After having to complain twice to the Guildhall over the last two months I have finally had enough! I've gone through their new syllabus for Keyboard along with the London College syllabus and all of them have chosen to do London College. It's much more flexible, scales list is shorter but more technical, pieces are more modern....the list goes on.

I had to complain after the Trinity Guildhall seminar after being utterly insulted by their chief examiner with his insulting remarks about certain instruments and then at the Walsall session last week the examiner there spoke to me like i was a bit of dirt on her shoe. Basically, the exam centre hadnt really done what they were supposed to do.....as far as im concerned it is there responsibility to provide a suitable room for the instrument along with enough suitable power access points for the electronic keyboard. However, the room was far too big for a start, only 2 plugs were in the room and they were right by the door, the steward informed me they only had one extension lead which didnt reazch more than a couple of metres from the door and the examiner was sat another 30 foot away at the other end of this gigantic hall.

The steward started making comments about how its not their responsibility to provive extension leads, so i calmy pointed out that it certainyl wasnt mine. It doesnt say anywhere in the rules/regulations that it is the candidate/applicants responsibility, instead it ws the exam boards to provide a suitbale room/power points etc.

Hearing my comments to the steward the examiner rose out of her seat and started spouting off at me in a very condescending manner about the whole situation, i gave her a smart reply whilst keeping as polite as i could.

I was furious as i left the exam room and immediately wrote a letter to the board. I am just sick to death of their attitude, and ive never felt so insulted in my life after these two events.

Deborah, my experience has been the complete opposite. Mind you our local rep is a real gem.

You have done the right thing to write to the board. I would not stand for being treated as badly as you have.

The chief examiner was great at the Norwich Seminar. I must say their administration centrally is pretty dire, but apparently they are "looking into that".

YEsterday I had a batch of singers taking exams. They were beautifully relaxed. There was a warmup room, an excellent waiting area, and everyone felt relaxed. The examiner was very gentle with my singers, and I feel it was a positive experience.

My son took a Guildhall exam a couple of years ago and it was very difficult to find out where my nearest exam centre was. Nobody in the office when I phoned seemed to have a clue and I went through weeks of phonecalls, being put on endless hold followed by broken promises to be rung back..... in the end I got so frustrated with them I ended up bursting into floods of tears, having a screaming fit and hurling the telephone across the room. The neighbours must have thought I was having a brainstorm - I was. It was just as difficult to clarify aspects of the syllabus with them and after that experience I vowed never to deal with them again. The only excuse for their legendary disorganisedness that anybody could make for them at the time, including themselves, weas the fact they were in the process of merging with Trinity. That merger has now happened - I wonder if things are any different?

There's a lot I liked about the Guildhall approach and syllabus but this was no way matched by their admin at the time. It could also have been partly due to the fact that AB are a far bigger board with massively more resources at their disposal - in comparison the Guildhall exam board was very small and short of funds hence the lack of office staff. I suppose this is why they've now merged with Trinity.

I should also report that my son's experience of the eam was very good; the examiner was relaxed and put him instantly at his ease, and I liked the more informal approach. The centre was in somebody's house and there were some gorgeous objets d'art everywhere - a great distraction while waiting to be summoned.

Violinia

From another perspective my girls recently took Trinity exams. Not an experience I want to repeat! we received no information from their teacher or the Music Service about the format of the exam. It was the Joint Assessment, there is nothing on the web site as far as I could see to explain how it worked. Hence it all turned into a bit of a disaster.

I'm not blaming Trinity entirely the whole format of this exam can be shambolic (oops Viva Voce was not covered with my youngest) especially at this time of year when kids are in and out of lessons due to holidays etc. This is definately not an experience we are going to repeat.

To top it all the examiners comments were very negative.

As for problems with rooms, Rock School are out of the same mould. their advice suggests that you should arrive 15 mins early to warm up. When you get to the centre there's no room booked or practice kit, so you have to warm up with the examiner sitting there.

Makes my frustration with Trinity seem positively trivial - entering me for the wrong exam, failing to give me a time until I kicked up a stink about it and still haven't sent my certificate three months later


I guess that, once your initial anger dies down and the letters have been sent off, there are a couple of lessons for us from this.

First, not to assume that everything you need will be provided, and for the sake of a pupil, to make sure you have a belt-and-braces approach to kit. So for electronic keyboard, being sure that you have an extension lead just in case. I know it's not your responsibility, but it will reduce the stress on your pupil, and the pupil's the person that matters.

Second, to check the exam centre out before the day. So that if the room's huge, you can anticipate there may be an issue with power points and extension leads and can plan ahead.

My daughter is taking her ATCL diploma next week. After several times of asking, we were told which day next week, but have still not been told the time. As she plays the cello, there is obviously the matter of her accompanist to sort out (thankfully the accompanist has been wonderful and is prepared to be flexible) as well as ensuring that our work commitments allow us to get our daughter to the exam (she is 16 and we do not live near public transport), so we are finding this rather difficult. I am beginning to wonder when they will actually let us know the time of the exam.

Having said all that, I have to say that when we needed a question answered on the syllabus itself and had to speak to someone at the exam board itself rather than the rep, the detail, speed and helpfulness of the reply was impressive.

Our local AB exam centre is in a house - it does make for a more relaxed wait

Phone up the board and throw a tantrum. That's what I had to do to get my LTCL appointment....and then they had booked me in for ATCL, so I threw another one.

love it!! Just what we all (as a nation) ought to do a lot more often, on many things, COMPLAIN as loudly as possible! Only then do things start to move forward and questions get answered.

Trinityguildhall's admin is extremely poor. But for my principal subject, singing the syllabus is excellent.

The mark scheme is contained in the back, so as a teacher I could let my pupils know what was expected of them.

I did end up ringing them up to get the exam apointments. By Keith Bennison I was promised these three-weeks before the exam, so at that point I decided to take action.

The staff were polite, the local rep a star, and I was able to give my pupils their dates and times within 12 hours.

We do not complain enough as a nation. And because of that, we do not get the service we should. My only advice is remain calm and polite (As a firebrand I find this difficult), I've got a lot further that way. Oh, and criticise constructively, your more likely to get what you want.

True on all accounts. I've mellowed in my approach as I've got a bit older, but I can still be hot-headed when something has really got me fuming.

I agree that criticising constructively is extremely important. It's all too easy to drop into a child-like approach - usually because you are angry and in a most cases this is quite rightly so. Calmly presenting a water-tight argument to back up your case leaves the opposing party without a leg to stand on and therefore you in a better position to receive a swift and vastly improved service in return. Far better to be able to smile smugly and get what you want, without it degenerating to the 'handbags at dawn' scenario.

Did you know that TrinityGuildhall have removed singing from their aural test requirements? Why? It's surely the basis of all music! You should have heard one of the teachers at school spouting about this subject!

I suspect that TrinityGuildhall is trying to make itself 'popular' and is not suceeding. I quite often look at the Trinity requirements for exams but they always seem so complicated I always come to the conclusion that its not worth the hassle, and stick with AB! I think that in reality they will never be truly able to compete with the international reputation of the AB.

If I'd been put in that position, I would have been absolutely furious. Exams are quite stressful enough for pupils and teachers without all that to contend with too.
David

I have to say that I've never had any experience with Trinityguildhall, but I really like the look of the syllabus. The fact that you learn exercises and less scales in more ways appeals to me as I have now learnt quite a lot of scales for my exam but don't really feel that they can be used well in a musical context as such, whereas I think exercises could be more beneficial for me - learning techniques in a piece rather than separate exercises which usually don't relate that much to the music, unless you have scalic passages and the like.
That's just my opinion though...

I like the look of their syllabus, no singing!

I'm hopefully going to do grade 7 flute with them, and if Nat persists, I will be doing a piano exam with them too .

Why does everyone so hate singing?! It makes me so sad to read these types of comment.

When I was at music college (in the dark ages of course) we had a professor who used to regularly make the ensembles "sing" a few bars of their parts. He maintained steadfastly that for every musician singing was quite the most important skill because that was you using your own instrument to make music. "If you cannot sing," he would say, "you cannot play". So, we got on singing symphonies, quartets - all manner of things. It was a bizarre sound (as females sang double bass parts and blokes piccolo parts) but my goodness we did learn something about performing, about listening etc.

I get my own pupils to sing their music on occasions so that they can "feel/breathe" the phrase - quite a few of them don't like it but it often results in far more musical performances once we return to the instrument in question.

Because I can't sing and my flute teacher agrees with me! TG syllabi suit me...

I think that is a real pity, because with even the most basic of voice training, everyone can produce a reasonably good sound. I've never ever come across anyone who 'can't' sing - plenty of people who say they can't, but none that can't actually do it at all. I think that Trinity are wrong to take out the singing, as this should be just as much be part of being a musician as playing the instrument.

David

Well I can't actually pitch a note, so does that qualify me for not being able to sing? Anyway, people have the option not to chose TG and to go for AB.

Certainly not. I've had plenty of people start lessons not able to pitch a note - especially adults. This is something which can be taught and practiced. I've never come across anyone not able to learn how to train their ear to pitch the notes.

David

I am a singer, I also went to a TG seminar. I have copies of sample aural tests, and they do test aural perception.

But much as I sing to my instrumentalists to help them with phrasing, and encourage them to sing. I accept that there are some people who find singing really uncomfortable.

The TG syllabus requirements are clear. As are the ABRSM ones. TG are more transparent with their mark schemes. The info in "these music exams" is much harder to decipher. Each has it merits. Each is audited by the QCA. I do not think TG are going down a "popularist route". For example I like the fact that insrumentalist learn key orchestral excepts. Well I do hope they have the skills and oppourtunity to play in an orchestra.

Admittedly TG Admin need a kick up the backside at times, but do not condemn without seeing what is for offer.

I think that if you were truly not able to learn how to pitch a note you would also be unable to hear whether you were playing the right notes and so unable to self correct if you make a mistake.

Well I received a reply from their cheif examiner today.
The letter didnt make me feel any better really. To sum up it said it was the centres responsibility and i should have just "made a telephone call to them". I dont see why I should have to waste my time and money chasing people up becuase they are not doing their job!

There was no mention of any action towards the examiner who had spoke to me so disrespectfully, in fact the majority of the letter went over what they had said in their previous reply regarding the complaint i made about various comments made towards the instrument i teach/play.

To be honest, the letter made me feel worse, there was no encouragement to continue using them. All the letter did was make me feel belittled once more and realise the serious lack of respect which is happening at the present time.

Never mind though, they will be the ones who suffer becuase i along with several other local teachers arent goingto be using them any longer. They havent bothered to try and encourage us to stay so we shall go elsewhere!

On to a better board!!

Deborah, I'm sorry to hear about your experience. As I said mine was different- very different. Have you got your results yet?

Oh I don't see telephoning people and hassling them when they've not done what I expect as a waste of time. It can be quite profitable,

I dont see it as a waste of time as such, i didnt mean it that way. I just meant that i dont see why I should have to be told to make phonecalls about an issue which is not down to me!

Yes the results came last week and they were excellent. Full credit to my students for working hard

Shame i cant compliment the board quite so well!
Im not really too bothered now though as i have said, all of my pupils have chosen to move to the LCM now instead and ill teach whichever board they prefer. If a pupil decideds to do TrinityGuildhall then i shall teach it with no qualms, i just hope that in future if i do use them again they will be more prepared, more polite and courteous.

Yup. Someone who is truly tone deaf would be unlikely to WANT to play, and would not be able to appreciate music. It would just be noise.

I have a friend who is a truly appalling singer, standing next to her in church is painful - she has a growly voice and was consistently out of tune - and yet we found that she could, with a bit of help, pitch notes accurately to someone's voice within her comfortable range. Even singing in chapel every week for a few years, with no help, & no feedback, had improved her voice tremendously. And I assure you she's about as far from doing G7 in ANYTHING as I am from climbing K2! Haven't had a chance to find out yet, but I strongly suspect that with help and practice she will learn to stretch the range of her voice, and will learn to pitch from the piano as well as the human voice. She can now sing in tune, when it's low enough, if only in her very small range.

Your vocal chords (plus another few bits and pieces, I agree) make up another musical instrument - your voice. - I don't expect to be asked to play the violin (I'm not a violinist) in a music exam, so why should I put my voice through tests, if my aural abilities can be tested another way? As it happens, I quite enjoy singing, though my voice is nothing to shout home about (my husband ducks when I sing!), but I can fully appreciate that non-singers should be averse to being asked to sing in public - sure, you can teach someone to pitch a note and produce a reasonable sound, but for a non-singer this represents learning another instrument, doesn't it?
I like the flexibility offered by Trinity, and, coming into a higher grade as a late learner, have found the huge, unstructured list of formal technical requirements asked by ABRSM to be rather daunting - sure, I have learned to play all the scales, but can't memorise them, and so find the more focussed requirements of Trinity attractive - I also appreciate the option to allow candidates to play to their strengths more, particularly with the improvisation options, which also test aural awareness, after all.

The aural tests allow for humming or whistling. Learning how to pitch a note is important - they don't expect a reasonable sound. Learning to pitch a note surely doesn't constitute a whole new instrument

It is not your voice they are testing.

And don't most people actually use their voice every day? Maybe mostly to speak rather than sing but it's not exactly learning a totally new trick is it?

I still think it likely that a good singer will do better in aural tests as they are done today - and speech and singing may use the same apparatus, but in a different way; I could only agree with you on this one if we all sang routinely for a significant part of every day...and we don't.

It's possible to get full marks on aurals having never had a singing lesson... it isn't testing the quality of your voice, only the pitch.

Not necessarily. Most of my students get between 15 and 18 in aural whether they are singers or not. A 'good' student will do well in aural regardless of whether they are instrumentalists or singers. All that is needed is a bit of practice. How do your students do in aural, anacrusis?



As Sarah says, students can get full marks in aural without ever having a singing lesson. The only part of the aural that singers 'should' be at an advantage is the sight-singing test, but non-singers can practise this and do just as well as singers.

I think the point I was trying to make is that there are people who are good musicians, whose preferred instruments are not their voices, who are being asked to show their aural capacity using their voices. (and whistling, to me, is even more difficult to do with accuracy). I don't think this means that there is a general "downer" on singing, just that some of us don't like doing so in front of an examiner, or don't feel comfortable doing so. The aural tests as they stand do require an ability to pitch reasonably accurately, and if you can't do that easily, you are at a disadvantage. I want to play my recorder to the highest possible standard, but I can't see how being able to pitch my voice, which is not the same thing as being able to hear pitch accurately, will help me to do that. I appreciate having the choice to show aural ability in other ways, and that was the main focus of my post. Equally I can understand that the singers amongst you will be very keen to make as many of us sing as possible....
I am speaking more as a student than a teacher, albeit one growing longer in the tooth now, and with lots of experience in sitting exams of all sorts - my pupil very sensibly has stayed away from musical ones and is developing her skills in a more relaxed manner than I've had the wit to do.

More's the pity...

I guess there might be a few double glazing salesmen round here who would be happy if we did...

Excuse me wading in here, but,

I play many instruments. I do not include singing as one of them. I'm not sure I would pass grade 1 singing. I happily sing in the aural tests.

As has been pointed out time after time, the purpose of the singing is to make you pitch the notes in your head and not rely on keys on the recorder, clarinet, piano, whatever. Vocal quality is irrelevant.

Why shouldn't people sing a little every day. It's nothing to be ashamed of.

As a non singer I am not averse to singing to an examiner. As a child I was ultra shy singing (mainly through bad experiences at school). Looking back, I wish I hadn't been.

Now the other board have scrapped singing ALTOGETHER. Why why why? Listening is one thing, hearing music from the inner ear (or soul, even!) is quite another.

I always get mystified when people claim singing is more difficult than playing an instrument because it is not. It is the most natural instrument, our own voice, we use that in everyday life certainly. It's part of ourselves. No other instrument is the same in this regard.

This may be an issue we agree to disagree on. I will not change sides of the fence on this one. I will gladly defend the purpose of singing as a musicianship test until people who think otherwise think again.

My grade two student last term hummed her aural tests. She passed, but with the examiner mentioning that she had hummed her responses and suggested adopting a more musical tone next time...

I struggle to pitch notes. I know when they are wrong, but trying to correct the sound I'm creating is very, very difficult. Especially when I can barely remember what it is I'm supposed to be singing! Sight singing I found easier, especially when I had thinking time

That's a shame, because from my understanding of the tests, the examiner was wrong - having or not having a "musical tone" is not what aural tests are about in the slightest. Do you think she was marked down for that?

The Trinity Guildhall piano syllabus looks great. The pieces in the main are exciting and challenging and there are things to appeal to all sorts of pupils. I like the use of studies along side the smaller scale requirement. The revamp of the Aural tests seems like an excellent idea to me - it is great to have a well-thought out improvisation option and some choice. I also like the marking scheme and the fact that you can have a specialist examiner.

An exam syllabus is NOT a teaching syllabus. It is up to all us teachers out there to decide what we would like to teach our pupils. Just because a syllabus does not have a short singing test means little. If you want to help your students in this area then go for it.

At the moment I use all 3 boards. I think about my pupil and decide which syllabus best suits them and shows off their particular talents in the best light. I try and strengthen their weakenesses, whether in aural, technical requirements, interpretation, whatever but this does not mean I am a slave to any syllabus. I use exams as a tool not as a guide to my teaching. I would say to people who haven't tried Trinity Guildhall be open-minded and give it a go!

Some of us are planning to do that by taking grade 5 to give it a personal road test next year.

What a great idea. Good Luck and let us know what you think.

The ability to pitch the note in your head is only part of being able to reproduce it with your vocal cords. I can't whistle, and anyway, it marks you out if you don't sing as shown by SuzyMac's example. While you are technically allowed to, hardly anyone does so it's notable enough to comment on. Perhaps with practice I could manage to pitch a note accurately with my voice, albeit one of poor-quality, but I can think of far more enjoyable and useful ways to spend my time in music (which, after all, I do for fun).

I do wonder if she was - I've advised students subsequently to try and make a vowel sound at least. She did pass, but only a pass I think, around 16, and all the rest of the tests would have been secure if hesitant. Although, her singing is often not totally in tune, and whilst she's better in lessons after warming up, I can say with relative confidence that she would have been singing flat in the exam. Maybe the examiner meant it was harder for her to sound in tune whilst she was humming. Especially adding in some exam-day uncertainty!

What about lads whose voices are changing? Pretty nasty to expect them to pitch things accurately when they're never quite sure what is going to come out when they speak, let alone sing. (but of course they could be continuing to make excellent progress on an instrument...)

Also...I'm really not clear about this....
Can someone explain the rationale behind "Sing the lowest line of these three lines"? I had to do this for Grade 8 piano. Fortunately, it is something I can do fairly well (I sing alto in a choir)....but why is it part of an exam supposed to reflect my pianistic ability?

It's meant to test whether you can listen to a lower part. It's about mucical awareness.
It's a general musicianship test not an instrument one.
You can opt to play back at this level.

Very much agree with this. If I was told the starting note, and handed a recorder, I could usually reproduce what I've just heard, but struggle to do it with my voice. People who can pitch their voices easily don't understand this!

That's an enormous assumption: not everyone who is now good at pitching notes was always good at pitching notes. It's something that can be learned, and often people who are good at it, but once weren't, will understand that extremely well indeed.

But, being pragmatic here, if one only has so-much time available for instrument practice, and one's aural listening skills are far from shabby, should one have to learn how to pitch notes? Doing so creates two possible problems:

i) Valuable time is taken away from instrument practice
ii) Some students would rather give up their instrument entirely than have to work on pitching notes

Aural perception can be tested in various ways. I don't recall having to sing my aural tests at A level, they were done by dictation.

Until people have seen the TG material don't dismiss it out of hand. The current Trinity aural tests I actually percieve as harder than the AB ones.

I thought the same when I read through them though the guy doing the presntation was suggesting that they were not difficult but things that you would pick up naturally as part of learning an instrument (the suggestion was that this was without ANY specific teaching).