Specialist or Generalist Examiners

[princessmoose]

What do people prefer? Specialist or generalist? I guess there are advantages to both. Just wondered what the general consensus was.

[YetAnotherKlavierist]

Specialist - I'm friends with recorder players .

[princessmoose]

I'm probably being slow, but what?! I don't get that .

[SuzyMac]

I've never minded, and I haven't the faintest idea what any of my examiners play. They all have to be reasonable pianists, do they not?

[princessmoose]

Yeah, I'd say so, because of the Aural Tests. Some of the pieces are quite complex!

[YetAnotherKlavierist]

princessmoose said:

I don't get that .

Don't worry about it .

Recorder players often complain about the lack of specialist recorder examiners: a frequent complaint from non-specialists is the lack of dynamic range; which is an inherent weakness of the recorder, rather than being a problem with the player's technique. Specialist examiners would go some way to helping with this.

[princessmoose]

Ah I get it!

See, that kind of problem would be eliminated with specialist examiners, and is good, but then I think well then they'd know about more obvious mistakes perhaps than a generalist would.

Hmm.

[jod]

I don't think it makes much difference. I think its their general manner that counts. Do they put candidates at ease or scare them stiff!

[digby]

Personally I don't mind but it was interesting in the TG seminar when we were watching a video of a girl playing a grade 5 piece on the piano and were asked to mark it according to their criteria. All the pianists failed her by 1 or 2 marks overall, the non pianists had her passing, in some instances with merit. The chief examiner was an organist and gave her a merit.

Perhaps you are harder on your own instrument?

[anacrusis]

Still a specialist - who can also understand what you're up against! (But I would say that, wouldn't I - being a recorder player. I do remember an oboe exam in the bad old days too, in which I really could have done with an examiner who knew what oboes do to their owners... )
Having said that, Trinity's specialist examiners are really only specialists in broad families of instruments, aren't they? I seem to remember my grade 8 one telling me he was a saxophonist. He still wrote some nice things about the "impression of dynamics, which can be difficult to achieve on the recorder", so must have known about our usual grouses. (grice?)

[digby]

anacrusis said:

Having said that, Trinity's specialist examiners are really only specialists in broad families of instruments, aren't they? (grice?)

Exactly - wonder how many specialist bag pipe examiners there are?

Still with the piano they can all play a bit

[princessmoose]

anacrusis - That's good he recognised that dynamics were hard on a recorder .

I think most of my next few exams will be with TG so I'll have more of a view on whether I prefer specialist or generalist.

I would have thought that at uni level for recitals etc they need a specialist, but my first year one was marked by a violinist and a viola player. I wonder if that will change, not that we have a lecturer who plays sax!

[kflute]

I've voted specialist, more than anything, I'd like woodwind specialists, string specialists etc. It would be very awkward to get a different specialist for each instrument, but each section would be good. So many examiners don't seem to realise that's it's normal for a grade 2 flute player to breathe every other note!!!!!!

[Steve Hopwood]

Thing about specialist examiners is, are we willing to pay for them?

I tell you what makes me ask this. I accompanied a flute exam in Gainsborough on Monday. Gainsborough is our 'local' centre, accepting entries from many miles around.

The centre had half a day of examinations - piano, woodwind and strings. It must be typical of loads of small centres all over the country. The examiner had to be able to examine as a 'generalist'.

Gainsborough cannot field 'specialist' exams, so what are the alternatives? Try these:

- exam board send specialists to Gainsborough and charge the full economic fee for doing so. How many parents would pay a couple of hundred pounds for their little darling to take grade 2 oboe - a real example of a single oboist taking an exam that day?
- exam board could set up regional centres to cater for exams in front of specialist examiners. Would the parents of the little grade 2 oboe be happy to drive 90 miles for the exam? Different type of cost, but still very expensive.

Ok, so my examples are extremes, but they would be repeated over and again.

Specialist examiners are unneccessary if examiners are properly trained to accommodate the effects that he different problems playing individual instruments have on the performance of pieces on those instruments.

Some examples. How much of the following is 'acceptable' in grade 4: violin - poor intonation; flute - breathiness; piano - blurred pedal; voice - incoherent words: trumpet - harsh tone.

Of course, 'properly trained' covers a whole range of expertise. This doesn't happen, as we know. This is why so many people want specialist examiners. They still don't want to pay for them, though ;D

Steve

[anacrusis]

That is a very good point - though I must confess it did feel as if I was paying through the nose for my diploma exam.

I've found a lot of prejudice about my instruments "out there" - both in the non-musical world and the musical one. I wonder how they go about training examiners to ignore their preferences for one instrument over another - or are there really enough folks in this world who genuinely love all instruments equally enough to be able to be neutral on this one?