What Grade, 76 graded pieces for flute Options

[kat the cobbler]

Hi

I wonder if anyone can help me. I've got my performance assignment today at uni and I think I'm going to chose a piece from the 76 graded peices for flute book 2 (number 61 or number 63). Does anyone know which grade these pieces (roughly).

It won't make that much difference becuase I could tell my tutor they were grade 8 and he wouldn't know (he's a guitar player and will never mark me higher than a B- becuase he doesn't understand the instrument or how difficult pieces are.

[upbeat]

About grade 6 I would say (the book is progressive from grades 6 to 8 and number 60 is (or was) a grade 6 study and number 67 was grade 7, so that gives you an idea of where nos 61 and 63 are in standard)

All the best for your performance assignment (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[kat the cobbler]

Thanks. I thought so.

I think I might do 63. Our tutor will see that it's got triplets and decide that that's more difficult.

[Teigr]

See if you can find the lists published online by the GCSE/A-level exam boards. They list a whole load of different pieces along with their grades, because the difficulty of a piece determines the highest available mark. Your chosen pieces might be on the lists, and the boards are quite generous in that they go by whatever the highest grade is that a piece has been set at by any music exam board. So a piece that is grade 5 ABRSM but grade 6 TG will be classed as grade 6. I would think your tutor should accept these lists as proof of the difficulty of the pieces, even if they're not on any current exam syllabus.
If your tutor is assessing performance he ought to have some understanding of what's involved for each instrument. You may well find that if there are limits on what mark you can get that it's based on a similar system to that used for GCSE and A-level. Maybe if you play a grade 6 piece, the best you can score is B-, and that to get an A you have to play at least a grade 8 piece or something like that, rather than it being bias on the part of the tutor?
As you're at university, the standards required are probably somewhat higher than those for A-level, and I think you have to play pieces of grade 6+ standard to get the highest marks at A-level. If it /is/ just tutor bias, is there anyone you can appeal to about it?

T.

[kat the cobbler]

Nope it's not graded on what grade the piece is because one of the girls playing guitar plays grade 2 and grade 3 peices because that's what level she's at and gets higher marks because our tutor understands the difficulty.

It's like for the last assignment I played the third movement from the Sonata in E Minor BWV 1034 by JS Bach because that's on the current grade 7 syllabus and I got a B- and the comments were something like, played well, breathing fitted with the piece, not too challenging!!!

[Teigr]

Could he be judging the level of difficulty compared to each person's individual standard. So, a grade 2 student choosing a grade 3 piece would be challenging themselves more than a grade 5 student choosing a grade 5 piece, who in turn would be challenging themselves more than a Diploma level student choosing a grade 8 piece?

T.

[watchaharry]

Hi

I wonder if anyone can help me. I've got my performance assignment today at uni and I think I'm going to chose a piece from the 76 graded peices for flute book 2 (number 61 or number 63). Does anyone know which grade these pieces (roughly).

It won't make that much difference becuase I could tell my tutor they were grade 8 and he wouldn't know (he's a guitar player and will never mark me higher than a B- becuase he doesn't understand the instrument or how difficult pieces are.

Piece number 60 was a Grade 6 piece when I did the exam, so 61 and 63 should be about that standard i suppose (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif).

[Teigr]

So, which one did you play in the end, how did it go and did the tutor accept that it was a suitable level of difficulty? If he's still not accepting the grade levels of things other than guitar, is there someone (Head of Department or similar) to whom you can appeal?

T.

[kat the cobbler]

I played no 61 in the end. I love that piece.

I don't know whether he accepted it on the level of difficulty. To be honest this year I'm just relieved that he lets me play classical pieces. Last year he wouldn't let me at all because it was "what I was used to" and kept given me random pieces out of the fake book that I found really easy and tedious. He now lets me play one classical piece and one Jazz piece with improvisation so I choose whatever classical piece and I bought the I Got Rhythm and It Don't Mean A Thing books (both of which are for grades 4 - 6 so I'm still not really challenging myself).