I just think its about the practicality of deliverying literally
umpteen thousands of exams three times a year in short bursts in a
tight and competative timetable. The examiner is appointed after a
quite intensive application and training process, and they are
tightly moderated for their first exam periods, and continue to be
over their examining career. What the system is looking for is a
person who can deliver an exam over the whole range. The system has
not arbitrarily decided that players of one kind of instrument are
not acceptable to exam players of another kind of instrument.
Moreover I would be very surprised to find a guitar player of the
kind of musical stature associated with an examiner, who had not at
least dabbled a bit with piano, certainly they would I think have an
extensive experience of hearing it played, including following scores
and understanding the mechanics and performance issues. That though
would not make them useful as examiners because they would not from
that be able to perform the aural tests adequately. As I find each
time I try knock out a few notes on piano in a lesson, its not to
helpful the 'candidate' (student preparing for exam in this case) if
you fumble and mess up. (I use the CDs with the aural tests books
mostly).
And while numbers of players of each instrument may be statistically
listed somewhere I don't know about, I would assert that at least as
far as UK is concerned, the sheer numbers of guitar players with
proper musical educations, able to play at least one other instrument
competently, is seriously dwarfed by most of the other instrument
groups. This is my observation among teaching and playing colleagues.
I would very much like to see a large increase in the numbers of
guitar players employed as examiners. It may partly be that most of
us are employed in teaching positions and cannot get time off for 6
weeks a term to go examining.
Stephen
On 4 Aug 2013, at 12:49, William Samson wrote:
' - and obviously also very good pianists - '. Why 'obviously'? I
think this is getting close to the point I am trying to make.
I might accept that 'never' is a bit strong, but I was in
fact referring to guitarists with no experience of piano ( -
Some very
fine guitarists do fit this description). Would 'at least some
training in the quirks of' the piano make such a person acceptable?
I accept that the great majority of instruments examined are
orchestral
along with piano. I am sure, however, that there are at least
as many
guitarists around in the general population as there are players
of any
of these other instruments. I wonder why so few of them become
part
of a system where they work their way through the grades?
Bill
From: Stephen Kenyon <s...@jacaranda-music.com>
To: William Samson <willsam...@yahoo.co.uk>
Cc: Christopher Wilke <chriswi...@yahoo.com>; Mark Seifert
<seifertm...@att.net>; gary <magg...@sonic.net>; lutelist
<lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Sunday, 4 August 2013, 12:12
Subject: [LUTE] Re: general public Lute awareness (but re guitar
exams)
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
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