Local places of interest in your town

[Megan]

Lovely pictures of the great wide open spaces of the US. Preston.
The Hut put me in mind of Sibelius and the hut he virtually retired to in the Finnish forests to compose his great symphonies, I am sure such a place would be very conducive to a lot of artistic activity like poetry, writing and thinking, etc.

[Preston]

Megan, I have heard of photobucket but thanks for giving me the extra push to join. It was much needed. Thanks.

[Preston]

More to come, maybe?

[Preston]

The places I live is enough local attraction for me! Here are various locations that I live at. No, I am not rich - I do not own one of them, ! Just live at them a lot of the time (family and what not). Please click to see full size.

Had to put the family dog in!

[Preston]

No, not attachments. You need to click the button that looks like this:

It is right above the window where you type in the text.

What did happen to the attachments? Were you worried about space on the server?

[Quijote]

Sorry, just a last point : in the test image I posted above you will read Université March Bloch. Strasbourg had three major university institutions : Marc Bloch, Louis Pasteur and Robert Schumann. They have all now been merged into one single entity : Strasbourg University, which is France's largest (but not best, I must say). The music department has not yet bothered to update its paperwork! But then again, musicians are often behind the times, are they not? Hah!

[Quijote]

I sat in on the dictation test for the fun. It was a doddle. Apart from childishly simple intervallic and rhythmic recognition, there were two melodic dictations (using CDs). Go on, try to guess which works were used (this for Agnès and Michael only).

[Quijote]

By the way, if any of you would like to try the test above, you can send me your answers via PM. 5 points for Q.5, 4 points for Q.4, one point for each of the other questions, total 20 points.

[Quijote]

Anyway, a bit later I'll have to try Chris's technique for posting images, once I have taken a snapshot of the Strasbourg Cathedral from my balcony!

[Quijote]

The point is, we had to do the tests I mentioned for my own case before we were accepted to read Music at University. Here today in France, there is no pre-selection whatsoever!! Hence, we have about 100 students in the first year who then after the end-of-year exams get whittled down to about half in the second year, who then get whittled down to a more manageable number in the third year. You could argue that it is same final result, but why allow certain students who have absolutely no talent or ear for music to waste a year or two before they get chucked out? I suppose it certainly helps keep the unemployment figures down ...

[Quijote]

A little explanation then of the above image. I teach harmony (perhaps "applied harmony" is a more apt term), that is to say, teaching students how to harmonize given melodies from Bach chorales and the Violin 1 part of "classical" string quartets. I normally teach this subject for 2nd-year undergraduates (a mixed class of musicology and conservatory students), and a more advanced harmony-cum-free composition course for would-be secondary school teachers (a Master's level degree).
Today (hence the image), I was roped in to mark the new 1st-year evaluation test, this comprising the exam paper given above, a written essay on a musical topic, and an ear test (identifying intervals, rhythm and melody dictation). The evalution test is to help us place the students into three groups (useless; moderately able; good or better).
I must admit that I was until today never involved in the evaluation process, and am absolutely appalled by the low level this "test" calls for!
In my day (late 19th century, for your information Headmaster), we had (in addition to having the required grades at A level) to have minimum Grade VIII in our first instrument, Grade V in piano; an extensive dictation : 4-part harmony; two-part invention; two 8-bar melodies (one diatonic, one atonal); rhythm. After that there was a harmonization of a Bach chorale and the completion of a two-part invention. There then followed an audition on our chosen first instrument; a piano harmonization exercise at sight, and a score-reading test; an essay on a given musical topic (in my case, the question was : "Are conductors necessary"? "No", I wrote.). After all that, there was then an interview with two of the lecturers who picked us apart (I foolishly said I liked Berio's Laborintus II, and was asked to explain what I admired in this work; I couldn't, but hey, I was young and trying to impress!)
Anyway, the upshot of all this is : I would say things have been dumbed down somewhat, and more importantly, I will have these students I marked today next year (autumn 2012). God help me.

[Chris]

Thank you too, Chris. Let's give it a go as you suggest ... one moment please ...
OK, I get the "Manage Attachments" window, click on the right buttons (I believe), then nothing happens.

No, not attachments. You need to click the button that looks like this:

It is right above the window where you type in the text.

[Quijote]

Yes, and as I posted in the other thread, you don't need to manually type in the image tags. Just click that little button that looks like a picture of mountains when you are typing in a post, and it will do it for you.

Thank you too, Chris. Let's give it a go as you suggest ... one moment please ...
OK, I get the "Manage Attachments" window, click on the right buttons (I believe), then nothing happens.
Never mind, I'll try your technique a bit later. In the meantime, I post this (using Megan's [img ... [/img] technique :

[Chris]

Yes! It works! Many thanks, Megan. Photos of Strasbourg and endless passages from scores showing odd harmonies to follow ...
(You will all regret this new technique that has now been revealed to me...)

Yes, and as I posted in the other thread, you don't need to manually type in the image tags. Just click that little button that looks like a picture of mountains when you are typing in a post, and it will do it for you.

[Megan]

Brilliant! you're on a roll now Philip.

Oooh eck, what have we done ,



.