Examining in Huntsville

I always enjoy being on the road, even for a few days - this weekend I'm hearing voice and piano exams in Huntsville, Alabama for the National Music Certificate Program, the American arm of RCM Examinations. Being a lover of fine cuisine, I'm always on the lookout for memorable restaurants. By the way, the main course I had earlier this evening (see image) followed an amuse-bouche of deep-fried grits with horseradish sauce. I finished the meal with a slice of red velvet cake. If you have any suggestions for more fine Huntsville eateries, I still have one evening before I head back to Toronto...

Examining in Calgary

For the last week I've been examining piano students for RCM Examinations in Calgary. This is an exciting week, as I'm one of the beta testers of RCME's new online marking system. The students will definitely benefit from this new system of marking and adjudicating, as they'll be able to get their exam results mere days after playing their exams. Since the exam results are typed, students will be able to get a better sense of just how they did without having to wade through the examiner's handwriting (which in the case of my own, can be quite a chore). And while it's been a lot of fun working with the new RCME web app, each evening I get home to my hotel room in downtown Calgary and have no desire to do any blogging, since I've already been staring at a computer screen for over six hours.

Next week I'll be back to my regular blogging schedule, but this week it's been interesting to sit back and think about how the blogging process has changed. An article early today by Nick Bilton in the NY Times Bits blog looks at the way content curation has become one of the major blogging (and tweeting!) models of late. I can see that I've definitely moved in this direction over the last while. A quote from Bilton's interview with Maria Popova sums it up:

“I scour it all, hence the serendipity. It’s essentially ‘metacuration’ — curating the backbone, but letting its tentacles move freely. That’s the best formula for content discovery, I find.”

More interesting stuff to come in the next few weeks...

The New Technical Requirements for RCM Piano Examinations

RCM Examinations (which operates in the US as the National Music Cerficate Program) is currently overhauling their entire piano curriculum for the 2008-09 season. Some of the changes have recently been announced, including new technical requirements for all grades, which include:

• the introduction of Preparatory A and B into Canada (already available in US)
  
• preparation for the tough level changes that occur between Grades 4-5 and 7-8
• different major/minor relationships throughout the grades
• staccato scales introduced
  
• earlier introduction of hands together forms
• different listings of scales at the 3rd and 6th in later grades, as well as the introduction of scales at the 10th.

To get a better idea of these new changes and how they will apply to the RCME curriculum one year from now, read Part 1 and Part 2 of Christopher Kowal's articles on the subject in the Music Matters newsletter published by RCME.