Hello everyone.

I've read the debate over the last month or so with great interest and I'd like to take this opportunity to provide answers to some of the most popular and intriguing questions that have been posed to me.

1. Does the Board have any intention of introducing graded exams in composition?

Graded exams in composition will not be introduced in the near future but discussions are taking place - in the long term it is certainly a possibility!

2. Is there any chance of the scale list being reduced for piano exams? The list for Grade 5 and above is so unnecessarily long and some students are opting to do TG exams because they want to play pieces on the piano rather than endless lists of scales.

Yes - new technical requirements will be introduced in 2009 and the scale lists for piano will indeed be made more manageable in terms of volume, assisting both candidates and examiners. The standards of performance required will, however, remain the same!

3. The mark schemes for Grades 1 to 5 are the same. I understand that a Grade 5 piece is harder than a Grade 1 piece, but is that the only variation between the grades? Surely, for example, a Grade 5 pianist would be expected to have a better tone and dynamic control than a Grade 1 pianist to pass and similarly a Grade 5 violinist would be expected to have a better grasp of intonation?

You are perfectly correct - although the criteria are the same regardless of the grade the expectations of the examiner will be geared towards the particular level being examined and he or she will expect to see increasing development of musical polish and finesse. A Grade 5 violinist would indeed be expected to have a better grasp of intonation than one taking Grade 1.

4. What constitutes a 'musically shaped scale' - is a crescendo/diminuendo what is desired or is even tone more important? Does this differ from instrument to instrument?

Even tone is the most important consideration when forming a 'musically shaped' scale. The term 'musically shaped' incorporates such aspects as fluency, a sense of destination and a tempo appropriate to the grade being examined. Although the requirements do not differ from instrument to instrument the speed that scales are played at may vary! Full marks will be received for scales that are both blemish free and musically shaped.

5. What would the Associated Board's attitude be towards a candidate using a five string viola (strung C, G, D, A, E) in a viola exam or other unconventional instruments (e.g. electric bowed strings) in other instrumental exams?

It is perhaps not commonly known that unless the regulations specifically outlaw the use of a particular instrument or instrument variation the Associated Board deals with such situations on a case-by-case basis and assesses each one on its own merits. If individuals wish to use unconventional instruments they should make a request as early as possible before sitting a practical exam.

6. I would like to ask Clara if there is any chance that the Associated Board will be introducing examiners who specialise in the instrument being examined.

We believe that a generalist approach which examines the musical outcome and not the technical means by which it is achieved is most appropriate for the graded exams. Our diplomas are already examined by specialists in the particular instrument being assessed.

7. I have a controversial one: what does the Board think of the practice of entering the same exam twice in the same session to maximise the chances of passing?

Applicants and candidates are actually at liberty to enter as many times as they like. We do not believe that obstacles should be placed in the way of those who wish to enter an exam more than once in the same session as they will still need to reach the same standards in a single assessment as everyone else to pass. I should point out that this practice does not guarantee a better result unless a significant improvement has been made between exams!

8. Are all the parts of the aural test really that crucial to general musicianship?

Aural tests are not 'crucial' to general musicianship but they are desirable and beneficial - they are tests of general musical awareness appropriate to any musical subject.

9. Is there any way for teachers to offer feedback on syllabuses after they have been in use for a couple of terms?

Certainly! I can assure you that all comments are welcomed and will be forwarded to the relevant office. It is always extremely interesting for us to hear how our syllabuses are received. We can be contacted by post to 24 Portland Place, London, W1B 1LU or by email to abrsm@abrsm.ac.uk.

10. What is the most important thing to aim for in a practical exam when playing scales?

There are several extremely important considerations - it would be difficult to isolate a single one! I would attempt to keep six factors in mind in particular:

a) Immediate scale recall
b) Knowing each scale thoroughly
c) Avoiding restarts - aiming to play each requested item once only
d) Maintaining an even, firm tone
e) Good co-ordination
f) A realistic tempo in relation to the grade

11. I would like to ask about the performance assessment exam. 'These Music Exams' suggests that we should prepare 15 minutes of music, and that the examiner discusses with you what you want to get out of the assessment before you start, and how you did afterwards, then sends you away with a written assessment. How is this possible if the exam itself is only 15 minutes?

The 15 minutes provided includes the time needed for discussion - the music itself is likely to occupy approximately 12 minutes of that time. Repertoire that lasts less time is acceptable and those sitting the assessment are also permitted to play extracts from longer pieces if they wish.

I hope this has been useful and enlightening and I apologise for the fact that I cannot answer each and every question. I'm afraid that I won't be able to respond on the forums to individual queries that stem from this post but I very much look forward to reading next month's debate!

Clara

This is really helpful, particuarly in my case the guidance on scales. Thank you ever so much for taking the time to do this.


Do we use this thread for new questions now??? I'm assuming we do, so I have one:

I've really been struggling to try and understand what the pink "Guide" and the "First Steps" pocket book say about intervals for my G3 theory (tomorrow!), but if it hadn't been for advice from forum members, I never would have fathomed it. Next time the books are revised/republished, would it be possible to look again at how intervals are explained and try and make it a bit clearer

Woohoo!! This has absolutely made my day - knowing that if I ever did go back to my (electric) cello, at least I can ask to be examined.
Thank you for answering our (many and varied) questions

Clara said "Our diplomas are already examined by specialists in the particular instrument being assessed."

Is this correct? So if you do a recorder diploma you are examined by a recorder player, not a flautist or clarinettist?

Liz

That's an interesting point. Does 'specialist' mean your instrument or just the family. So a violinist would get a violinist on the panel, not a violaist, cellist etc. I'm not sure my specialist was a clarinettist or another woodwind player.

At diploma level you want to be taught by a specialist in your specific instrument, not even a remotely connected one, so maybe examiners could reflect that.

That aside, thanks very much Clara for your time. Your advice as always is helpful and much appreciated.

Thank you very much Clara - lots of food for thought!

Thanks for answering our queries!

Yes, aural tests have their place, but what is the relevance of a grade 7 pianist having to sing at sight? Being able to improvise or even transpose at sight would be a much more useful and relevant skill.

Much as I would love to be able to improvise, that is taken care of in the Jazz sylabus isn't it?

As for being able to transpose at sight - is there any exam anywhere that tests this skill? And why do you say it's useful and relevant? I've never been asked to do it on a piano: A bass guitar or a guitar, yes, but never a piano.

You've obviously never played for fussy singers then

Plenty of times I have needed to transpose my piano score...although most of these times were when I was providing an accompaniment

A Thank you to Clara Taylor for wading through all our questions and comments.

SCALES
Although I don’t know where on the web site to find them again I remember seeing the suggested new scale syllabus for the piano exams. Clara has suggested the topic “scales” but if the changes have already definitely been decided I don’t know if we can add anything very constructive to the discussion – at least for the piano. Actually I think comments were invited at the time but it was before I could post. Maybe other instruments have not yet had their scale requirements revised. Is this going to happen? If so, for which instruments? It would, however be interesting to see the new piano scales syllabus again. Does anyone know how to find the relevant pages?

Trinity practical exams offer the chance to replace one piece with a candidate's own composition. Even at the lowest levels I believe this adds a real thrill to the exam and extends the whole learning process (which can often become a rush from exam to exam).

I just tried to find it and failed.
From what I remember there was no significant reduction in the number of scales required for each grade, just a bit of shuffling around and I seem to remember the addition of the whole note scale at one of the later grades?

Yes, your point being??? It's also in Practical Musicianship exams.

there is an exercise on transposing at sight in Practical musicianship exams. I think you'll find I said it was more useful and relevant than being able to sing at sight. Quite often pianists have to play pieces in a different key for the reasons already described. What would be wrong with having this as an option to singing at sight? It is more likely that a pianist will use either improvisation or transposition than singing at sight. At uni we had to transpose, 2, 3 and 4 part pieces at the keyboard. This is a skill I use even now as organist, when the hymns are too high for the choir/congregation and the primitive organ doesn't have an auto transpose facility.

One thing that I find odd in the practical musicianship exams at grades 7 and 8 the improvisation is a free improvisation on a poem or picture... that seems a very odd test to me, I wonder what they're trying to test. As surely whether an improv fits with a poem is at least partly very subjective. I thought the test, think it's G6, that asks for an improvisation using a musical motif or interval sounds like a good test of "using given material", but the poem one seems a bit odd... maybe it's just me

To the person searching for the new technical requirements they are very well hidden but are here.

Thanks to Clara for the interesting responses .

I notice the only change at grade 8 piano is to add another scale though! I think grade 7 also has an increase in the number of requirements.

Interesting, so why the offical change at grade 6 but not elsewhere?

I'm also interested in the point others have raised about what is a specialist? Is a flautist a specialist recorder examiner?

Fair enough, although given the board doesn't guarantee specific times for the exams I'd love to see these attempts scheduled back to back, with the same examiner . I just felt, given people expect different marks from two very close by exams, it's making somewhat of a statement about their confidence in the system.

Once again thanks for the resoponses, they have been very useful, just a few follow up queries, which I suppose are technically in the wrong place anyway .

Others have answered the second bit. I'm not sure whether any of the current diploma exams test it, but at the time I did my accompanist's diploma exam (ARCM) I was tested on transposition at sight (up or down a tone or semitone), realising a figured bass and improvising an accompaniment to a fairly simple melody. I think it was a song, but it was rather a long time ago, anyway I definitely had a soloist to accompany in the exam who was different from the violinist for the sonata. The rest of the exam included performing the Brahms Violin Sonata in G and a Beethoven Piano Sonata (Op.31 No.1), plus a viva voce, and paperwork. There was also an optional harmony paper which I did, and which was shown separately on the certificate.

[quote name='AnotherPianist' date='Jun 21 2007, 04:13 PM' post='537433']
To the person searching for the new technical requirements they are very well hidden but are here.

Many thanks AnotherPianist. You must be a computer wizard! I was glas to be able to have another look at these.

Me too, that's what put me off attempting anything higher than grade 6.

Liz

She is a computer wizard .

On specialist examiners - I don't think a flautist is a recorder specialist, unless they also play the recorder; I'm not sure that any board could really offer a truly specialist examiner service without relying heavily on recording exams. That's a pity - having just performed in a music festival with a specialist adjudicator, there were some very recorder-specific comments which could only have come from someone with insider knowledge; it can be valuable to have guidance from someone other than one's teacher .

The new scale lists for piano aren't that different to the present lists. At Grade 5 all majors and either melodic/harmonic are required. That's a lot of scales compared to the other exam boards.

My feeling is that this would be more acceptable at Grade 6. Grade 5 is still, in many ways, an 'early' grade that can be passed by those who will never become real musicians. Whereas Grade 6 seperates the sheep from the goats more. What is the necessesity to know all the majors and minors at Grade 5? They half-learn them and promptly forget them, in many cases. I agree that the standard required for playing them shouldn't change, but a smaller number, at this stage, played and remembered well, would stand them in better stead for the future than half-learning a large number of scales, which most will have to relearn for next time.

Is it not more likely a case of them needing say a distinction at grade 8, and thinking if they do badly in the first one they can hopefully have a 2nd chance a few weeks later rather than waiting until the next session. Quite a bit of work can be done even in a month and if someone did their exam on the frst day followed by another exam 4 or 5 weeks later, their results may well be different. I think entering twice is more a kind of safety net than anything else. As I said somewhere else, most of the candidates I have heard of entering twice in the same session are not in the UK, but in countries where there is only one or two very long exam sessions a year. There is every chance a candidate may not be ready for the first week of the session and not do as well as they are capable of so they enter twice in the hope of getting two dates far apart.

Glad it isn't just me. I thought that was a very bizarre test. And not at all sure how it tests one's musicianship.


I agree that "specialist" examiners who play an instrument only loosely connected aren't really specialists at all. I think the boards would be better off being a little more honest about this. I was really shocked when I realised that these "specialists" could be a flautist examining a recorder player, or an oboist - or vice versa. I realise that it would be incredibly difficult to get real specialists for every instrument, but I think that saying the examiner would be an experienced musician from the same family of instruments would be more accurate. As it stands, the only folks who really get specialists are probably pianists and maybe organists? Unless they count piano and organ as related

Do you remember the lady who had either an LRSM or perhaps it was even an FRSM on bassoon and failed DipABRSM on recorder? As if someone who had reached that level would not KNOW if they had done exceptionally badly in an exam or if they were unprepared for it. The most likely scenario there, surely, was an examiner expecting a baroque instrument to produce a wide range of dynamics without causing intonation problems. They wouldn't do that for harpsichord. If examiners really have to examine instruments with which they are unfamiliar, then at the very least 1. it should be clearly acknowledged that this is the case and 2. they should go into the exam equipped with guidelines from a specialist about any peculiarities of the instrument.

I did a viola diploma once (not with ABRSM) where they criticised my "similar motion" scales. Now my scales were indeed under standard, but it would have been far more relevant to have a comment that actually related to the instrument being examined! Diplomas aren't cheap after all.

Liz

Yes, exactly!


Couldn't agree more - having someone who is essentially a non-specialist seems a bit mad to me, but it's the fact that they are classed as specialists and advertised as such that frankly seems ridiculous.




Presume your contrary motion scales, on the other hand, were brilliant?


Yup.

For the practical exams, do I have to use the edition they suggest (ie. Henle)? Or can I use my own book? Also, can I print uncopyrighted sheet music from imslp or some other site and use that instead of a book during the exam?

Thanks.

Certainly were - I didn't lose a single mark on my contrary motion scales - got 0/0

Liz

Well organs blow air through metal pipes so perhaps a flautist examiner would be okay

There is in fact a thread where an organ diploma was being examined by a 'specialist' examiner who was "not an organist".

Link to thread

In this case there was a problem with the organ and the candidate was concerned that the examiner might not have noticed. Is this the standard of assessment we should receive for a professional qualification costing several hundred pounds? (NB my irritation at this tale is not the problems with the organ, which is bad enough, rather the possibility that the 'specialist' examiner might not have noticed).

I repeat here that we should demand expert assessment in diplomas. If waiting lists develop, e.g. due to the shortage of expert organists to assess organ diplomas, then that's just too bad.

These examples of non-expert examiners have put me off taking my FRSM and I'm seriously considering another examination board.

I would be extremely interested in hearing a response regarding the definition of "specialist" used by the AB.

I'd totally forgotten that thread, you're right, that is appalling.


, yeah, exactly

Personally, it doesn't bother me so much that the examiners are not specialists so much as that they are called specialists when they clearly aren't! I remember something similar with one of katyjay's dips (the LTCL I think??) where her "specialist" was someone who accompanied singers sure, more of an expert than some random instrumentalist, but hardly a specialist singing examiner!

I think it would be brilliant if the examiners truly were specialists, but it's the fact that they're being touted as specialists when they clearly aren't that really makes me quite cross. As I said in that post,


Not an ideal situation, although it seems common to all the boards? - but at least it would be honest, whereas calling a flautist a recorder specialist or an oboist a clarinet specialist is very misleading IMO.

The examples Liz posted here are a case in point

Maybe these things should be cut and pasted to the current thread, too.

I agree that under the current system then your description would be far more accurate. However, I do feel that experts should be more specifically qualified.

Are you sure that this is common across all the boards?

I don't know for sure, but as I said, I do recall that katyjay had a pianist who accompanied singers as her "specialist".

Just found the relevant posts:

http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?s=&s...st&p=488991

http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?s=&s...st&p=489407

That was for her LTCL. As you can see from YAP's post, clearly it wasn't an isolated incident

No idea about LCM or GSMD, etc.

I do agree that the ideal should be real specialists. Or at the very least, someone who was clued up about a particular instrument, rather than just played a "similar" (for a rather loose definition of similar....) instrument.

My examiners for my LRSM were both pianists - one being a specialist in accompanying Lieder and Melodie. Curiously I had a question in the viva about Melodie!

Personally that's good enough. Someone who accompanies to the level they are lecturing about accompanying singers will have an understanding of the voice and what they are listening to. I just pitied the flautist who went before me, but as this guy is a specialist at accompanying Chamber music in general he's probably got much more experience than you lot would be prepared to give him credit.

I do know of a singer who examins LRSM, but they would hardly give me my own teacher!

Examiners do have training, and they do come from a general music background. Personally the work that Clara Taylor has done in developing examiners has been marvellous. The examiners I've experienced in the last few years have all been extremely professional and personable.

My beef isn't with the examiners, so much as the advertising of specialist examiners who aren't. Sure a pianist who specialises in accompanying singers and doing chamber music will have a lot of experience and knowledge, but it doesn't make them a specialist in singing does it? You wouldn't let that person teach you singing unless they were also a specialist singer... so how are the a genuine specialist examiner? I feel such a description is highly misleading. Experience in singing and experience in accompanying singers may be very complementary, they surely ain't the same thing though...? And experience playing in chamber groups is not the same as experience playing a woodwind instrument, let alone a specific one.

If the examiners were advertised as examiners "with a wide range of musical experience relevant to the subject being examined"... but they're not. I'd be mighty miffed if I were that flautist...


That's hardly curious is it??!


I don't think the professionalism or personableness of examiners has been in question......

I've no doubt that they were totally professional and personable. I'm not suggesting otherwise.

What I am suggesting is that, in my opinion, they should also have expertise at the highest level in the specifics of the instrument they are examining.

About Aural tests. Would I be correct in assuming that the speed which the examiner plays a grades 1-3 pulse should be similar to that which a child of that standard would play the same piece? I have always assumed this so that the pupil can learn to relate the tests to what they play themselves. The question is asked because in our last school special visit all the children (both my own and my collegues pupils) said that the aral tests were played so fast that they "couldn't tell what it was". This comment applied to all the first three tests. We have not had the results yet.java script:emoticon(':wacko:',%20'smid_20')



As a string teacher and mother of a horn player I am always transposing at sight or ear on the piano. This could be anything from a beginner "lets try it on the D string now" to violin accompaniments down a 5th for a little cellist , or helping transposing instruments in school orchestra or even "proper" piano parts.

When I did my DipABRSM in recorder teaching my examiners were a pianist and a trumpeter. I was asked some rather bizarre questions in the exam which on reflection afterwards I realised were due to the examiners not understanding the instrument. At the time I just thought it was me not understanding the question properly. It was a bit unnerving, but since I got a Distinction I can't complain!

btw although a certain other exam board says they offer specialist examiners, they don't always manage it.