I have a son who is shortly doing grade 4 cello. He is very keen and has got this far in just over a year, so I'm guessing he's got approx 2 years (maybe less) before he 'needs' grade 5 theory. He has done theory to grade 1 standard. How do people learn theory beyond this - is it something you can teach yourself (perhaps with advice from a teacher if there's something you don't understand)? What books would people recommend, or is just working through old papers going to be enough. Do you do them grade by grade, or skip out some of the intermediate ones. How long is it likely to take. He is a fairly bright and mathematically inclined child if that makes a difference.

I'm guessing loads of you guys must have been through this. What approach did you take and what would you recommend?

The ABRSM do books called "Music theory in Practice". Theres a book for every grade and they give you exercises do to. I found working through these books was good, you can skip out some of the excercises etc. They also do two books called "The AB guide to music theory" which are quite helpful. Music shops should have these in stock, or be ablt to get them for you.

The BEST book i found for my grade 5 theory is called 'Take 5 and pass first time' by Christopher Dunn.

It contains all you need to know about music theory up to grade 5 and starts from the very basics. The format is just brilliant, so easy to read with lots of explanations and examples to break up the text. I found it sooo much easier than the 'theory in practice' books which tend to go on a bit...!

It covers everything in the exam and doesnt over-complicate anything. I actually found learning theory quite fun with this book (I wonder if he will publish anything for the higher grades?!)

With my grade 5 theory I used this book and used past papers for practice (available from any good music shop) and had a couple of lessons with a teacher before hand (mine was very rushed, I'd advise going through with a teacher from the beginning if possible..)

All the best with it

For early theory (gr1-2) you can self teach theory.

But for grades above that, it is recommended to find a teacher.

For me, eventhough i had a teacher from the start, she let me study the theory myself (gr1-4), as she thought i was capable of it
but she wanted to teach grade 5 personally coz she said it could be difficult.

and i did not regret that because eventhough i could do it myself, i still needed her help.

As others said, use the theory books as they explain very clearly. + past year papers are very useful for quick revision!

I found that I just picked it up as I went along. Just sort of took in everything I was ever told I suppose.
But when I decided to take the exam (just because i wanted to, no other reason) my teacher at the time took me through all the workbooks from grade 1, which I found useful to just fill in any small gaps and learn the 'official' way of doing thing such as grouping of notes.

Now I am teaching i always include theory as we go along, orally at first with relation to the music that is being learnt.
Is your son's teacher willing to at least mark and discuss any work?
I would have doubts about a teacher unable or unwilling to teach theory to grade 5.

Thanks for all the book recommendations, I'll check those out next time I'm in town. How long does it take a typical candidate to work through it all? It sounds rather daunting. I'll also have a word with his teacher as I expect he will need some help.

grade 1 and 2 is alright...

i think from grade 4 onwards...it needs a little time...

If he's mathematically inclined he should find it quite a bit easier than he would otherwise do. The best thing to do, as people have said, is just to work through all of the books. Rather than skipping whole exercises it would be better to attempt the first three or four from each exercise and if he's getting them right and is finding them easy he won't have to do the rest. Missing out whole topics would result in gaps in his knowledge and could lead to problems (each section in the theory in practice books equates roughly to one question in the exam) but if he's comfortable with each type of question there's no need to do every example within the exercise.

This approach, of course, will need someone who knows the answers to mark them for him. You don't mention how old he is but he may also need a teacher to explain how to do each thing in the first place to him: it depends how good he naturally is at learning things from text (and may depend on his age). Is his cello teacher willing to teach theory to him as part of his lessons?

To find out when he's ready to take the exam it's just a matter of letting him do past papers (the more the better) then getting them marked and seeing if he's getting marks well above the pass mark (it would be a bit risky to enter if he gets 66 on each paper!).

For the first 2-3 years, I didn't learn any theories.
When I knew that I would take my grade 6 exam next year, I learnt the theory in about 3 months and passed it.

QUOTE (songflower @ Oct 27 2004, 10:00 PM)

The BEST book i found for my grade 5 theory is called 'Take 5 and pass first time' by Christopher Dunn.

...oooh, I'll have a look at that!

Also popular are: Theory is Fun, Grades 1 to 5 by Maureen Cox
(I use these with most of my pupils)
visual presentation is SO good in these books that they're appealing.

Highly recommended are: Ng, Lina Theory of music made easy grades 1 to 8
(I've just got some copies recently)

The ABRSM ones "Music Theory in Practice" grades 1 to 8 - are more wordy, but have a lot more exercises to do, and are used by SO many teachers and pupils.

i didnt find theory hard, but i went through the Music theory in pracitse books

QUOTE (DomRUK @ Oct 28 2004, 09:25 AM)

Highly recommended are: Ng, Lina Theory of music made easy grades 1 to 8 (I've just got some copies recently)

Do the Ng books have answers to the exercises in them?

Thanks.

This is how I did it...

I just registered for the exams myself and attended a preparation class held by a community union - although I did not benefit much from the course unfortunately.

As I will have the exam on Sat... and on that very Monday, this is pretty much all I knew about the Grade 5 exam - I did no previous theory exams but Grd 5 piano.

So I bought the all 5 practice books - Music Theory in Practice by ABRSM for grade 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5

I stayed the whole week evening at home, and worked out one book each evening. (I remember that I have the answers to the books but the composition.) So on Saturday morning I went into the exam hall for Grade 5 exam.

I came out with a distinction - in fact I have expected it except the high marks that I got... I only lost 4 in the compostion as I just composed by heart since I did not learn from the class and this is NOT good, I admit!

I need to stressed that I am an adult learner, so to a certain extent I am advantaged in doing all the 'calculations'. And certainly the above is NOT a good/recommended strategy.

But really the exams is not difficult, and all that it asks for is practise and plenty of caution in doing 'calculations'! Time is plenty! Enough to do it 2 times at least at elephant speed.

(Besides your son will need to rememeber some performance direction vocabs... but it's just only few marks, and if time is not enough... concentrate on the rest first. The words are listed at the back of each of the above-mentioned practice books.)

Good luck and have fun!
Tannie

I'm taking my thoery soon. my grade 5.. its wise that he or his teacher talks about eatch grade and know the words ..

Wow Tannie - you make it sound too easy; well done! In fact all your replies have been most interesting and helpful, so thank you for taking time to reply. The consensus is a teacher will be needed, and the theory in practise books sound most popular, although I'll definitely look at the 'take 5 and pass first time' one too as I like the idea of one book rather than 4 or 5.

I'm not sure if the cello teacher will have time for theory as he has his lessons at school and the time is tight; however I've found that there is also a weekly theory class at school (apparently for a select few), so I'll ask if he can join that, hopefully it's not too advanced for him. My fallback option is a very musical friend who is taking her dip ABRSM at Christmas. I'm sure she can help out with marking and when we get stuck if needed (but I'd like her to stay a friend, so don't want to impose too much!)

I've also spoken to 'slightly less unmusical dad' (who did gr 4 piano a very long time ago) and persuaded him that he really wants to work through the book(s) together with my son - he even went as far as saying that he'd sit the exam with him too to show solidarity!

QUOTE (spaceman @ Oct 28 2004, 07:03 PM)

QUOTE (DomRUK @ Oct 28 2004, 09:25 AM) Highly recommended are: Ng, Lina Theory of music made easy grades 1 to 8 (I've just got some copies recently) Do the Ng books have answers to the exercises in them? Thanks.

Don't know - only bought a couple of books recently, and they're being used by a pupil with their parents, and I can't recall.

Anyone else got a copy?

No answers in the Ng books.

Going to a theory class is quite good and you progress quickly. I covered grades 2-5 + loads of practice papers by going to a theory class for an hour once a week. Got grade 5 theory on Wednesday

QUOTE (tannie @ Oct 28 2004, 02:36 PM)

But really the exams is not difficult, and all that it asks for is practise and plenty of caution in doing 'calculations'!  Time is plenty! Enough to do it 2 times at least at elephant speed.

I guess I must be slower than an elephant then!
I just took the G5 theory exam and took almost the entire time allowed.
(It didn't help, though, that it started at 8:30am, 45 minutes drive from where I live - I sometimes don't get up until 8:30!)

It wasn't difficult - but I did do a few silly things initially which I caught when I double checked my answers. (Hopefully I didn't leave too many silly things still in there...)