RSAMD Scottish Traditional Music Graded Exams - Spring 2008 Session

23rd January 2008

The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama's Scottish Traditional Music Graded Exams project was launched in the summer of 2007 when its website went live (http://gradedexams.rsamd.ac.uk) and its first session for fiddle and accordion took place on 22 October.

Entries are now being taken for our next scheduled session for fiddle, accordion and harp from Tuesday 25 to Friday 28 March 2008. Exams for fiddle and accordion will take place at RSAMD premises, 100 Renfrew St, Glasgow, G2 3DB. Exams for harp will take place at Merchiston Castle School, Colinton, Edinburgh, on Friday the 28th, which co-incides with the first day of the Edinburgh International Harp Festival (www.harpfestival.co.uk). We particularly hope that harp players will take advantage of the occasion and limber up for the Festival with a graded exam or ungraded assessment by a specialist harp examiner.

The deadline for entry to the Spring 2008 session is Friday 5 March 2008. If you are a classroom teacher or instrumental instructor, please do consider entering pupils for this upcoming session. For details, go to http://gradedexams.rsamd.ac.uk

All exams are validated by the Academic Board of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

And don't forget - schools can contact us for special visits and exams by videoconference at any time of year, not just during our twice-annual Glasgow sessions!

Graded Exams Publications Available from Taigh na Teud

The RSAMD Scottish Traditional Music Graded Exams project is proud to announce a new partnership with well-established traditional music publisher Taigh na Teud, based on the Isle of Skye (www.scotlandsmusic.com).

Through 2008, Taigh na Teud and RSAMD will work together to produce dedicated collections of Graded Exams repertoire, bringing together a wide diversity of tunes, both traditional and modern, attractively presented and available in one convenient series.

The following, however, are available NOW through a download service from Taigh na Teud's website:

tunes listed in the Graded Exams' fiddle, accordion and harp repertoires not yet available in any current published collection; and supporting specimen pieces for Quick Study and Practical & Aural Musicianship (PAM) tests in fiddle, accordion and harp.

This arrangement ensures that as of now, all tunes listed in our repertoires are available either from a wide range of printed collections or by download from Taigh na Teud at www.scotlandsmusic.com.

Recent Tune Change
Some tutors or candidates in Grade 1 fiddle may by now have attempted to obtain the tune 'The Mid Yell School Waltz' by Tom Anderson. It has come to our attention that the collection in which it appears, Haand Me Doon Da Fiddle, is no longer in print. We have therefore substituted it for another great waltz of Tom Anderson's, 'Fethaland', which can be found in The Tom Anderson Collection Volume 1, currently published by Hardie Press.