National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music

7 Jul 2008 in Highland, Music

Making the Grade

ROB ADAMS reports on significant recent developments at the National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music in Plockton

TRADITIONAL musicians can hold their own with players from any musical discipline. When it comes to examinations and paper qualifications, however, a music that has historically been passed on from player to player has tended to lag behind. Grade exams in Shetland fiddling were devised some years ago and more recently the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, which offers a degree course in Scottish Music, has expanded on this to include other instruments, but only up to Grade 5.

So living up to its name, the National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music at Plockton High School has taken the initiative to put traditional music on a par with classical music in terms of certificated assessment across the range of traditional music instruments up to conservatory entrance level and beyond.

Working with Trinity Guildhall in London, the Centre has devised the first-ever Grade 6-8 examinations for the clarsach (or Scottish harp) and performers’ certificates which, so far, have given students of Highland bagpipes, accordion and fiddle a post-Grade 8 qualification. In addition, and of particular importance to the Centre, much of whose work concentrates on ensemble playing, the performers’ certificate also applies to group work.

The first performers’ certificate examinations took place on Thursday, April 24 and produced outstanding results, with eleven individual students and two groups between them achieving two passes, five merits and six distinctions.

Dougie Pincock, the Centre’s Director, expressed his delight at the results and praised Karen Marshalsay, the Centre’s clarsach tutor, who has been responsible for developing both the clarsach grade examinations and the performer’s certificates with Nicholas Keyworth, the external examiner from Trinity Guildhall.

“It’s fantastic to see this finally happen,” said Pincock, himself a traditional musician and former member of top Scottish folk group Battlefield Band. “It’s been three years in planning and the results – thirteen out of thirteen – are a tribute not only to the students’ talent and commitment but also to the huge amount of work that Karen and Nick have put into creating these qualifications.”

Since the Centre opened in 2000, Pincock has been concerned that, as well as nurturing and encouraging students to play and sing to a high level, the students should have parity of esteem with their colleagues at the classical music centres of excellence.

“There’s been some gentle but consistent probing from people wondering what it is that students actually get from their time here,” says Pincock. “And I understand that once you take traditional music into the formal education world, you have to play to the same rules. Our students should have the same chances of assessment with the same status as classical music students and the powers that be want to see validation of the work that we all do up here.

“These examinations go a long way towards achieving both these things and backing up the proof, if you like, that exists on the CDs of student performances we produce every year and the tours we undertake each summer.”

Pincock and Karen Marshalsay, who is an experienced composer and working musician as well as a teacher, chose Trinity Guildhall as partners in the project because of Trinity’s open-minded approach.

“There are specific problems in teaching traditional music in that the music itself places great value on variation and ornamentation,” says Marshalsay. “Rather than recreating a standard composition, the players should be able to create a unique performance every time. It’s also the player’s job to communicate with the listener and to decide what to convey in terms of a wide variety of emotions, stories and a sense of place, which are all part of the music’s character.”

Trinity Guildhall, she says, took this on board from the start. As well as being devisers of the world’s first classical music grade and diploma examinations, which are now recognised in over fifty countries and have set the standard for over one hundred and thirty years, Trinity work in other musics, including jazz and Indian music, where improvisation and spontaneity are key components. At the same time, notating music and sight-reading are important assets to working traditional musicians, so a balance was established.

The clarsach grade students are assessed jointly by their own tutor and an outside assessor from Trinity, based on criteria similar to the classical examinations, and performance certificates are judged by the external examiner. The marking scheme for the latter consists of a possible twenty-two marks for each of four pieces of music, six marks for programme planning and notes, and six marks for stagecraft and presentation, making one hundred marks in all. Sixty per cent gives a pass, 75% a merit, and 87% a distinction.

Having achieved success with the initial examinations, Pincock and Trinity Guildhall are hoping to roll out the certificate exam structure at other centres where traditional music is taught and to include flute/whistle, cello, song and guitar and piano accompaniment in future examinations at Plockton. The success has also given Plockton a pleasant problem.

“Grade 8 takes students to conservatoire audition level and since the performers’ certificates are post-Grade 8, that means we can have students on our course who are working at first and second year university level,” says Pincock. “We have one piper who has just earned a distinction and he’s only in third year at secondary school and although there are a raft of advance piping exams, we might have to consider developing some sort of diploma for him to work towards. But decisions like that I don’t mind because it’s further validation of what we do as a centre of excellence.”