' - 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 To get on or off this list see list information at [1]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
