From: Martyn Hodgson <hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk>
To: Stephen Kenyon <s...@jacaranda-music.com>
Sent: Monday, 5 August 2013, 7:12
Subject: Re: [LUTE] Re: general public Lute awareness (but re guitar
exams)
Dear Stephen Kenyon,
Whilst I can see, and agree, with much of your position, attributing to
pianists generally a level of 'musical stature' is undeserved. Clearly
many may know bits of the keyboard repertoire from, say, 1800 onwards
reasonably well but I wonder how many can realise a decent basso
continuo accompaniment on sight, or improvise suitable and stylish
divisions, or read a score with unusual (for these modern times)
clefs.. And I very much doubt your assertion that the most skilled
guitarists play the keyboard too!
Martyn Hodgson
__________________________________________________________________
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, 13:16
Subject: [LUTE] Re: general public Lute awareness (but re guitar exams)
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 <[1]s...@jacaranda-music.com>
> To: William Samson <[2]willsam...@yahoo.co.uk>
> Cc: Christopher Wilke <[3]chriswi...@yahoo.com>; Mark Seifert
> <[4]seifertm...@att.net>; gary <[5]magg...@sonic.net>; lutelist
> <[6]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
> To get on or off this list see list information at
> [1][7]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
>
> --
>
> References
>
> 1. [8]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
>
--
References
1. mailto:s...@jacaranda-music.com
2. mailto:willsam...@yahoo.co.uk
3. mailto:chriswi...@yahoo.com
4. mailto:seifertm...@att.net
5. mailto:magg...@sonic.net
6. mailto:lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
7. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
8. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
