Followers of this blog may well be aware that I am quite
active as a music examiner and do, occasionally, draw on my examining experiences
in blog posts. I have been asked by
those who run the examination bodies to make it clear that what I post are
entirely my own thoughts and in no way reflect those of the exam boards
themselves. I am not only happy to do
this, but would be horrified to think that anyone might think that my personal views
had any official support. Similarly, I
am anxious myself to stress that, aware of the sensitivity of commenting on
music exams, I take every effort to ensure that privileged information which
comes to me as an examiner and direct experience from specific examinations I
conduct, do not find their way into my posts.
If you think you are being offered an insight into how the exams work or
if you think you recognise yourself in one of my posts, you are wrong.
That said, I would be a pretty lousy examiner if I did not
do all in my power to support and promote what I believe to be an excellent
tool in the armoury of music education, and when something comes up which
undermines the very basis of a system of which I am as ardent a supporter as you
could find, I cannot sit back and let it pass while I have the channel to
redress the balance. So it was that when
an Italian tenor of some repute collared me after a rehearsal and asked if I
had a few minutes to spare, assuming that he was going to praise me for my
perceptive notes for his latest CD or for my informative writing in the booklet
accompanying a recent concert he had given, I offered my unwavering attention
for as long as long as he required. As
it turned out, he was anxious to vent his wrath on someone and, knowing that I
had some connection with the world of music exams, he chose me as the fall guy.
His anger was the result of an audition he had recently
given to a young soprano. Her CV was so
impressive he felt he could not but offer her an audition and the clinching
thing seemed to have been that she had a “Performing Diploma”. Assuming her to be a capable, possibly
talented, performer, he had called her in with every expectation that she would
prove admirably suited to the role he had in mind for her.
“But my friend”, he wailed, “She could not sing. Puccini,
she make-er this noise”. And, much to the bemusement of those around us, he
proceeded to do a pretty fair imitation of the sound a goose might emit were it
to land inadvertently on an electrified barbed wire fence. Allowing for the Italian penchant for
exaggeration, I nevertheless knew exactly what he meant, and while the
organisation awarding the “Performing Diploma” was not known to me, I was painfully
aware that it could easily have been one of the legitimate diploma-issuing
bodies with which I have been associated.
The problem is, in trying to find a standard which can be
maintained across the board for all musical instruments and voices (it makes a
nonsense of the system if, for example, and LRSM in singing was palpably more
demanding than an LRSM in double bass), exam boards need to draw up a list of
criteria to which examiners are duty bound to follow. Those criteria are in the public domain and are
carried by every examiner when they are at work. The drawback of this is that, while diplomas
are awarded in all good faith, they really do not indicate anything more than
the ability of the diploma holder to meet those pre-determined criteria. In an
effort to address this issue, some years ago Trinity renamed its diplomas so
that the “Performing Diploma” – which, by its very title, conferred a certain
legitimacy on diploma holders as performers – became a “Recital Diploma”. The inference is that the diploma candidate
is able to present an intimate recital even if a fully-fledged stage
performance is beyond their grasp. But
semantics apart, whatever the diplomas are called, an awful lot of people (Italian
tenors of some repute notwithstanding) assume it confers total legitimacy on
the diploma holder to be up there amongst the great and good of the musical
world.
So when singers, unable to produce an Emma Kirkby-like
purity of tone but under the rules of the published criteria can show through
musical and communicative skills that they have sufficient in them to earn a
diploma, are thrust into the spotlight and listened to with unrealistic
expectations by others, it is neither their fault, nor that of those who
awarded the diploma, that they do not meet expectations. The failure is with those who assume a
diploma is something it is not.
As I told my Italian tenor, a diploma recognises the overall
abilities of a candidate in any musical discipline to fulfil all the necessary
criteria laid down to achieve examination success. It does not tell the world that they are
great performers. That recognition comes
with experience, not with a piece of paper, no matter how beautifully engraved
it is.