I agree Violinia, but I'm quite happy to say on an ABRSM forum that their examinations provide a GOOD way to challenge a student and to get expert feedback for the teacher.

It is good to take a break from any "system" provided that viable alternatives can be found. For example we have competition festivals (like the Welsh Eisteddfods) that provide a more stressful kind of challenge but in the end, a similar appraisal process. Lots of waiting around for one's turn if you have the time to spend.

Obviously there is always the opportunity to slot in other pieces, including pieces that have attracted the interest of the student. Every teacher should do this.

But every examination offers at least 18 pieces for choice. I get the CD and listen to the alternatives and can always find appropriate pieces for a particular level of playing. You can use them for the examination or as general repertoire.

You can skip particular exams as indicated above, but for an average students the grade system is a good staircase. Results may go up and down here and there; they must be interpreted intelligently and not seen purely in "pass/fail" terms.

I do see what you're trying to get at, but I have it on good authority that Sheila Nelson, great violin pedagogue, sees ploughing from grade to grade as an anathema to a good musical education. I've lost count of the numbers of successful professional musicians who started out with her and name her as a huge influence...

My own violin teacher only ever had about 5 pupils and we all grew up to become professional musicians - yet none of us ploughed through the grade system, probably only taking about 10 exams between us!

There is an unmistakeable mediocrity in the playing of so many who have ploughed through the grades and it's not hard to see why. Yes there are 18 pieces at every level but even at the AB's own seminars some of the AB's own officials express amazement as to how some of them made it on to the lists, and in the current lists some of the pieces weren't even available!

I think it's great that the Grade system is there, and it should certainly be dipped into but not used as the be-all and end-all. A student of mine who decided to give up grades altogether after starting out with me when she was 12 (she was working towards grade 3 but bored witless) is now 17, plays grade 8-level repertoire and is now performing and recording with a well-known indie rock band. She has become an inspiration to my other pupils who do take grades from time to time but not as a remorseless ladder.

Violinia

Speaking as one who 'ploughed through the remorseless ladder' of grade exams I agree with everything Violinia (and others) have said.

In eleven years of piano lessons I learned something about playing the piano but almost nothing about music...

I played an extremely restricted, exam-based repertoire and really had no understanding of what I was doing or what joy music could be.

I dropped the piano at 17 from a great height and still will do almost anything to avoid playing it.

How I wish I had been taught differently...

... and don't the AB themselves say that the exams are not intended to be a stand alone course or repertoire list??

I completely agree. What I hate most is that there are no real technical requirements specific to your instrument - as a consequence, most teachers who plough through the grades ignore small (but often important) technical problems because they will not have a significant effect on the exam result. Consequently, grade 8 is now commonly seen as "the beginning" because so many pupils have to go right back to basics and learn how to hold the bow, or how to sit on the piano stool. It's ridiculous really, and it's because there is this expectation, which comes from schools and parents, that pupils do one grade per year, every year.

Yes, so true. I've seen far too many people get to that stage, and how frustrating must it be for someone who just got a distinction at G8 to find they're back to open strings because of faults that teachers didn't bother to pick up before they got ingrained

Speaking as another one who "ploughed through the exam system" I certainly would not class myself as mediocre (not that I'm wanting to blow my own trumpet here as I have never been able to make a sound on a brass instrument anyway.... ).......I did every single piano exam, as I wanted to, and was certainly never pushed either by my teacher or by my parents.........I also played lots of repertoire inbetween, so I suppose it's not quite the same thing. But I'm now a teacher and performer so it nevere did me any harm. Having said that, I very rarely use exams in my own teaching. I very quickly learned that you can't necessarily teach others in the way you yourself were taught........

A lot of stray items are getting in the way here! There is no need to connect poor technique and getting distinction for an examination is there? In my experience, to get a distinction you need to have good technique to produce an acurate and controlled performance. If anything, it is the musicianship, interpretation and the risk-taking that is lacking - but it does not need to be lacking.

I've also said that pursuit of distinctions and nothing else is a trap. Some did not agree. But pursuit of accuracy to the point of perfectionism, at the cost of musicianship, is again questionable.

Excellent students that I have known, from a variety of teachers, who have gone to University have said in nearly all cases that some restructuring of technique has been required by the tutors there. The demands do go up in every department.

I don't think that lack of technique is the fault of the exams - it is a fault that teachers who just teach to exams are often guilty of.

And yes, it is possible to get good marks in exams with bad technique. Yes, technique is not the be all and end all, but great musicianship needs to be backed up by good technique.

I was pushed into doing my G8 violin at the age of 9/10. I was lucky enough to get a high merit, although all previous marks had been solid distinctions. In NO way was I musically ready to take G8, even if I was technically ready - and I don't believe that technically I was secure enough anyway. I do not believe that I should have been put in for the exam, except my teacher and my mother wanted me to take it before I went to Boarding school.

My teacher was an excellent violin teacher, but I think with hindsight he wanted to have a 9 yr take G8 - perhaps false pride, or kudos or something? It didn't do me any favours, and I quit violin a year or so later.

That's a real shame, Bing

It winds me up now to be honest to think about it. In contrast, when I went to boarding school at the age of 10 being ready to take g7 piano, my new piano teacher insisted that we leave exams alone and broaden my repertoire. I skipped g7 and went on to take g8, but not till I was 14, and did very well - and am still playing.

So yes, I believed my violin teacher failed me, and at the age I was too young to understand, or to do what other people posting have done, and that is say 'No' and refuse to sit the exam.

Well there shouldn't be any need to connect the two, but evidently there are a number of people who feel that they are connected. I got Dist in grade 8 and almost a year on, I'm back to 1 hour of open strings each day because my bowing technique is so bad. Honestly, I should have been pulled up for it, either by my teacher or in the exam itself (isn't that half the point of exams, discovering your weaknesses?) but for previously mentioned reasons, it took a new teacher who doesn't use exams to point out how behind I am.

I find this surprising Sarah. I've found that teachers who make use of the examination system are the ones who are more competent technically. Unregistered and unqualified teachers who know nothing about technique - they are often the ones who would commonly bypass the examination system, and for obvious reasons!

What does bad technique mean? You hear bad pedalling - usually everything blurred. You get very stiff playing that does not lend itself very well to a Haydn sonata. You don't hear the bass melodies - or the treble melodies for that matter! You get poor arm and hand position, jumbled brains, loss of control and hence more errors. These students are not distinction material at all.

I do agree that great musicianship needs the foundation of good technique. In that case, how can a student with bad technique give a highly musical performance in an examination? And if the student has neither technique nor musicianship, what is distinction being awarded for?

I heard it said recently at a competitions festival - the adjudicator told the audience that very young performers were playing complex works with technical proficiency - but they were not taking "full responsibility" for the musicianship that should go with works of this maturity.

All I can say is I know too many people who got good marks in G8 and then had to go back and fix bad habits: and that includes people who took grade 8 with specialist examiners, ie with Trinity. It does happen, and while yes maybe examiners should spot it, it's surely the teachers' fault.

Actually I think the most confident and competent teachers I have come across use the exam system as and when they need to or it is necessary (ie to get GX for a particular purpose), and will vary their use of all exams/hardly any exams/skipping a few exams depending on their students' needs, rather than ploughing all students through all the exams; as a means to an end, not a proscribed part of learning an instrument. They often "make use" of it, and their students do well in exams, they just don't feel the need to make it the backbone of their teaching. That's just my experience.

I agree with Sarah. I briefly toyed with taking up the violin again when I was about 15. I went to a new teacher, who started off discussing which diploma I would study for. By the end of the first lesson I was essentially on open strings as my bowing and vibrato were both so bad. When I realised how much work I had to do to get any where near proficient, I used O-levels as an excuse, and stopped lessons again.

I got 127 in G8. Something obviously was wrong, somewhere.

I suppose this varies from country to country, but my understanding here is that a student would need Grade 8 just to audition for a place in one of our universities!

And the tutors are not there just to assist with interpretation, they are there to provide talented performers with superior technique - by whatever means.

I have attended master classes with some of our leading performance professors, and they do take attention to detail to new levels!

I still don't understand why a teacher who uses the examination system would not want to equip a pupil technically to give the most accurate performance possible; i.e. in an appropriate tempo, and accurate with the notes.

I do see some rather sterile performers from students that seem more like rote learners - where I am not convinced by the style - and sometimes on a single listen examiners may find few reasons to dock too many marks from them. But then interpretation is a personal thing, and examiners may well believe that quite a variety of interpretations are valid.

We have a young pianist of international quality named John Chen - some years he topped our country with about 145 marks in Grade 8 when barely a teen. He has said that he regards the examination system as an important part of his background. Of course to get marks of this order you need to have the lot.

I don't think there should really be much concern with this question. If you can find appropriate pieces from the Examination repertoire then go for it. If you can't, look elsewhere. If there are pieces that you (or someone else) thinks should not have been included, don't teach them and don't learn them!

From the last syllabus, I think there was a very very strong Grade VI lineup. In Grade VII there was less. In Grade VIII 2007 there is amazing variety. I want to teach Mozart, Haydn, Chopin, Brahms, Mendelsohhn, Rachmaninov .. they are all there. If I use this repertoire and ultimately setlle on 3 strong pieces, I position a student for tertiary admission if pursued. Experience with previous grades will help for this one.

I would class myself as both qualified and competent, but I tend to avoid the exam system anyway!!!

The first grade I ever did was grade 8.
I learnt a vast array of repertoire without ever realising I was progressing like that.
However - I was useless at sight reading and aural tests, and had to really struggle with these for my diplomas.
There's a danger that these tests are ignored if the grade ladder is not used. It's so easy to gloss over them unless there is a deadline.

9 or 10?? that's an awesome achievement, but i get where you are coming from. What a shame that you did quit. Did you dislike the violin in general or just find yourself moving from exam to exam and not enjoying the music you were playing

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I really like that - makes you thin "just because they could, doesn't mean they should"

One of the problems with reaching Grade 8 at a very young age (not me, I hasten to add, but relevant to a couple of my pupils in their early teens) is "Where do we go from here?", as they are extremely unlikely to get through a diploma. Had these pupils not been entered for the exams that they did, they would have fizzled out, as they are the type who like to see their achievement in black and white; they needed a goal to be truly motivated. I know the argument which states that they should have been exploring other repertoire/other styles, etc, but aside from Christmas music to be performed in public (and in one case, Freddy Mercury's music) they never really seemed keen to perfect anything unless they were going to get recognition for it in the form of a pass/merit/ditinction. I did try using festivals, concerts, etc, as a motivator as well, which worked up to a point, but at the end of the day, they perceived me as "holding them back" if they weren't allowed to go straight onto the next grade each time. (Marks varied as we went along, with most being merits.)

On the other hand, an advantage of quick progress at an early age is that the pupil will attain a certain level of proficiency before reaching that age at which distractions such as social activity and the oposite ### will curtail practice time! So at least they will have gone far enough to be be able to pick up again in later years if things do grind to a halt at Grade 8. This, incidentally, is what happened to me. I just stopped playing at the age of about 16, having never done an exam in my life, but having been playing Grade 8 pieces. I regretted this when I was older, however, and was able to come back as an adult learner.

Any advice on what to do with quick learners, like the above, who need a goal, would be gratefully received!

My daughter is Grade 4 at the moment (skipped grade 3) it's taken 15 months for her to get there on Flute. I'd love for her to be looking at other styles and I know she would enjoy this but when she's not working on exam material she's asked to play the studies from 76 Graded Studies.

I reached grade 8 standard when I was 14, but didn't do the exam until 17. My piano teacher covered masses of repertoire with me and I was playing pieces of diploma standard inbetween too. I did my grade 8 exam finally in the 6th form, followed a few months later with an ARCM performing diploma......in those days there was some sort of scholarship to muscic colleges but you had to take grade 8 that year to qualify, which was why we postponed it for so long. In the end I went to uni anyway, so didn't try for the scholarship.....

Apologies to noodle for posting the previous message under my name. As a newbie, I haven't quite got the hang of putting messages in quotes yet.

What I wanted to do is take noodle's message:
"It is a question of waiting until the students have the technical ability to achieve the requirements of the grade and then learning the pieces when they are ready. I would have thought it was necessary to have the technique to play/learn the pieces rather than working on the technique within the pieces."

and I just wanted to say that as a newly passed grade 2 student (clarinet), I have been a bit guilty of doing the latter (ie always working on perfecting exam pieces instead of perfecting my general technique). Not my teacher's fault, in so many words he's said the same as noodle and it's been me wanting to do exams rather than my teacher pushing me. But seeing it written down made me think more about it and I've seen the light! Noodle's right, my teacher's right! I'm going to put what noodle said on a piece of paper to remind me that learning how to play all pieces correctly is more important than learning how to play three pieces for an exam. It will also remind me that teachers are usually right (as an adult I'd sort of forgotten that!)

So thank you noodle for your words of wisdom. You may not have realised that they were very profound but they seemed that way to me! I'm sure my teacher will want to thank you as well as he will probably find me more compliant next term!

I was quite happy with the violin till I changed teachers when I went to boarding school. My new teacher was a young bloke who like to talk about football and beer. I was fairly serious for a 10 year old, and didn't like him! With hindsight he was probably trying to correct my technique and I wasn't used to being critized (I guess - I don't remember). Whatever happened though, if he had been an experienced enough teacher, he would have known how to handle me/the situation.

Oh well.

Yes, I don't send pupils for exams every year, and certainly not if they don't want to! But I would explain if they are the kind of students who don't practice unless they are taking an exam or performing, about their lack of inertia and ways in which they have to try to help themselves.

But I wanted to take exams every year after getting a distinction at Grade 2 for piano. It was my first exam because I had been putting off my Grade 1 and my mom said, so when will you ever take any exams if not now? I guess I was hooked after that!

I'm rather depressed now about my violin though because I have dropped from getting merits to a pass. I mean I could have done better. I don't know whose fault it was anyway, but I couldn't spend as much time practicing for it as I should have. Still, I didn't think that the difference from last year's result would be some 13 marks away. *sigh...

Well, the results are also significantly different between my two teachers.
I know nothing's wrong with that.. just that it's an below average pass. Not easy to get distinctions or merits at Grade 6. Very few people here have obtained that... except for my teacher, my colleague (at Grade 5 though) and happygirl.

Yup... I need some fresh repertoire and someone who's willing to teach that!