Hello Everyone!

Hoping you can help me out again. My younger sister is a brilliant and talented musician, who plays the recorder, clarinet and piano. She got as far as repertoire for her grade 7 on clarinet and recorder, but due to personal circumstances she had to stop lessons about 3 years ago. She really regrets not taking her grade 8, and whilst I cannot help her on clarinet I can certainly help on recorder.

Of course there are a number of issues here; obviously I have an emotional attachment to my sister, and my friends who are experienced teachers say that it could be a problem for a number of reasons. But she can't afford lessons and she is so disappointed in herself that I want to help her achieve her Grade 8. That and the fact that I need the experience, and what better way than teaching my sister?

The real point of this post, is that I don't know what syllabus will be best for her. I should probably mention that she has not got her Grade 5 Theory either and she really hates theory, but I love it so I have been helping her out with that anyway. I suppose this means that she couldn't take the ABRSM exams (quite rightly) without the theory. But what is the TrinityGuildhall board like? Or any other board? I always took ABRSM exams because they were more professional and I prefered their repertoire, but I was wondering what everyone else thought, and if there was anything else I should be taking into consideration here?


Thanks for your help!

This would be far better if it were moved to the woodwind forum. Don't dismiss the other boards so lightly by the way. They are just as well regarded. If she has a GCSE pass in music it will count as a prerequisite for LCMM. I cannot remember if the other boards count this or not. There is a very wide choice of repertoire in all boards. You will be able to make up a decent exam programme from any one of them. Good luck. If you treat the lessons as formally as you would with any other student all will be fine.

Don't forget that Practical musicianship or Jazz grade 5 are substitutes for theory if You want to stick with AB.
AB TG and LCM exams all have the same QCA ratings.

Hmm..... interesting. Thank you! I have not heard of LCM exams though...? Where can I find more information about them? The only ones I have heard of are TG and ABRSM...

She certainly has a GCSE pass in Music. She has A Level Music too actually but didn't get as high a grade as she could have because of personal problems at the time.

Perhaps the other pre-requisites like the Jazz and the Musicianship will be better for her... I should go through it with her really shouldn't I?

Anything else I should bear in mind?

Trinity have been offering recorder exams for longer than the AB, and the TG recorder exams seem particularly well thought-out. You have rather more flexibility with which recorders you use as well; with AB you can opt to play one piece on the descant, but with TG you can mix and match more freely. Scales have to be played on the treble, and the sightreading is for either descant or treble at the examiner's discretion.