Has anyone done the London College exams in composition. What are the expected levels for the various grades? The guidelines only outline time limits for the pieces and are not very helpful for any other pointers. Would appreciate any help and advice that anyone can give me.
Thanks

I have taken people through grades 2 and 4, but even so I would find it hard to give pointers as such. The tasks are quite contained at these levels though, in that you are setting or arranging other works for a couple of the portfolio items. We found our examiners to be very exacting musical editors so I think it would be advisable for candidates to become proficient with notation software. I'd say one thing they are looking for is consistency of style and an awareness of coherence in structure - for example one candidate in their arrangement of traditional song had a fairly conservative harmonic vocabulary most of the way through but a sort of jazz coda, and that lost marks.

I'm sure others will be able to help you better.