What do others - teachers or students - think of the TG studies, which form part of the practical exams? Do you think they are well-constructed with regard to highlighting particular technical difficulties, or do you think they are too demanding, considering the marks available for them? (14% together with scales and arpeggios, as opposed to 66% in total for the pieces.) I'm thinking particularly of Grades 5 and 6; Grade 7 doesn't seem too bad for that level, and I haven't seen the Grade 8 ones yet. Getting a Grade 5 pianist to be precise with that one with all the ornaments and triplet combined with the rit is quite a task! Most of the Grade 6 ones aren't too horrific, but the one that has three against two is very difficult to get right if the tempo is to be maintained, and the last one with the accelerando and acciacaturas has been abandoned by anyone I've had attempt it! Nobody has been able to capture the mood of it properly at all.

Not had a great deal of experience with them but yes, I think they can take a lot of preparation.
It might mean that fewrer scales are required but I don't think it's necessarily going to cut down on the time preparing that section of the exam when measured against scales for AB.
Reminds me of the discussion a short while ago about the time preparing scales can take some people in relation to the marks available.
For the TG accompanying exam it's taken me as long to sort out the technical excercises as it has to prepare the pieces. There is no scale option here, just the excercises and it's the same 14 marks as for other TG grade exams.

Some of them are ok, but others aren't really worth the marks available for them. Then again, if there were no exercises, they'd have to learn more scales! I don't like the grade 8 ones. 1a & 1b are mostly octaves in both hands which I don't approve of! 2a & 2b are 2 against 3 or 3 against 2 -they're tricky but I suppose a grade 8 candidate should be able to do that. The 3rd exercise is a legato passage which most grade 8 candidates would find manageable as a sight reading test.

Thanks, you two, for your replies. I thought there might be more! Do teachers who teach more Trinity than AB prefer not to post here, do you think? The impression that I've got from the moderators is that discussions about TG are not unwelcome.

Excuse my ignorance, but what are TG studies?

Edward

Trinity Guildhall have fewer scales in the graded exams but there are technical excercises to play as well.

Hi Dulciana - I wasn't ignoring your post, I've been busy over the last week.

I actually really like the studies, and as a percentage of the marks available they can make a difference. The neat and tidy one that you mentioned at G5, is quite demanding, but in view of TG's lack of theory requirement I think it's a good one to understand the difference in all the ornamentation.

Often there are techniques in the exercises that coincide with the pieces, like the cakewalk in G3. Also things like Chickens, is very useful for the G2 Ponny.

Incidently, have you noticed the C major style one at G8 apparently the guy who set them wanted to set C major as a g8 set scale but the New Zealanders complained, so he wrote that exercise instead, bet they wished they'd kept quiet now

As piano playing is about PERFORMING MUSIC I do not understand why ANY marks are awarded for scales, arpeggios and technical exercises.

The ability to play these should be implicit in the performance of the pieces. By themselves they are pointless. No-one pays to listen to someone playing sets of scales and exercises.

The only thing that should be awarded marks is musical performance - the pieces!

This is why from diploma level upwards there is no scale requirement - but scale practicing is instrumental in developing a good technical base for your playing and with the best will in the world, especially these days I think there are very few teachers out there could get kids to practice scales at all if they weren't an exam requirement.

Maybe - but not in the quantity required for AB - every single major and minor for Gd 5 piano, for example.. and something like 200 plus combinations for Gd 8. Now, with the 'new' syllabus, instead of making this section more realistic, even more seem to have been added. Whole tone scales??

Of course Tom, and anyone else from the Netherlands, or most of Europe, will think we are mad. i think we're mad. I resent the way 'graded exams' have a stranglehold on instrumental teaching in this country. And I totally agree with Tom - any exams should be about playing music!

Maybe the inclusion of scales is one way to try to make sure that those playing at that level know their keys?

Mm.. sorry, I'm not convinced. If they knew 24 keys/scales for Gd 5, they would know them for Gd 8. There are so many more musically, and technically, productive things to do with practice time. And how do the pianists in the rest of Europe - indeed, the world - manage?

I wouldn't bet on it with some people. Rather like grade 5 theory I think a lot would consider it not an important enough thing to be worth remembering. Anyway, if they still know them where's the problem?

They probably play them with the music.
My oboe teacher in France insisted I bought a book of oboe scales and stop playing them from memory since the whole point is to be able to recognise scale passages as such in pieces of music. I dutifully bought a book but after so many years of playing scales from memory on piano and violin in the UK I find it virtually impossible to remember that I am supposed to be looking at the music. My daughter has scales to practise on both the cello and the trombone and is always told to do them with the music.

I swapped to Trinity after grade 5, and have enjoyed the challenge of the technical exercises. They are not an easy option, especially to play well. It's just a different approach to exams and it will suit some better than others.
I prefer the Associated Board singing exams.
The pupils enjoy the technical exercises which doesn't mean that they are let off scales entirely, it's just another facet of musicianship which is being tested. As someone who failed grade 8 , comprehensively, and needs to spend time on technique, it's good to have exercises to work on which will be examined separately, as well as the technical content of your chosen pieces.

8 tonic notes (Bb, B, C, Csharp/Db, D, Eb, F Fsharp/Gb, I think), x 3 (major, minor, chromatic) is 24 scale types

24 x 3 (octave, 3rds, 6ths) x 2 (staccatto, legato) plus 3 legato 3rds makes 147 scales

Same 8 tonic notes / 16 keys keys for arpeggios x 5 (root, 1st inv, 2nd inv, dom 7th dim 7th) makes 80 arpeggios.

Total for grade 8: 227 scales and arpeggios.


That's news!!

I hope Tom won't mind my pointing this out: He may live in Utrecht for the moment, but he's from the UK and studying for both Dip and LRSM piano performance (in parallel). Of course, he still thinks we're all mad!


I agree, and I think they are about playing music: It's just that the phrase "playing music' is made up of two words. Up to grade 8 the ABRSM exams try to test technical skills (in the from of scales) and general musicality (aural tests) as well as the performance, a bit like asking a footballer to play keepy-uppy. Beyond grade 8 technical skill and musicality is thought of as assumed. Don't forget, the exams are designed in continuity.

As for the stranglehold, it's market led: No-one forces you to work to exams in music. If you don't like them (and many don't) go another route.

I never saw it as that many scales and arpeggios Robodoc.
I used to split them up into manageable groups and covered everything over 4 day at about half an hour a day once I'd learnt them all.
Each day had major and minors on 2 starting notes (counted as 4 scales and 4 arpeggios).
Add another 2 arpeggios for the dominant 7ths.
Then I'd do chromatics, and diminished 7ths on 3 different starting notes as they had to be on every note.
Legato 3rd if I remember correctly there were 2 of them which i'd alternate daily and the horrendous finger knitting chromatic minor 3rds one which I did every day.

Never really thought to add them up but I ddn't count inversions as extra scales or arpeggios, nor 3rds and 6ths... they are just doing tricks with the same ones.

I spend almost that much time on warm up excercises of some sort now so time wise it was no big deal.

Scales had always been a part of my routine right from my first lesson so it was never a case of having to learn a lot at once.