Bill, that's not an entirely complete assessment of this situation in
my view. The pianist is expected to assess all other instruments,
not just guitars, and one important reason for it is that part of
the exam assessment consists of aural test which have to be played
competently on a piano, including up to the grade 8 tests which are
of course quite complex. They do get at least some training in the
quirks of each instrument examined, though many through their general
education will be well aware of most of the orchestral instruments
for example, which along with the piano form the great majority of
the instruments.
As for the NEVER, this is simply uninformed, as out of the roughly
650 Associated Board examiners there to my knowledge two who are
'first study' guitarists - and obviously also very good pianists, one
of whom is a notable soloist that guitar players will have heard of,
the other was a member of a noted quartet. I am not aware of the
situation regarding Trinity College examiners.
It is also useful to note that for ABRSM post grade 8 diplomas, there
are two examiners, one of whom has a specialism in each instrument
examined on that day. For guitars this can be for instance (as in my
first case) a composer who has written for guitar rather than a
performer, and in the second case it was the second of the guitar
playing examiners I listed.
The Guildhall exam system did, in the 1990s, offer specialist
examiners, which worked quite well in some ways, but their whole
model collapsed. Both the other major boards use generalists, eg
pianists, and it works overall because its also about flexibility in
filling up timetables and moving examiners around the UK and indeed
those parts of the world where this business is valued.
Stephen
On 4 Aug 2013, at 10:02, William Samson wrote:
it was pointed out to me, the other day, that although it is not
unusual for a pianist (with no experience of guitar) to assess the
performance of a guitarist in the UK grade exams, a guitarist (with
no experience of piano) would NEVER be accepted as a suitable
assessor
for the performance of a pianist.
Bill
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
