Burns, Tennessee
In my house, the week before Thanksgiving was always exam week. 2005 was no exception: I had been lined up to take four different grade 8 examinations for the Associated Boards for the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) in organ, harp, voice, and piano. Following my fourth and last encounter with the examiner, he stepped out of the room to shake my hand, telling me, “You didn’t have to do them all at once.” Perhaps it’s true; most kids in the UK would probably spread these exams apart, taking one at their local school, and maybe heading up the road a few months later to another school to take the others. But I didn’t grow up in the UK, and I didn’t go to school. I was homeschooled in Burns, Tennessee (population: 1,457). ABRSM examiners were sent to the U.S. so infrequently (only twice a year) that if I wanted to do them, I would have to do them all at once.