DQB123 Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 All this talk of hoods makes me wonder what dubiosity there is out there. I have a couple of hoods which essentially don't mean a thing. There is the Cuddesdon hood - a dark blue number, earned for just being at that college. (I think that the Principal at the time didn't even know that there was such a thing.) Then I have a music hood from the Faculty of Church Music. Anyone got one of them? (Black velvet, blue and gold) I think that said Faculty of Church Music was a part of the University of Indiana. Also sitting around the church is a hood belonging to a former organist (now in a nursing home) from the Lancashire School of Music (I think) Blue and Yellow (quite nice actually, but to be truthful can't say how she came by it) I wear a hood so infrequently nowadays that I usually have to go a hunting for one.... and should it be the BMus or the MA hood? aka the hoodless horseman PS Don't know what's happened to my typing just lately - the title should read USELESS tat! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcolm Kemp Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 I can sympathise with Quentin over typing - on another post just now I realised I had typed "font door" instead of "front door". I have to admit that I did join a couple of very dodgy music organisations - just for fun - which I now keep very quiet about. The embarrassing problem can come when people ask you what the letters mean or what the hood is for. Like other people on this Board, I have several hoods for valid qualifications for which I worked long and hard and these days I don't often need to wear one anyway. There is a firm regularly selling things on E-bay which appears to sell hoods of their own invention which don't relate to any qualification - genuine or bogus. A little research - notably in the Burgon Society booklet on musical hoods - reveals that, as has already been commented on, there are vast numbers of music colleges, associations &c., that most people have never heard of, all with very ornate hoods (some very similar in design to those of reputable qualifications) and the same "officers" seem to keep cropping up in all of them. This would not happen - or be tolerated - in any field of life other than church music and it denigrates genuine qualifications. It is time this kind of unprofessional nonsense was stopped. It turns us into a laughing stock. A friend, acting with the best of intentions, asked the GCM to put my additional "qualifications" (see above) on my entry in the GCM yearbook and I have now asked that they be removed. The ISM only shows "genuine"/reputable qualifications and I have asked that my GCM yearbook entry should in future tally with my entry in the ISM yearbook. Malcolm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcolm Kemp Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 A contemporary of Quentin at Cuddesdon has told me on more than one occasion that when they were students there the students were considerably better qualified academically than the tutorial staff, so why worry! Malcolm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gazman Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 A quick Google shows that it appears quite easy to get Fellowships from the following, in exchange for a payment.... [remainder of post deleted by moderator because inaccurate and in parts defamatory] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJJ Posted May 30, 2009 Share Posted May 30, 2009 My one and only hood (for which I worked long and hard - mostly - for three years) never ever gets used these days. However, once, a few years ago for a change I turned up to sing for Choral Evensong at a very reputable establishment down this way and took one of my wife's hoods instead - mine was probably at the cleaners - it was amazing how much interest a change of colour and trim caused. Despite the fact that I was temporarily sporting an MA in Town Planning instead of a BA in Music it was very much a case of 'oooer' from my more 'hood - aware' colleagues. I am sure that somewhere there is a condition called 'hood envy' - mostly found amongst the more closeted church choir environs. A PS - My present console position is such that if I wanted to I could come dressed as a gorilla and no one would notice!! Mind you I did once in my not too youth get told off by a certain well known Dean of Lincoln for wearing open sandals to Choral Evensong - it was in the height of summer and another of us was even wearing shorts under his cassock. It didn't go down very well afterwards when I pointed out that Jesus probably wore open sandals too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DQB123 Posted May 30, 2009 Author Share Posted May 30, 2009 <<SNIP>>A PS - My present console position is such that if I wanted to I could come dressed as a gorilla and no one would notice!! Mind you I did once in my not too youth get told off by a certain well known Dean of Lincoln for wearing open sandals to Choral Evensong - it was in the height of summer and another of us was even wearing shorts under his cassock. It didn't go down very well afterwards when I pointed out that Jesus probably wore open sandals too. HEE HEE WWJD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil T Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 I am sure that somewhere there is a condition called 'hood envy' - mostly found amongst the more closeted church choir environs. It does exist, I'm not sure why, but it does exist. Let your musical ability do the talking, I say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest drd Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 I'm almost sure I recall someone in post on the south coast in the early seventies/late sixties who wore a selection of hoods at the same time. I don't think it's just a dream... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJJ Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 I'm almost sure I recall someone in post on the south coast in the early seventies/late sixties who wore a selection of hoods at the same time. I don't think it's just a dream... ...and at one of the smaller cathedrals too - or so I've been told. A Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil T Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 I'm almost sure I recall someone in post on the south coast in the early seventies/late sixties who wore a selection of hoods at the same time. I don't think it's just a dream... ...and at one of the smaller cathedrals too - or so I've been told. A That narrows it down. Any more clues? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nachthorn Posted June 4, 2009 Share Posted June 4, 2009 And there's a general knowledge rumour that an organist at a large church in the south of England wore an FRCO hood that he had acquired second-hand without troubling himself with the exams and so on. Can't imagine why - it would make me feel thoroughly fraudulent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DQB123 Posted June 13, 2009 Author Share Posted June 13, 2009 And there's a general knowledge rumour that an organist at a large church in the south of England wore an FRCO hood that he had acquired second-hand without troubling himself with the exams and so on. Can't imagine why - it would make me feel thoroughly fraudulent. Hmmm.... Well I don't know about that. But wasn't it W T Best who when asked if he would be taking the FCO diploma replied with the question "But who would examine ME??" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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