This thread started off on Teachers, but I think the topic has wandered a little to something a bit more relevant to students. We were talking about the presentations of different exam works on YouTube by various people. (Who most edit their comments to make sure only the ones proclaiming the performer as a master musician are left on it seems! )

What do you think of this rendition of a grade 8 piece where it is claimed the child passed? I have no idea how long after this recording she took the exam, but I don't see pass in there - do you? I have to assume it's her strongest piece, not sure why you'd pick her weakest to record, but it's possible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP2vKXyoVKA - quick edit, link went wonky!

And the related comments that she's amazing and all her problems are down to a poor violin. There's some stuff on YouTube that I think cripes if she passed her exam then boy I've been overworking! Grade 8 should show excellent competence in the instrument, certainly shouldn't be hearing hesitations and big patches of dodgy intonation. If I heard a student sound like this weeks before the exam I think I'd pull the entry and put her in next term - overreacting?

[edit] they took the comments off again, now there's only a comment about how amazing she is... again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP2vKXyoVKA



no way!

That's shocking (if it's true!). And what is the point in entering a 9 year old so soon for grade 8, when with more time spent on technical dexterity and interpretation skills, after a few years she could still be a comparatively young holder of a very good grade 8 pass, that realistically she's not going to be able to do a great deal with until school leaving age anyway!

I couldn't watch it all the way through But on the grounds of this I'm entering my 13-year-old for his diploma asap (no, not really )

Oh dear! I think this is a perfect case of someone making allowances for a person just because they are very young. I don't think anyone would marvel at an adult who could play a Grade 8 piece badly. Her tone is awful and the performance is not musical - I don't know how the teacher could think this is acceptable. The sad thing is, she could probably play a Grade 1 piece extremely well - she clearly has some talent and quite a lot of dexterity in her fingers - the teacher is actually holding her back by making her race ahead with difficult repertoire without the basics being in place. Grrr!

Guys..."look up, not down"...nothing much to be gained by trashing a 9 year old! Wouldn't it be more interesting to talk about the people whose youtube clips can really teach us something?

Sorry, wasn't so much trying to trash the 9 year old, rather the teacher! I just think whoever he/she is, they're not guiding this girl very well.

I can't find where it says that it was for a Grade 8 exam or that she passed. Has that been deleted? A thought - is there an American system, or something, where the grades are different to ours, and in which there are more than eight grades? If so, and their Grade 8 is not the same as ours, it might make more sense. Or could she be in eighth grade in school and have passed some end of year assessment? (Actually, I think she looks older than eighth grade, so that's unlikely...)

Hear hear.

It does say ABRSM grade 8 at the top, right hand.

However, I do think All Ears has a point. Speaking as one who was very quick to jump in and be shocked, it's important that we are careful before we judge, even the teacher. We don't know the circumstances behind this - were there reasons this girl was taking this exam so seemingly early? She certainly proved some raw ability and all other issues regarding her development have to be referred back to her teacher AND her parents. There is so much that we don't know!

Top RH corner the "about" section of the clip, it clearly says ABRSM Grade 8 and the title of the clip says she passed and so does the "about" section.

I was also meaning this as a discredit to the teacher - why put a child in for exams that are clearly beyond them. This teacher has a lot of other similarly aged [claimed] pupils scratching out awful renditions on Youtube and it seems to be a habit of this teacher's to rush kids through. Lots of "when she came to me she was grade 3 and now she's grade 8, look" patting him/herself on the back and tacetly trashing the other teacher who got the child (comfortably and appropriately) to grade 3.

This clip appears under more than one name, though, I notice. That's one reason the comments seems to be changing, though they do tend to delete anything they don't like. One claims to be the teacher, the other just posts that it's a 9-year-old playing a grade 8 piece and doesn't claim any connection at all. Who knows what the real situation is, but the person who claims to have taught her and rushed her to grade 8 standard may well be doing this to try to advertise for more students. More fool the parent who thinks my child isn't making enough progress let's get that teacher.

It's the child, not the teacher in the video, and the child is the one who can be identified - I would hate to think that she might somehow stumble across these comments at some future stage. And there is no way to erase comments once they have been made in such a forum.

Wolfnotes

What I see is a talented kid who has been appallingly taught. The teacher should be ashamed, not boasting about his/her "achievements" on youtube.

The little girl is well on the way to becoming a very good violinist. She can more or less hit the notes, she plays in time and fairly rhythmically. Okay, her intonation is awful, but she has plenty of time ahead of her to fix that.

But no way is she Grade 8 standard.

I don't believe that she has passed Grade 8. I think whoever posted this is telling porkies.

Either that or there is an examiner out there that should be sacked

To be fair, I've heard many grade 8 violinists whose intonation is decidedly ropey. I don't think it's quite the "gold standard" that many people believe it to be.

Well - if that performance earns Grade 8 on the violin I can only say that the standard expected of pianists is very unfair in comparison.

I think most good teachers will say that they could get anyone through grade 8 on a scrape pass . . . . but that the Grade 8 Distinction is still a Gold Standard.

We had a teacher who whizzed my son up through to Grade 5 (passing each exam with about 112 each time) in about a year but a sixth sense told us this was not right and he had no technique and a ropey sound (we are not musicians). We changed teachers and the new teacher slowed it all down and put in a couple of years of solid technique work and the end result is that while still at school he now has diploma with distinction and is planning a career in music.
At a recent Conservatoire open day, people kept mentioning grade 8 so the exasperated Prof said "Grades are for parents!" I could sort of see what he meant!