Hi, I'm new to the boards and am after some help!

My 9 year old daughter is taking grade 4 violin at the end of the month and I have bought the ABRSM aural training in practice CD for grade 4/5 just to give her a little bit of extra practice at home. Her lessons are at primary school and she has a brilliant teacher who she adores and has been with since she started the violin 3 years ago.

My daughter says her teacher has covered the echo singing, working out time signature and describing the character of the piece, but has not mentioned the sight singing test which wasn't in grade 3 and which we have just discovered on the CD.

I wonder if anybody could tell me exactly what happens with the sight singing test? The sight singing section on the CD is confusing to a non-musical mum like me! My daughter will be asking her violin teacher after half term, but it would be good to know from a parents' point of view exactly what happens in the test. It seems from the CD that she will be asked to sing notes from scales, and to sing do reh mi as well as C D E etc? Will the examiner play a note for her to start from so that she can work it out from there?

Any guidance would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

Your daughter will be given a short series of notes, written as semibreves. She will be given the key chord and the starting note (which will be the keynote) & she will be expected to sing the notes in her own time. She can sing to any syllable she likes (e.g. lah, mah etc) or she can use do re mi or letter names if she wishes (but does not have to). If she goes wrong, the examiner will play the note to get her back on track. For grade 4. the notes only go a 3rd (2 notes) above or below the keynote.

As I understand it, in the exam they will be given a (treble) stave with a keysignature and 5 notes (semibreves) along it.
The test says it will be in C major, F major or G major & the 1st note & last note will be the tonic (ie doh).
So if it's in C major it will start on C and finish on C,
in G major it will start & finish on G
& for F major it will start & finish on F.
Of the remaining notes they will only span a 3rd above the tonic to a 3rd below the tonic - so if it's in C the range of notes will be C (doh), D (re), E (mi) (going up) and B (ti), and A (lah), (going below the starting note.)
The biggest interval will be a 3rd so if your daughter understands solfa those intervals will be doh-mi, re-ti, or doh-lah or in the case of C major, possible intervals are C-E; D-B; A-C, the other possibilities are, of course, doh-re-mi, doh-ti-lah
They can sing with lah throughout if they like or if they want to sing in solfa they can. The examiner plays & names the keychord & tonic before they start & if necessary plays the note after they've sung it so they can get back on track if they've drifted in pitch.

I would say that for an instrumental teacher in a school your teacher sounds amazing, I use a different board for my students exams so the aural tests are different but I have lost count of the number of times that I have prepared my students for AB aural tests for their other instrument because 9 times out of 10 the school teachers just don't have time to do it.

As a peripatetic (school & music centre) & private piano teacher, I tend to find that it's teachers of other instruments (whether at school or not) who try to get me to prepare the pupils for the aural tests. I get a bit annoyed that they think I have time to do this when they don't. One of my pupils who's entered for grade 3 piano soon, recently came & said "My violin teacher wants you to teach me grade 1 aural because the exam's next week." I told her that I have already taught her grade 1 & 2 aural, as well as started preparation for grade 3, & I really need all the time I can get to prepare for her piano exam, especially as she's missed a couple of lessons.

Thanks very much for your comments, much appreciated, at least we have an idea of what to expect now!

I feel quite old now. I don't even remember sitting a sightsinging exam in grade 4

I don't think thats good.... haha

micky

I have just found these booklets which are free and cover what is in each aural test at each grade.
You may like to check them out
www.auralguide.co.uk

Hope all goes well.

Thanks, that looks great, I will have a read, it looks really helpful.