Hi, I was talking to a few others who have taken exams, and all of the boys have said they dread the aural, whereas the girls dont find it as hard to sing infront of an examiner.

So, i've posted this poll to see if it is a common thought....
Sorry ladies that you don't get a seperate poll for like / dislike.
N.B This is whether to like it or not in exams.
I know there will be people who are in the middle, but i want to focus on those who either do, or don't like it.

I love singing so....................

As a kid I had nightmares about singing in front of examiners for weeks before my exams It got to the point where at one stage I'd point blank refuse to do any aural work at all in my lessons and often end up in tears when encouraged to give it a go
*shivers*

LOL



In my experience - no

(They seem to have an advantage when it comes to the singing though - especially in their teens as unlike their male counterparts they don't have to deal with their voices breaking which creates a whole issue for lads whether or not to attempt low or falsetto)

but whether you like something is nothing to do with whether you're any good at it. there are plenty of things i'm good at, but i hate doing them, and conversely i enjoy doing things i'm not very good at.

It was the sight-singing I struggled with - I wasn't so concerned with how my voice sounded.

I don't even have to ask to know both my girls dislike aural. Emsoboes friend who is male isn't keen but dislikes it less than my girls.

The aural is the worst part of the exam for me, mainly because I am not very good at it. The singing aloud doesn't bother me, it's remembering what I need to sing or clap that I struggle with. By the time the examiner has played to the end of the phrase I've forgotten how it started.

(female)

Maybe it depends to some extent on whether you are asking about 'aural tests' per se or 'singing'...

I hate aural tests... and singing in front of anyone, unless in a very large choir. (female)

I quite like aural because it's a supporting test, so doesn't mean performing, and isn't sightreading. So atm it's cool with me (haven't got to sightsinging yet though... )

It's weird, everyone always says they hate the singing back, because they always forget it, all my friends say that anyway... my brain does it for me I swear it's a little tape recorder which does things for me subconsciously. Like in geography when I zone out, and the teacher asks me a question and I don't know what the question is, I rewind what she just said, even though I wasn't listening, and it works! And when I'm lying in bed, and the church clock strikes, after a few strikes I think "damn, why didn't I listen? I wonder what time it is and can't be bothered to look", then realise I've already been counting without realising, and think to myself "6, 7, 8" etc and wonder why I start on 6. Then I sit up and check on the clock, and it's right everytime

Indeedy. And if someone can't sing back what they've heard, we're none the wiser as to whether he/she can't hold the pitches in his/her head, or if he/she just can't sing.

Now if only they could come up with a test that could test the AURAL memory element without the singing ... oh, they have .... in Trinity exams.

On the whole, yes, boys are more likely to find the singing bit more embarrassing/difficult, for a variety of reasons, not least the breaking voice. Would you want to be assessed on something that's broken?

Other than the singing, I haven't noticed any gender differences in ability or willingness.

My son is 11 and hates the aural test. He does not wish to sing for anyone. He is almost ready to sit his Grade 2 piano exam ( one piece is excellent, the other two need a little work but are almost there, and his scales etc are pretty much sorted), but he is refusing to sit the exam because of the aural test.

I don't like the ABRSM aural test in the higher grades, mainly because the memory tests are not very relevant to playing notated music, though very appropriate for jazz.

Re. the original question which, as River points out, the poll doesn't address: on a sample of one, I came top of my year in my Music Part I aural skills exam, which was four-part dictation and marking a short score with all the differences one hears (pitch and rhythm) in the played version. Second was a girl of Chinese origin, but rather than gender, I think she did well because she spoke Mandarin (a tonal language) and had perfect pitch.

The "what's different?" part of this exam is just about the nearest one can get in an exam that doesn't cost a lot* to testing an essential skill for a conductor or a chamber musician, both of whom need to know how the music should sound and what needs changing to make the performance approach this more closely. Trinity is now doing a version of this in their grade exams (in by Grade 5, possibly lower) and I think it's about time the ABRSM did too.

* My 'cello teacher's husband once did a trial for the post of assistant conductor with a professional orchestra, and part of the assessment of his suitability was to notice the deliberate mistakes that the orchestra had been primed to make when he was conducting them: a very expensive examination.

Girls are better at everything

Lol well you would say that wouldn't you

(I agree )

How very sad...

We are!!!

I don't mind it!

I didn't do too well in my Grade 8 aural, I think I only got 13, and I fell down in the singing bit because I always forget the end of the tune, and "improvise" the rest! I also mucked up a few questions about the pieces because I kind of blanked! Despite getting a bad mark, I apparently have a "very musical ear" (examiners words), but it needs to be developed, and I need to stop improvising!

I'm actually retaking grade 8 (despite passing), because I had a very off day (I was expected distinction, so it obviously went horribly wrong!), which means I'm still not free from the Aural!
I've started to enjoy it more, my teacher has been using Kodaly methods to help me (Do I get a gold star, Cyrilla? ), such as the 333 excercises (I'm sure they have a different title though, but I could be wrong!). I've found the excercises quite hard, but i'm improving! They don't sound particularly nice when you have to play one bar ahead/behind while you sing, and then memorise it all, and it makes your brain hurt, but I can see why they're so useful! I didn't enjoy aural before, but since i've started with various Kodaly methods of learning, i've really enjoyed them! I can't do the hand signs for the notes though!

I've gone rather off topic, oh well! I reccomend Kodaly, it's challenging, and can be lots of fun!

I know a top jazz pianist who still has a phobia of singing in front of anyone, which goes right back to the aural in his piano exams. Clearly, making people sing in exams doesn't necessarily engender a love of singing.

AB so-called 'aural' tests are one of the main reasons my lot do TG. All the AB tests do is examine memory and ability to pitch, along with the inner resource to cope with the extreme embarrassment of being unable to do either. Actual aural discrimination is not a requirement of their tests.

'Tisn't the only reason, but it is a biggie.

To address the OP, my experience is that girls used to do better, before I changed exam boards. Generally, they could sing better. Given that they were taking piano exams, the ability to sing didn't seem especially important or relevant to them.

Glad you're finding your Kodály activities helpful, pianist flautist! (Yes, it is the '333 Reading Exercises')
*awards gold star*






No, it doesn't! I loathed aural tests as a child and wouldn't sing for years.

Hmm, an interesting bit of research would be to find out how many people have been put off singing by being made to do so in aural tests, compared with how many have been switched on to singing by its inclusion in aural tests. If it were shown that mandatory examined singing was putting young people off singing for pleasure, wouldn't that be an extremely strong argument to stop it, especially if there's a better way to demonstrate aural skills?

I've said it before, but one problem is that 'aural' is seen as a separate entity from playing (as is 'theory') - and it is very often only TESTED, not TAUGHT.

If musicianship is taught in a practical and enjoyable way (now, what way could THAT be??? ) these problems are largely eradicated. And it IS possible to teach people to sing and to enjoy it and feel confident with it. I know this is true, not only from my students of all ages, but from my own experience.

I had a period of voice breaking where I really didn't know where the voice was and pitching to a piano was difficult. Had the examiner sung the tune at me, I would have been able to do a better job of singing it back than from being played on the piano. Or it would be slightly easier on the piano if they played it down an octave.

I imagine teenage or pre-teenage males would tend to be more self conscious about the singing sections of the tests than females of the same age but other than I can't see how there'd be much of a difference. I know when I first did exams in my early teens or slightly before I didn't like having to sing, I didn't have much of a voice then and I still don't, but now I really don't mind singing as I'm so used to doing it for aural tests, sight singing, ear training and so on. So having to sing in the aural tests was probably a good thing for me, even though I didn't enjoy it at the time.

I disagree that the aural tests are just "memory tests" - the skills that they test are musical skills which are very useful and practical to musicians. Ideally I think there should be more emphasis on aural ability. The problem is not the nature of the tests but the fact that most teachers are unable or unwilling to teach them properly, in my opinion (I agree with Cyrilla's post above on this ...).

I can't find any contribution to this thread that suggests that they are "all" memory tests. Several of us dislike the ABRSM singing back from two playings, me because I don't think memory for long phrases is particularly helpful to instrumentalists or choral singers playing notated music, others because of the singing problem.

I would be happy with more emphasis on aural ability and knowledge, but the ABRSM tests have lots of problems. A particularly divisive one is that players of transposing instruments are expected to sight sing from concert pitch parts, with piano accompaniment at the higher grades, which is straightforward if you lack perfect pitch and thoroughly disorienting if you have it. Moreover, AFAIK, players are not given the sight singing in the familiar clef for their instrument. Trinity-Guildhall doesn't require memorising and, AFAIK, checks a candidate's ability to translate notation into heard intervals in the "what's different" test I mentioned previously.

A major weakness of many amateur players in the UK is the reading of rhythm and metre, shown in the frequent breakdown of chamber music rehearsals. I suspect this weakness also causes them problems in conducted ensembles, but less obviously and with quicker recovery. This is probably fairly obvious to most examiners in the pieces, even if a competent accompanist manages to stay with a wayward solo, but it would be a beneficial innovation if the third item was always a study played with a metronome, since the candidate would then have to practise with one and become aware of his/her problem. Sight-reading with very long bars, or no bar lines at all would also help to sort this out.

Is it rigged? I'm trying to add a vote for my son in the 'like' category for 13-17 year old boys, and it won't let me! Apparently I haven't selected a category to vote for Mind you, having got his worst mark ever for aural this year, after a series of 17s and 18s, he might not like it quite so much any more

Of course, the easy way to find the answer to the OP's question would be for the AB to publish their statistics. I often wonder about how much analysis of marks there is - a certain amount is released (such as numbers taking each grade and passing etc.), a certain amount is mentioned (such as checking individual examiners' averages), but I suspect that with such a large number of entries, and so much data in numerical form, it would be easy to extrapolate extremely detailed statistics on all sorts of things.

In the aural side alone, you could see if particular parts of the aural tests are performed better by girls - but you could also see if keyboard players find other bits easier ('Listening to Music with Understanding' at Grades 6 to 8?), or if certain instruments achieve higher or lower marks than others for scales, sight reading, etc.

Now, do you think AB look at and analyse that data (and yes, I am treating 'data' as a singular)? If they do, wouldn't it be interesting to know? The dilemma would be (and why such statistics wouldn't be released) if it demonstrated that, yes, girls are better than boys at the singing parts of the so-called 'aural' tests. Would it indicate just that, erm, girls are better (on average) than boys at the singing bits of exams, or that the tests are flawed?

And we only have to think of the example of GCSE maths to show how such statistics can influence exams: with the elimination of coursework from GCSE maths, all of a sudden the exam statistics show that boys have outperformed girls. Does this mean that, erm, boys are better than girls at maths?

I still can't see for the life of me why singing is a compulsory part of instrumental exams. And before anyone says "because it's helpful to make you a better musician", yes, of course it is, but so too is an ability to dance all the regular dances that we play. But I don't hear anyone clamouring to include dancing in practical music exams. Of course we can test people's aural skills without making them sing. And it would eliminate the possibility of gender bias if we did.

You might have forgotten to put 'n/a' for the girls one and the 'dislike' male question - it won't let you put in a vote unless you tick a box in every question, which is probably why HC put those options there.

Two possible solutions:

1) Whistle instead of singing (my son did when his voice was breaking).

2) Take the Trinity/Guildhall exams instead (if they are still as they used to be, with no singing).

No singing.

Not even a hit of it. The only memory work comes at grade 1 where there is a rhythm to clap back. Other than that, TG aural is pure hearing and discrimination.

The AB tests aren't ideal IMO, however, I think they are basically valid as tests and do test useful skills. Being able to read from concert pitch instead of transposed if you have absolute pitch is a useful musical skill. Being able to hold a short musical phrase in your head and reproduce it is a useful musical skill (this isn't so much a memory test as a test of your ability to comprehend the melodic logic of a musical phrase, imo).



I'm not sure that metronomes should ever be used in exams, it just ... doesn't seem right. I agree that teachers should encourage their students to use metronomes when practicing though.

Yes, but it's much more difficult than what the others have to do. Like several others of the AB aural tests, it is discriminatory of abilities or experience that are not what the exams purport to test.


Useful within improvising genres.

The point about putting it in the exam would be a) to test a musical skill that is far more useful than memorising long phrases (which is what they are at G8) and b) to induce candidates to practise it beforehand.

Thank you!

(one day I'll learn to read instructions properly)

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, some people have to do more work on certain aspects of musicianship than others. This is always the case, a pianist with smaller hands may find certain things harder than one with large hands, etc. - the exams test how good you are, not how hard you've worked.

I don't really know what grade exams actually "purport to test" to be honest but the fact that they include aural tests and sight reading suggests they are meant to test general all round musicianship to some degree rather than purely testing candidates on instrumental ability in the narrowest sense.



You mean like the genre Bach, Mozart and Beethoven fall under?

Regardless, I think this is a useful skill for non-improvising musicians anyway. A performer who is able to do this is more likely to have a more intimate understanding of the music they are playing, rather than just regurgitating the notes on the page, which can only be a good thing as far as the quality of the performance goes.



Yeah, I see the point, I just don't really agree - the idea of it just strikes me as wrong.

Also this skill is tested anyway in the pieces and the sight reading - if a candidate has problems with time these will be apparent in these sections of the exam. It's the teacher's job to encourage the student to practice with a metronome, imo.

This starts to get very problematic if we want to include more general 'musicianship' skills. I'd argue strongly that all melody instrument players would benefit enormously from having keyboard skills, and keyboard players would benefit from playing a melody instrument, and singers would benefit from playing any technical instrument, but I doubt if anyone would argue for such skills to be introduced into exams. (Lack of keyboard skills will certainly hold people back if they go on to study music at university ... but that's another story.)

The exam, to be fair, should be focused only on those skills that are essential to being a useful flexible musician in the outside world. Sight reading is an essential skill for an orchestral/band musician, as are some aspects of aural tests. Being able to hear a tune in ones head is an essential skill for a brass player, but being able to sing it is not. It is possible to be a great musician without being able or wanting to sing, so if it's not essential, it shouldn't be in the exam, especially if it gives an advantage to any groups of people (singers and, arguably, girls).

In other words, practical music exams should be narrow: restricted to skills essential for playing an instrument (and not those that various people might consider 'desirable'), and fair.

Among my students, I would say that those who object more strongly to aural tests tend to be girls, and mostly because of the singing. But they also tend to do slightly better than the boys.

I didn't vote in the poll because my experiences of aural have been mixed. Fine up to Grade 5, but rather less fine by the higher grades. Sight-singing is fine, but I CANNOT (really!) sing back the lower part of a two-part phrase. Having sung first soprano in choirs etc and played treble instruments all my life, I can hear the lower part moving, but cannot hear where it is moving to. Am I alone in this? (Please tell me I'm not!)

Good luck.

I am curious about why theory exams are separate and aural exams are included in practical exams.
My daughter finds aural very difficult, but not theory, and her playing is improving faster than her aural. It would be really useful for us to decouple the two, just as the theory is, so that she could take the various exams when she is of the right standard.
Her aural is improving all the time and I'm in no position to judge how valuable it is but it is hard to see her play at distinction level and then get a merit because she failed the aural.
Dora

I won't be holding my breath - there seems to be a lot of effort on AB's part to justify keeping the status quo. The hallmarks of good exams are that they stimulate good and enjoyable learning and so encourage an active interest in the subject; that they are directly relevant and perceived as such; that they are fair to all entrants.

For the fairness - well, I guess the AB have the answer in their statistics: do singers and girls get higher marks for the singing bits of the aural tests?

As for the relevance ... well... if the question is "why should I sing?" there are dozens of good answers. If the question is "why do I have to sing in a trumpet exam", the answer is not so easy. If I were a nine-year-old trumpeter taking my first exam, I might just ask "so do singers have to play trumpet in their aural tests?"

Being a female i have proof that not all girls are good at aural. For my Grade 5 even though my result came out pretty well, I could have got a distinction if my aural had been loads better, I only just passed and got the 12 but now going for my Grade 6 I find it really hard to sing, the only part I can get full marks on are the cadences but I suppose everyone can.

I really don't like singing and I know its not a singing exam I always feel really nervous, : ( and I always loose my place but hopefully I'll get through it!

So there's proof...

The aural part is making me toy with the idea of switching to TG after I do Grade 3 ABRSM to be honest (I've not brought it up with my teacher yet but I will do tomorrow). The thought of having to do sight singing is really putting me off I quite like the other parts of the Aural tests but I think the argument of a singer having to play trumpet in their exam is a good one.

I think it's something that should definitely be reviewed, or at least justified somewhere with an explanation as to why it is necessary?

Learning to sing back phrases and sight sing are are very good things for any instrumentalist to learn to do. The point is not to learn how to sing, for the sake of singing itself, but to develop your ears. It really doesn't matter what kind of voice you have, my voice is terrible, it doesn't make any difference.

Doing sight singing exercises is a very good thing for instrumentalists to do to develop their all-round musicianship, imo; on the other hand, singers aren't going to become significantly and reliably better singers from learning to play the trumpet, so that analogy isn't valid.

I cannot encourage you enough to make the switch. My pupils have never looked back since I did so as a teacher.

I don't think the aural tests in the instrument exams can really be described as "sight singing". Ask a singer.

But sight reading is compulsory for grades 6 - 8. And it is a lot harder than AB at that level - it's unaccompanied for one thing.

The singing part of the aurals is the main reason I'll never take another AB Jazz exam - what a miserable and humilliating experience that was! In Jazz aural tests you have to improvise a response to what the examiner plays - not just singing but improvising as you go.