Huntingdonshire Music School Association - Download

Having an impending ABRSM tuba Grade 4 exam looming I thought it might make sense to see what means of playing with accompaniment were available to me (short of kidnapping a piano player). I’d heard that somewhere there might be some download options available. Unfortunately for me, or rather anyone with a tuba, I didn’t find anything to help me. I did, however, find that the ABRSM does itself now have a ‘download shop’.

The ABRSM Audio Download Shop (http://www.abrsm.org/audioshop) provides the ability to download the piano part for Grades 1 - to 8 for the piano (!) [2009-2012], violin [2008 - 2011], clarinet [2008-2013] and flute [2008-2013]. Individual downloads are GBP 0.79 (79 pence) each or there’s an offer of 1 from each of the A, B and C lists (i.e. your complete exam) for GBP 1.95 available once per grade. Pretty cheap and a lot less hassle than trying to persuade the computer to create a backing track.

From the ABRSM site:

An expanding range

Launched in 2008 with recordings of ABRSM’s Piano syllabus (2009 & 2010), the download service has already proved highly popular with pianists. It now includes almost every piece from ABRSM syllabuses for Violin (2008–2011), Flute and Clarinet (both 2008–2013).

Amongst the huge range of repertoire, violinists will find Howard Blake’s jovial Dance of the Snowmen (from the famous animated film) at Grade 5, and can make new discoveries, such as the charming Sentimental Romance by Wilhelm Stenhammar (sometimes known as ‘the Swedish Elgar’) at Grade 8.

Individual movements from Koechlin’s 14 pieces were reintroduced to the Flute syllabus in 2008, and flautists at Grades 1, 2, 4 and 5 can enjoy these beautiful pieces. Grade 3 clarinettists can discover the highly effective transfer of Mendelssohn’s Song without Words. The Arabesque by Germaine Tailleferre (the only female member of the early 20th-century French group of composers, Les Six) is a wonderful find at Grade 7.

New features and offers

The preview facility allows all users to try out 10 seconds of any track before making the decision to purchase. Recordings of pieces set at Grades 1–5 are priced at 79 pence each, and those at Grades 6–8 are 99 pence each.

For the price of what is normally a single track, those purchasing Violin, Flute or Clarinet exam repertoire will actually receive two tracks: the exemplar recording of solo instrument with piano accompaniment, and a bonus track that includes just the piano accompaniment alone, for playalong practice.

This doesn’t help anyone on any other instrument, including the tuba. Are there any other sites out there than can provide accompaniment downloads for ABRSM (or Guildhall) exams?

Introduction

Here we provide some help for those who’d like to receive our ‘HUMS Aloud’ podcast.

First, to inject a little bit of sanity:-

• you don’t need to own an iPod or similar Mp3 player in order to listen
 
• you do need a computer!
• when we use the word ‘subscribe’ all we mean issetting up the software on your computer to automatically check for new episodes. If it finds news ones it will then automatically download them for you to listen to when you choose to

What Do I Need?

In order to listen to our podcast you need:-

 
• a computer. It doesn’t matter whether it runs Microsoft Windows or the Apple Mac OS X operating systems or indeed Linux
 
• a software application that can check for new episodes and download them

Having the patience of a saint or a brain the size of a planet isn’t a necessary requirement, luckily!

How Do I Go About Getting the Podcast?

The following steps are written specifically for use of Apple’s iTunes software (Mac and Windows versions are identical). If you use another piece of software the basic principles should still apply.

 
• Get the software and install it. The iTunes software is available free of charge from Apple - click here to go to their site.
• Install iTunes software that you just downloaded.
 
• Run/open the iTunes software application.
 
• Select the ‘Podcast’ item in the left hand pane

• On the top menu bar, look for ‘Advanced’ and select ‘Subscribe to Podcast’

 
• in the window that appears, enter the address of our HUMS Aloud podcast - http://www.btpodshow.com/feeds/humsaloud.xml

 
• click on ‘OK’. You should then see the HUMS Aloud podcast appear in the list of podcasts

That’s all there is to it. iTunes will check from time to time and download new episodes without you having to do anything.

Further Reference

If you want to find other podcasts you can either select ‘iTunes Store’ within iTunes and then ‘Podcasts’ on the page that loads

or you can visit Podcast Alley and browse.

If you’re thinking about either enrolling one of the family or yourself at the Music College it’s probably best to come and see what we do first.

The Music College does run specific open days but but any Saturday morning during college term time (09:00 to 13:00) provides an opportunity to wander in and see what’s going on. Ask at the reception by the entrance for the Director, Gary Sieling [ the effervescent one with professional music qualifications after his name and a cycling proficiency to boot], or if you you know what instrument or band interests you someone can guide you.

Types of Enrolment

There are 2 basic types of enrolment, which depend on where you have tuition:-

• full - this is where you have tuition at the Music College and take part in the full music package (tuition + theory + group work (when OK))
• associate - this is suitable if you already have lessons elsewhere but want to make use of the theory or ensembles

In either case you’ll want to get in contact with the college.

You can enrol at any time during a term (not just at the beginning) and fees will be adjusted accordingly.

Prospectus

You can download a prospectus which has more information about the Music College, including fees and an application/enrolment form:-

• 2007 - 2008 prospectus (Adobe Acrobat 7 file, 12 pages, 1 Mbyte)

If you need to get hold of the free Adobe Acrobat reader in order to read the file you can do so using this link.