I work as a secondary music teacher as well as private piano and vocal teacher. For some of my students the exam fees are really too expensive and one or two parents recently have aksed me to teach without entering their student for exams because of the expense.

However, I find teaching without the goal of passing an exam quite difficult to direct and manage. Even for pleasure, music, adn espeically music learning, is about making progress and reaching certain standards or mile stones. Without these students start to loose interest and. to be honest, so do I.

I'm thinking about setting up my own assessment days using other teachers as assessors. The assessment would be the same criteria as if it was an ABRSM exam. It would take place in my house or at the house of another teacher and the examinter would be another local teacher who I would pay the same hourly rate they charge for teaching. I think the cost to the student would be less than ?10. I'm even prepared to get some really nice certificates printed and then add their names and marks to them myself.

This proceedure would be for students who found it difficult to pay, or who find exams very threatening and difficult, or who I don't think are going to be gong to higher grades. I was also going to limit it to a maximum of grade 3 or 4.

What do people think?

I am doing exactly that with some of my students. Some because of financial difficulties and others just because they don't want to do a formal exam. The "examiners" are the two music teachers at the school, and myself. And our first one is in a couple of weeks.

I also feel that a goal is useful for motivating students but in addition to the option of exams (and for those not yet ready) I put on termly student concerts and they are much appreciated by the parents and useful for focusing practice.

Firstly, to my mind, exams should always be a secondary consideration to the teaching itself. Not all pupils want or need to do exams. There are lots of other things to work towards - for example, could you run some informal performance sessions, workshops for pupils, concerts, duet sessions etc. Could they work towards making a recording? All these are good things to work towards beyond exam stuff. If they don't want to do conventional exams, have you considered LCM Leisure Play, Recital Grades or Performance Awards? There are also TG Performance Certificates and the AB has the Performance Assessment for adult learners.

Personally, I'm not keen on in-house assessment schemes. A lot of music services have had them over the years and they seem to always end in dissapointment. If you do want to go down that road, you need to be 100% clear to pupils and parents what you're offering, especially with talk of certificates. Whilst your intentions would I'm sure be entirely above-board, these in-house assessments do leave it open to misunderstanding. The other thing to consider is how will your pupils do should they want to go on and do a formal exam at a later date?

I agree that it is difficult when pupils seem to have no goal, but I think there are lots of things we could offer them outside of exams - you just have to be creative.

I don't see why you can't use the syllabus as a structure. You can still cover the material and not take the exams. So your plan sounds fine.

I decided from the start that I wasn't going to take the early exams as I felt that for me it would be a waste of money, but I wanted to be able to measure my progress against the levels expected. So teacher gave me some old syllabus music which we worked on and I downloaded the scale requirements etc.

We did a mock exam with teacher as the examiner. It was mortifyingly bad. So bad we laugh about it now. I think I would have found it easier with an unknown teacher.

As an aside I think I would be slightly alarmed to know that my teacher was losing interest without the impetus of exams.

I wonder if you find it more the case with singing rather than piano. I find, due to the lack of structured resources for singing that you can't as easily track progression. Whereas with piano you can see the student progressing through their tutor books and then graded repertoire.

Most of my students choose not to do exams.
I don't see how this is related to progress. In some ways taking exams stalls progress.
As others have said you can set other goals if you wish.

I'm with SeerGreen and Badstrad on this.

Have a look and see how they do things in the USA and Germany where, so far as I know, people learn without doing ABRSM exams.

Also, as you are a secondary music teacher, have you ever looked at the Musical Futures pedagogical methods where children are put in bands from Year 7 up and learn to play songs from recordings? I'm not saying you have to change your secondary practice, it's just that these materials might stimulate you to think of other ways of recording progress and other kinds of milestones.

By the way, is it not likely that there is something else going on here? After all, you must be charging between ?10 and ?30 weekly, so the exam fees will only be a small proportion of annual lesson charges. Is it possible that they only want to learn for fun, and that they've chosen you because they rate your teaching expertise highly and perhaps don't want to disagree openly about the exam thing? I would absolutely love to have a qualified secondary teacher as my children's music teacher - all that experience of dealing with different learning styles......

good luck.

I worked for one music service which successfully ran in-house graded exams up as far as Grade 5. Part of the staff's contracted hours included the last Saturday of each term, and we would be scheduled to be examiners, accompanists or stewards as necessary in various locations across the county. There was no entry cost, as access to these exams was part of the agreement when schools purchased tuition, which made it much easier for less well-off families to participate equally.

It's a mammoth administrative load, when they have hundreds of exams to deal with in one term! Nonetheless, the system has worked for many years...

In France there is only an exam roughly once every four years; for most children this is too much of a long-term goal to provide much of a motivation.

There are however regular concerts at the music school throughout the year (both instrument specific and ones open to anyone on any instrument who has a piece ready to perform) so pupils have those to work towards. The music school also issues twice yearly progress reports (although I have to confess that I don't find these terribly useful).

That's true, but on the other hand even a Grade 3 exam is now ?44.00. Given the length of time the exam lasts (around 15 minutes for that grade) I'm not surprised if parents think it's a bit steep. I usually find myself apologising when I have to ask people for exam fees. Furthermore, some parents struggle just to find the lesson fees, never mind the incidentals like strings, rosin, music, etc, and an exam (which is, after all, optional) can just be one expense that they can well do without.

It's also worth bearing in mind that exams can cause additional costs for parents - anything from childcare costs for siblings to taking time off work to be able to bring the child to the exam.

Not to mention the cost of the accompanist, it really does start to add up very quickly.

We must remember that the fee isn't just for the 10 or 15 minutes that the candidate's in there - it's for the whole process right from when the entry's made, right through to when the results come. What the exam fee is, is a big expense in one go and it's something which needs to be planned and budgeted for.

I now suggest to pupils/parents that they put away a small amount each week to save towards an exam. Most probably only do one a year maximum, so putting aside even 50p a week into a jar makes a big difference when the time comes round to pay.

I think it's a great idea. As it is, not all my pupils take all of the theory exams - they might take 2, 3 and 5 for example. Youngsters in particular can end up with far too many formal exams in my view, so why not mix the occasional actual grade exam, with interim "learn the material and have an informal assessment?". I probably wouldn't issue any kind of grade certificate for the level, but would still give marks, write a helpful and encouraging report and celebrate with a cake!
I've felt the same as Rockmeamadeus at times - one or two of my pupils are difficult to design a curriculum for - I'd struggle without my regular concerts, CD making and entertainment in the community (carol singing for charity, playing in care homes etc).

None of my students are interested in exams (yet) and all are learning jazz/rock/pop etc, but I still work to a general structure tweaked to suit each student. I keep records of what they are learning/have learned, continually assess and monitor their strengths and weaknesses in order to plan future lessons.

Some of my pupils do exams - that is, some exams, and only if it's the best learning pathway for that student at that time. However, nearly all of my students play in our local music festival in the spring, often in several classes (solo/repertoire/duet/ensemble... ). I'm especially lucky that ours is a real 'Festival' in the celebratory sense, where the performance opportunity and constructive feedback are seen as the primary objective and the marks as almost incidental. Do you have something similar in your area?

I find concerts just as great a motivator as exams, particularly for higher grade pupils.

On the cost of exams though, I'm told dance exams round here are even more expensive , but I have on occasion spread the cost of an exam for pupils over a couple of terms so the parents don't have to pay all at once.

The ABRSM exams in France are very expensive but a much better way of assessment than anything the French system offers. If I didn't manage to get an examiner down here once a year my teaching practice would not be full. That is what has made it work. I have 35 pupils this year and 15 have just done an exam. At the beginning of the year they all pay "frais d'inscription" - 5 euros for the first child of a family, four for the second and so on. Not everyone does an exam every year and the very young ones don't, of course, for several years. But the inscription fees are set aside to help pay the exam fees. Now I know this means that some people are subsidising others but I stress that this is a team effort and everyone benefits in the long run, or at some specific time or another.

This year I managed to cut each exam fee by 10 euros because I also had a donation of 50 euros from a well wisher. I have had a similar donation this year and we are selling programmes at the concert next week. All funds collected will go towards helping with exam fees or anything else that I feel will benefit the whole group over a period of time.

I don't really want to become a jumble sale/bring and buy/sale of work kind of institiution and all this makes extra work. I don't really think the Board can justify all its high exam fees and like the rest of the world I think they should be realistic and tighten their belts - or a lot of children who would have wanted to participate won't be able to. All activities are expensive but music is probably one of the most expensive. I don't want to see the participation of pupils in something as valuable as the ABRSM exams becoming unavailable to many children who could benefit from it. But I wouldn't go the "in house" way because for my pupils it would be meaningless.

It's easy to say this, it's harder to explain how. Cut the number of exam centres, getting rid of the smaller and more remote ones? Further expense for parents in those areas. Stop producing new publications (so it's the same books on every new syllabus)? Cut back on the number of people answering the phone at HQ?...

To say the exam "only lasts 15 minutes" may be missing the point. There is a lot more to it than that (administration, including the premises in London and the staff there, postal costs, hire of examining centre, paying the examiner and possibly their travelling costs - which may include food and accommodation).

I have never, in 20 years, had anyone complain about the costs of taking an ABRSM exam. Let's face it, in for a penny, in for a pound - as teachers, they pay us way, way, more. What's an exam? Two to four lessons (depending on grade?)

Grade 8 exam plus accompanist cost me just over 10 lessons worth last year (?160 in total). Not a trivial amount.

True, for an accompanied instrument. When I accompany Grade 8 exams for other teachers' students, my fees usually exceed the exam fee, with the neccesary rehearsals. This, is however, a serious qualification, and if a student has got to this level, they expect to pay a substantial sum of money. Personally, I don't have aproblem with it. (Many of my students own ipads/iphones - how much do they cost?)

I agree with this - Grade 8 is quite different from the others in this respect. I do feel sorry for those parents who are tasked with finding and paying for accompanists at the lower grades, because the teacher can't do it, because it does sound like a lot of extra stress for both the candidate and the parents, as well as the cost.

In France, Grade 5 piano (i.e. no accompanist) costs approximately 10 lessons.

I realise that there are a lot of costs and I've looked at the Board's publicly available accounts and they do not, on paper, make a huge profit. Which is good as they are a registered charity and so not supposed to.

But I still find these fees extremely high. So much so that I'm thinking of experimenting without doing exams.

Are you kidding No complaints! With four children taking exams on a total of 8 instruments over 25 years! I complained all the time! The only way I could cut back was by getting the eldest (music degree eventually) to supervise the exam practise of the younger one to save on the Teachers fees, so I could pay for the exam! And to limit the number of exams taken to roughtly every other one. Sorry but with my tight income they are expensive.

But surely that's an exceptional situation? Obviously, four children over eight instruments is going to be expensive, that that's surely above and beyond what most people do?

I have to say that in 21 years of being involved with exams, I've never heard a single complaint either. I think a lot depends on whether pupils/parents have been pre-warned about the costs involved, particularly with an accompanist. That way, they can at least either make the decision at the outset they can't and won't be able to afford it, or they can start saving, planning and budgeting for it.

I think dance exams individually are less expensive but most candidates will take more than one at a time so that may make them more expensive overall.

I'm just wondering if for the lower grades the piano accompaniment CD might suffice for the accompaniment. This I think might at least be an option for those who are happy with it and would be appropriate for those such as myself who just wish to keep pace with the exam system without having to fully immerse ourselves in the tradition.. My daughter has this week taken her grade 5 with an accompanist who made several mistakes during her pieces. Possibly because we only had the chance to practice once with the accompanist- and likewise the accompanist had relatively little time to practice herself. My daughter was very comfortable with the CD version as she was utterly familiar with it and practiced every day with it. Of course having an accompanist that puts you off somewhat defeats the point and the resultant pieces suffered.

I'm not suggesting removing the real thing from those that require it- or from the higher grades, but it would seem to me to be fine for the early grades. It might also be appropriate to play some pieces without accompaniment at all...I'm thinking of the current grade 5 Bach's Bourree and Corelli Corrente (which my daughter will play today unaccompanied for the school concert as we have already forked out for two accompanists for this week). I should add that I'm one of those who think the ABRSM exam fees are appropriately priced- but would have appreciated not to have suffered he compulsory hassle and price of an accompanist at this stage.

I feel very lucky to teach piano (no accompanist needed) and Pop Vocals (all backing tracks)

I wasn't suggesting that it is only the actual exam candidates fork out for; obviously there are other costs involved. My point was that the parents often think it's a bit steep, and if they are already budgeting for lessons (not to mention other activities) putting yet more aside for exams can be the straw that breaks the camel's back. They are often surprised, given the fee, that the exam is so brief, and I have to remind them that actually we are very well catered for here, despite being so remote, in being able to have an examiner for the same cost as on the mainland, even though we are quite a long way offshore.

I feel quite strongly that this isn't appropriate. Learning to make music with another person is a crucial skill, and isn't something to be 'tagged on' later. I'm sorry you had a poor experience this week, but that was a problem with a particular accompanist and not with the situation in general.


There are a handful of unaccompanied pieces on the current violin syllabus, but I doubt that having two pieces rather than three to play will get the price of an accompanist down, except for the highest grades where there might be significant practice time involved. (It's actually possible to choose two unaccompanied pieces at Grade 8, Bach and Kreutzer, but that would make for a very balanced programme...)

I've not read the entire thread but i wouldn't be happy to pay any amount of money for a qualification that is not recognised. Would it not be better to encourage the clients to put by ?1 a week to save up for an exam? They could give you that each week over the course of a year and if it was too tempting for them to spend and you could keep it in an exam account? Or say at the start of session A that they will be entered in session B so they should bring and extra ?3 each week so it's not a huge lump sum they need to find.

I've not come across many students who are exam focussed. Most prefer to avoid them and it's often the parents that are most keen. Aiming for a festival may be better than an exam.

Which is why I stressed 'earlier grades'. An earlier post suggested 'I feel very lucky to teach piano (no accompanist needed) and Pop Vocals (all backing tracks)' hence it's actually not a rigorous requirement for the art of music. As I said...we were only able to have one practice session beforehand (which of course we had to arrange, drive to and pay for- and it simply was not enough). I put it to you again that this would still be a good _option_ for some. It does not preclude ever having to have an accompanist. The only time I see it as being advantageous is for a student having difficulty with the rhythm and pace of music. In that instance, the accompanist can match his part to that of the student. All my children practice both with and without piano accompaniment CD's. Yes, they have their limitations, but they also have consistency. Why not have it as an option; 1) For those who prefer it and 2) For those who cannot afford otherwise. You seem to suggest outright that this is something of a no-no, but even the NCO auditions allow students to play against a piano CD accompaniment. Although they wouldn't recommend it at least it's an option.

but going back to the original question, i think there is a majority in favour of suggesting that RockmeAmadeus uses performances rather than in-house assessments ..... though no unanimity!

As to the question of costs, I suppose RockmeAmadeus you could simply ask them whether that is a major factor .......

Slightly off topic, apologies, but I just wanted to say how much I like your user name, RockMeAmadeus.

Do you mean they'll take exams in, say ballet, modern and tap all in the same session?

RAD prices are (last I heard) ?32 for preliminary ?50 for grade 8, ?80 for foundation.


This is a slippery slope. The less work there is for accompanists the harder they'll be to find and possibly the more expensive they will become. A similar thing is happening in the dance world - one of the boards is now allowing CDs, which isn't really helping the situation in the long term.

More to the point, how does an instrumentalist get used to playing with a real accompanist (surely a valuable skill) if they use CD backing?


I think that's a fair point. I do exams because I find them valuable as targets and milestones. However, before taking an exam I do a mock with my teacher. The marks I have been given are remarkably close to the real exams so they seem pretty accurate. They take place in my lessons so there is no additional cost.

I think that one reason for people to be happy with a backing track is that they don't really have an interest in solo playing but only play to be in bands etc. They may see grades as necessary to this even in cases where they are not really. Some teachers also see the exam treadmill as the only way.

But surely that means that they SHOULD get the experience of playing with others. Playing with a CD will never teach you how to respond to another player accompanist or band/ensemble member.

But they get that from playing in band.

Hi...I'm kinda aware that this is going off topic, so apologies if this really get's your goat, but I originally replied to a poster who was on this thread- and the 'Chinese whispers' effect seems to have led a few of us astray from the original post. Perhaps there should be a button for going off on a tangent.

Just to reassure accompanists...We do actually use and appreciate them. For my daughters it's at a local violin group...and also for solo recitals with the teacher. The difference there is that the accompanist plays for a number of students, hence that's one set of travelling expenses and the cost is shared and substantially reduced. I don't see any reason why piano accompanists should necessarily feel hard done by as other instrumentalists won't have this opportunity anyway by and large. Is this really the case then...that we have piano accompanists for exams on a 'use them or lose them' basis such as you would have for your local shop?...I really don't think so. I was only asking for the option of playing the accompaniment from CD. I've heard more than early grade 1 violinist for whom this would be a useful option. As has been mentioned in another post anyway. The examiner isn't marking the accompanist. Yet for us, the accompanist almost doubled the cost of the exam.

And so linking this back to the original post to quell the e-riots. Yes...Mock exams are a good idea up to a point as they mean a student can consolidate his/her position in the pecking order without forking out over 100 quid for the pleasure of it. The later exams certainly have their formal place and for school age students, the UCAS points are a bonus. I'm pretty certain that without taking any formal exams, my daughter will skip grades 6 and 7, but will certainly be working through an augmented syllabus to stay on course for grade 8

Of course. I suppose I was thinking about it from the point of view of giving the pupil some kind of experience of that PRIOR to going and forming/joining a band, rather than learning on the job so to speak.

My train of thought was that if someone had only ever used a CD as accompaniment, they might not know how to listen to the other players and work with them, so you end up with a band full of soloists in effect, all vying for the attention rather than creating a "whole" band, where the some is greater than the parts.

This assumes that the pupil is going to listen to the accompanist and not just expect the accompanist to follow them regardless

Rockmeamadeus, have you heard of London College's Performance Awards? Same pieces as for the grades, but you enter tham via a DVD recording and it's less than half the price of an exam. Also no scales, aural or sightreading. Suits a lot of pupils much better. I believe thay do them for all instruments. Have just had my first pupil get 82% at Level 1, yay!

Yes - I too was aware I was going a little off topic. However I think it does link back to the original post. If the cost of an accompanist (on top of exam fee) is a factor for people then obviously having "in house" exams is a useful way to get the experience of an exam scenario (assuming the "examiner" can accompany").

As for having accompanists on a use it or lose it basis, I would say from reading previous posts about how difficult it is to get a decent accompanist then the evidence would back that up. There are people advertising as accompanists who it seems can barely read the music (was it on this thread or another one where the accompanist actually put off the soloist rather than supported their playing?) So I would say if people want good accompanists for the higher exams they have to be willing to use them for at least some of the lower levels too, other wise there just wouldn't be enough exams to make it financially worthwhile for the pianist and it will end up with everyone having to use CDs, at all grades.

But it is a requirement for the art of classical instruments, which is what we're dealing with when we talk about ABRSM requirements.

It's no different at the earliest grades. Players should be making their own decisions about tempos, especially expressive changes in speed, from early on, and the potential to do this is obliterated as soon as a CD is involved. (I've had multiple grade 1/2 candidates with completely different interpretations of the same piece...a nightmare for me, having to remember how fast to play the introduction for each of them!) It's an essential skill, which is why I don't feel it should be optional in the exam.

How to deal with this when the teacher doesn't play the piano? I can't answer that, but perhaps non-pianist teacher could chip in!

[[quote]quote name='dolce@piano' date='Jun 20 2012, 07:01 AM' post='1154612']
[quote name='ma non troppo' post='1154590' date='Jun 19 2012, 09:53 PM']
To say the exam "only lasts 15 minutes" may be missing the point. There is a lot more to it than that (administration, including the premises in London and the staff there, postal costs, hire of examining centre, paying the examiner and possibly their travelling costs - which may include food and accommodation).

I have never, in 20 years, had anyone complain about the costs of taking an ABRSM exam. Let's face it, in for a penny, in for a pound - as teachers, they pay us way, way, more. What's an exam? Two to four lessons (depending on grade?)
[/quote]


In France, Grade 5 piano (i.e. no accompanist) costs approximately 10 lessons.

I realise that there are a lot of costs and I've looked at the Board's publicly available accounts and they do not, on paper, make a huge profit. Which is good as they are a registered charity and so not supposed to.

But I still find these fees extremely high. So much so that I'm thinking of experimenting without doing exams.
[/quote][/quote]

The Prep Test here cosnts 52 euros which is just over 5 times the cost of one lesson - in other words almost as much as a term.

Grade 1 costs 59 euros. My Grade 1 people pay 10 euros per lesson if they are doing 30 minutes and 15 if they are doing 45 minutes so there it's roughly between 4 and 5 lessons

Grade 2 costs 73 suros and Grade 4 77 euos so it's roughly the cost of 5 lessons.

Grade 4 is 93 euros, Grade 5 is 98 so it's rougly the cost of 5 hour long lessons. 5 thinks dolce@ piano may be meaning 10 30 minute lessons but my Grade 5's all do an hour. but it is even more difficult for her to sell the exam system to her pupils if that is the case.

Grade 6 costs 107 euros which is a little over 5 one hour lessons.

I don't charge for accompanying flute or recorders. The rest of mine are piano. Given the low salaries of the French this can be a real strain. I have had refusals on finanacial grounds and one family who haven't totally refused but who have said they can only afford for one of their three children enter in the same year.

I rather suspect that some of the people who don't find the exam fees expensive are earning a lot more than my families and perhaps paying a lot less in exam fees - though I can't see that an examiner's tour of France could cost much more than a similar round in the UK.

As far as how the Board can reduce their expenses is concerned - well there must be some wastage somewhere and some inessestials. In any case I know perfectly well that next year the fees will increase yet again. The go up by several euros every year and I just don't think that kind of increase is justified.

Sorry - I'm sure I did the quotes correctly but they haven't gone blue.

My teacher throws in odd bits of accompaniment now and then on the oboe. It works fine for trying things out, getting the entries, etc. and then work with a proper accompanist follows closer to the exam.

Only one person I think has mentioned music festivals as a helpful goal to work towards. I offer pupils the option of entry three times a year into our local festivals, and most enter more than one class in more than one festival. They are more fun than exams, although some of them want to take the exams as well. We do family classes and duets as well as solos. Some classes are non-competitive too. These events provide just as much focus for practice as exams, and the parents/grandparents like them too.

Just a thought. How many teachers recommend or encourage students to join ensembles? I reckon there are probably a lot of "bedroom players" around.