduated from Juilliard plays like a concert pianist, and then the next Mr. Y who took piano lesson once a week when he grew up plays at 10 levels below Mr. X's playing. Unless, people enjoy seeing somebody getting embarrassed caused by this kind of thing. I do not think it is a fair game.

... maybe we should have a Competition for people that aren't very good

Regarding Abel in the previous post..yes I did mean in Chicago, that weird contemporary thing which of course he played perfectly I'm sure, but I don't know the piece (nor do I wish to). Now regarding this discussion of Competitions and rules, maybe we should have a Competition for people that aren't very good (just kidding) and call it the Losers Competition, the Lower Level Competition or the Bring your Earplugs Competition. ? ? Maybe it should be like some little kids summer camp game where everyone gets a gold sticker. A Competition is a COMPETITION and there are many good pianists regardless of degree or not. Just buck up and do it! After you have done this a few years you recognize names. If you don't want to compete against a really outstanding Pro-Am then don't enter, or withdraw. Isn't every Competition a learning experience anyway, no matter if you advance or bomb out or whatever??

How about a competition for old people with degrees who aren't very good?

Kidding aside ..... it's wonderful to be in such distinguished company, meaning the company of so-called semi-professionals. I wouldn't change a thing. If you want a challenge and enjoy the environment and stress of these competitions, go for it. If not, find something else to do with your time and money .... it takes a lot of both.

if the purpose of stratification is so that some people in their "weight class" can win, then a much more simple solution is simply create more prizes, like a number of special prices like "Best Pianist without Music Degree" or something. os like the Gold/Silver/Bronze award system i mentioned earlier. that way it "keeps everybody happy".

How about Professional, Semi-Professional and Amateur categories? So the people who attended a top conservatory (whether that person finished or not) should automatically be assigned to the semi-professional category. People who attended lower ranked (since there is no other way to assign people to categories) universities for music may choose either the semi-professional or the amateur categories (I agree that this is extremely crude but this is just off the top of my head, better ideas might come up later). The trouble with having people compete in amateur competitions, who went to NEC, Oberlin, Julliard, Curtis, etc but didn't finish, is the issue of unfairness. Like RS said, they went to these places fully intending to be serious pianists. They were good enough already (at the age of 18-20 or whatever) to get into Curtis. They probably had the best teachers and facilities up until then (which is why they were good enough to get into these conservatories in the first place). So what really is the purpose of an amateur competition? It is for people who do not make a living out of playing the piano alright but that's just what the current rules state.. what really is the objective behind all this? I believe it is basically meant to encourage people who are full time professionals in other fields but find the time somehow to study the piano. They manage to squeeze in an hour or so everyday out of their busy lives to spend time on the piano. These Curtis folks who are now professionals in other fields have had most of their technique and essentials nailed by the time they were 20. Even if they spent just 10 minutes per day on the piano since then, it would still be an unfair competition if their competitors are people who never had the chance to study piano full time and are still figuring out their technique, etc under not the very best teachers money can buy (again this is statistically speaking.. I'm sure there are people, including people like Mark, who have excellent teachers but I'm assuming that many don't).

Bjorn Borg plays for fun these days, he does not compete in amateur tennis competitions.