Hello!

This is my first time to use this forum and I would be delighted if I can get general views towards instrumental exams.

Currently I am thinking very hard to apply for a position as an ABRSM examiner.

Although I am an experienced piano teacher and have entered many students for ABRSM exams, I would like to hear some opinions (good and bad) regards to exams from others.

I think exams are useful to keep students motivated and for them to feel the sense of achievement once passed.

On the other hand exams are not everything and I do teach students who prefers not to do exams but are very keen musicians.

As my wish is to become a inspiring examiner any views on exams are appreciated - entering pupils, experience of taking them, examiners roles, syllabus,
advantage and disadvantage of exams etc.

I look forward to hear from you all!

Welcome to the forums, Nao!

With regard to your question, I feel that exams are very important. They have always motivated me, and driven me to do well, and I always take an examiner's view on board. Saying that, I know a lot of people who haven't done any exams but are still successful, as well as people who skipped grades 1-7 and did their grade 8. I feel that not all the grades are necessary for everybody, and that if you feel you can skip them you may as well. I skipped grades 1, 4, 6 and 7, and I am very pleased that I did, because sometimes unnecessary extra stress can have a big effect on your results.

Hope that this is what you meant!

I always refer to exams as being part of a musical diet. The same as you can't eat one food all the time no matter how "healthy" your food choice you cannot take only exams. There are some people for whom overt focus on examinations takes away from developing musical skills. There are a great many teachers who prepare pieces and techniques and but for the exams aural, theory and sight-reading would all stay in the boxes. I remember I never saw the aural work books until I was entered for an exam and it was a definite afterthought - gosh I suppose we'd better try to get some aural work done because the exam is in 3 weeks. There are also teachers who do a great job, of course, but for those who don't think outside the technical exams give a student that need to get some musical breadth.

Some people do get too focussed on exams, they always want to be in for the next grade. For me exams are a summative assessment of what you can already do. If you can play grade 6 material with ease and flow then take grade 6, not buy grade 7 and see if you can use the exam to make the leap. Then it shouldn't take months of repetition of the same pieces. Sometimes I worry the syllabus runs for too long, and it gives people the chance to buy a grade 8 set when they are only really grade 6 and spend a year making the grade 8 pieces acceptable to the exclusion of all else. Give them any other piece at that level and they simply couldn't begin to approach it.

Then there are those who use an ability to scratch through a graded piece to pat themselves on the back that they are that standard (we were talking about this phenomenon on Youtube) and don't realise that the exam is meant to represent ability to play across the board at that standard. Actually doing the exam sorts out those who think they are ever so grade 7 because they can produce the notes of the piece and those who are actually grade 7, so I think they have a very important role, most particularly where the deluded stage parent comes into things.

Some people will always crumble over an exam, though, and you can't always say that if you don't have the certificate you can't really be that standard. I cannot afford to sit all the exams I'd like and I have to pick and choose, as especially grade 8 is a massive expense. I understand the importance of having a live accompanist at the higher grades, but at lower grades it's a huge extra financial pressure to find an accompanist, pay for rehearsals, fit your exams into their schedule and pay for the exam. Do you really, really really need a live accompanist in a grade 2 examination?

I like the practical musicianship syllabus, and would really encourage my students (when I finally get going!) to do these, I think they are all really important skills. I don't think we see enough people doing them as it's all about the instrument and not enough focus on the musical skills. I know there are costs to putting on examinations, but I can't see that PM costs as much to administer as an instrument practical, and a financial incentive to do both exams might encourage more people into the system.

What I do find strange is the repetition of the aural tests for each new instrument. If I did a piano examination then even with everything else under my belt I have to do the aural tests again. For me this is an absolute bonus, a way to pick up some really easy marks. If i picked up a new instrument and did my grade 1 I would get those marks for clapping an easy rhythm, and it seems like silly repetition of a skill I've demonstrated. I wonder why Prac Musicianship and theory passes don't exempt you from any of the aural tests, quite honestly. If I can clearly sight-sing lower parts and add bass lines to a given melody following standard figures then surely giving marks for identifying a perfect cadence is a waste of everyone's time?

I think more so with music exams than any other sort because there is such a low amount of marks for unseen material and so much is for pre-prepared material that if people concentrate on the exam syllabus they fail to understand the whole curriculum of music. If GCSE papers were issued in advance and all the student had to do was learn those things then we'd see all sorts of 8 year olds going in for their exams and their parents rhapsodising that they are so smart they have a GCSE in maths when in fact they know very, very little indeed. I'm not sure how practical it would ever be but in an ideal world each candidate would get an addtional piece sent out to them a week or so before the exam to see what they can do with something when they don't have months and months to cram it. There needs to be some element of needing to learn a broad spectrum of stuff and the exam testing a sample of that stuff, rather than some people thinking the exam music is everything they need to know and experience. Or perhaps that it becomes a bit more like the scales, the candidate prepares 6 pieces and the examiner chooses any 3 to listen to. I am sure that will give many a teacher a heart attack, but I just think to be more like any other kind of exam there has to be some kind of risk that the exam might contain your least secure item, the bit you didn't manage to revise as well as the rest, that thing you can never remember. It is more of a confirmation that the candidate is ready to do the exam.

All I can remember from sitting my exams through school is the toilet where I spent my pre-exam waiting period looking in the mirror!

Oh, and the horror that your exam results go to your teacher first and then you get to find out what you got from them - nightmare!!

Nice essay, Rose! I agree, though. I hadn't thought about that, about separating the ones who actually are at their level to the ones who think they are.

Rose--if I may--your remarks about exams are by are the most discerning and thoughtful I've ever seen on the subject. Thank you. You've given me a lot of food for thought.

And I had to laugh at your very last comment, about getting your marks from your teacher. I teach in a university where it has been traditional for students to receive the breakdown of their results (marks in individual papers) from their director of studies. I refuse to do this. Many of my colleagues insist that I'm wrong, that students just love coming to hear their marks from an authority figure. I've always told my students that I'll put the breakdown in writing in their pigeonhole and if they want to talk to me, they're welcome, but that their moment with these numbers is their own--to shed some tears, swear, or do their little Snoopy-Happy-Dance, behind closed doors, on their own time, and they never have to talk to me about it if they don't want to. I haven't had a student complain yet and some get tears in their eyes when I explain why I do things differently. All of us, including young people, are entitled to a little personal space.

Some interesting points Rose. but I can't help wondering if you would feel quite the same if you found yourself teaching a lot of young children. Also, the situation varies from country to country. If my students had to learn an unknown piece in a given time or prepare more pieces than they have to play at a given grade I think there would be a massive cop out. It would also make exams even more expensive as a great deal of work would have to be done to ensure everyone got a copy and no one saw a copy too early.

Each one of us has to manage to balance the question of exam music and wider repertoire and there are many different ways of doing this. I don't think we need the exam syllabus to take on this job for us. It wouldn't solve the problem of people only doing exams and never anything else. It might even make it worse.

I too have sometimes wondered why a child taking Grade 2, for example, on one instrument has to do the aural tests when taking Grade 1 on another instrument. But I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with helping them to get a few extra marks. After all, learning two instruments means a double amount of practice and lesson time so perhaps they deserve a little lift.

Many people have a friend who can accompany at this level, or can do it themselves. I think it's really valuable to start playing with acompaniment early; I suppose that's one reason why so many books include a CD to play along to. Playing live with an accompanist is a skill in itself and so useful for concerts, etc.

Surely this is partly why the sightreading part of the exam is there.

What Rose is suggesting is rather different. Sightreading tests whether you can play a piece several grades below the grade in which you are being examined, with little or no expectation of subtlety of interpretation. What I take Rose to be suggesting is a piece AT grade level, for which you would have a reasonable amount of time to prepare properly, but not so much that you could focus obsessively on this one piece for months. Presumably, she also intends that you would be evaluated on this piece as you are on the other prepared pieces, that is, with expectations of sensitivity in interpretation. The purpose of her system would be to ensure people are overall playing at grade level, rather than merely having three pieces at that level. Sightreading doesn't test that.

As for the notion that something like this is unnecessary because most teachers are in fact preparing their students broadly--I wonder. I've heard enough from people with distinctions Grade 8 who learnt exactly three pieces, and three pieces only, at each grade. And look at some of the questions that arise in other threads: students coming up to an exam who want some rule of thumb to help them distinguish between Baroque and Romantic style, presumably because their overall level of musical exposure and literacy is so weak that they simply haven't played enough works by composers of different periods. Sometimes it seems as though the exam system, as it is currently set up, actively discourages students from learning the history of music, precisely because of an undue focus on endlessly polishing just a fiew pieces.

with my son being my only experience and him being about to take the next step in his education to A level i have found that to obtain a place in the best 6th form in the area to study both music and music tech amongst others then the requirement to have graded music exams is overwhelming at the college he has chosen, he would have no chance if he did not have that certificate in theory and instrument as the place is totally oversubscribed, in an effort to get him to that standard i fear that he has missed a lot of freedom to just play his instrument but he wishes to become a music teacher so i guess he had little choice.
We have become in most area of education way too focused on producing qualifications and less on the idea of just learning for your own sake.

I agree that exams are important and a useful focus but don't suit all students. I am now doing more LCM Music Theatre exams with alot of kids these days and have also started the Trinity Concert Certificates as well. There are some who just want to sing and perform and some who want to be musicians and are more interested in the aural, theory and sight reading skills needed to progress to a high standard.

Having said that....

I do find it strange that you can pass grade 5 even though you fail the aural, sight reading and, in this case the folk song. This happened at the school where I teach. The student (not mine) got a 100 for her grade 5. This in my opinion doesnt make her of a grade 5 standard or a musician in any way, it just means she sang three songs alrightish, but failed the one where she had to sing unaccompanied.

I also find if you are examined by someone who does your instrument their comments are far more constructive, which is probably a silly statement to make as of course they would be.
Mainly with singers they seem to focus on diction or dynamics. I was told once that ABRSM examiners aren't allowed to write anything about technique so that is generally what they talk about with singers, which is tricky with small kids who don't have the ability to do much with dynamics.
I had one girl who has a lisp and she was examined by an organist and all he commented on was her poor diction.

Maybe you should be examined by two people who might spot different things in each persons performance and could give a more rounded opinion.

I agree entirely. I think exams can be a very useful tool but aren't the be all and end all. I think how they are used (or abused) depends on the teacher, student (and parents too if the student is younger).

Having taken exams both as a child and adult, and on different instruments with different teachers I've experienced a few different approaches.

I think as a child I viewed exams more as the be-all and end all. I think mainly because in education you are taught to think like that. And also because this was how my piano teacher taught. Looking back I remember doing exam pieces for about a year - I must have done other things but one of my strongest memories of my piano lessons is going in for my first piano lessons after taking one of my exams and seeing the exam book for the next grade (which my teacher had got for me) waiting on the piano for us to start. My heart sank! I also have similar experience with aural teaching which was so much of an afterthought that I remember sitting in the car before either my grade 6 or 7 exam looking up what the names of the cadences that I was meant to identify were because I didn't know! Madness in retrospect. Especially as poor preparation in aural tests meant I did very badly in them and was then told that was because I "wasn't particularly musical". hmmmm.

Coming to exams as an adult is completely different, because I do now see them as more of a tool - they can be useful to give some motivation, to help gauge where you are by an external benchmark, to have some constructive feedback from someone independent. They have also been, so far, the only opportunities I've had to perform pieces I've spent time on, with an accompanist! I felt much better prepared for these exams too - mainly because as an adult I was able to take more initiative in preparation and would e.g spend more time learning my scales on my own time so we did minimal scales in the lesson and doing more aural practice on my own. I think my woodwind teacher was much better at giving me a range of repertoire - aside from non exam stuff we covered at least 3 pieces from each of the lists and then decided just a few weeks before the exam which ones to actually polish up after playing through a few of them with the accompanist. I went in with a lot more confidence of genuinely playing at that level and although I was nervous I didn't worry that I would fail, more that I wouldn't do as well that I thought I could.

I've recently started oboe lessons and, though eventually would like to do grade 8, we haven't really talked about exams yet. We are spending time getting rid of the bad habits that I've picked up, sorting out a new instrument, developing rubato and tone - working on intonation and dynamics and musical expression - and playing through some nice music in the mean time. So really about developing my playing and taking me on that step further to being a better musician without having the distraction or pressure of exams. Which suits me fine. I think as an adult I can appreciate that a lot more than I could as a child.

Back to experience of examiners though - I like it when examiners are specific in their feedback. Both on what is good and what needs to be improved! The more that's written down the better.

I think this would possibly be the best test of all with regard to whether or not someone is of a particular standard. The 'quick study' idea is getting there, but doesn't go far enough. It's still too close to sight reading. What would be ideal would be to be locked in a room with your just your instrument (and no teacher) for, say, an hour, with a piece of music at your grade level, specially written for the exam, that nobody has seen before except the composer and the examiner, and then give it your best shot in a performance after the hour.

This sounds HORRIBLY familiar...

This is exactly what I believe and try to instil as part of my teaching philosophy. I spend a lot of time thinking about the exam syllabi - not always to decide which pieces go to which pupil - but more often as a basis for working out a curriculum using all sorts of different pieces, exercises and studies which will ensure the pupil is always learning. Then, when they are ready and if I have done my job properly, the selected exam (AB, TG, LLCM) will be an assessment of stuff already learnt. It does all depend on how motivated the pupil is and sometimes I have to let a pupil go ahead with an exam even if I know they are not as secure as they should be. My ideal doesn't always happen the way I want and sometimes I have to accept pupils as they are and let them have a go at grades if they are going to achieve anything.

It doesn't matter in the slightest how much one tries to change the exam syllabus. There will still be people who will only do what is on the syllabus. If you ask people to prepare 6 pieces instead of three so that the examiner can pick three to hear that is exactly what some people will do - six pieces. Only it will take them twice as long as three pieces so their repertoire over the years will be even more limited.

As for shutting someone up in a room with a piece to prepare without help. Well that's a super idea for any teacher who wants to do just exam stuff. You shut your pupil up for an hour while you have a nice rest.Then you hear them play it. That is exactly what would happen. If that were an exam requirement the kind of teacher who sticks rigidly to a syllabus will do just that - practise what the syllabus demands. And parents who are paying for lessons and exam entries will pressurize to be sure the syllabus is covered.

No, in my opinion it is not by tampering with what is in essence not at all a bad syllabus that things will get better. It is rather by encouraging teachers, pupils and parents to approach the exam question sensibly.

The other thing is that many pupils don't actually, these days, have time for much more than what is on the current syllabus. This is not the fault of the music teaching profession but it is a fact of life.

We can only have an examiner here once a year. There is no question of getting pupils ready for exams as and when the right moment arrives. So I work on the principle that they don't take an exam every year. The year in which an exam is taken (35 lessons over the school year) we concentrate on the syllabus. They may learn several pieces on or off the lists But basically in an exam year we cover the syllabus - using other material but always with reference to what they will have to produce at the end of the year. Then in the years when they don't do an exam we spend the time widening the repertoire and increasing their general musical experience.

This system works very well here. Some of the ideas suggested on the thread seem to me to be another case of over directing teachers. Of course there are exceptions but I think most teachers can be relied upon to try to give their pupils a musical education which has horizontal as well as vertical aims.

Re. the comments about accompaniment, I do believe that an option without accompaniment would bring many thousands of adult musicians out of the woodwork and into the examination centres.

For example, why not give the option of 'Proof of playing with an ensemble' and 3 pieces from List C?

I'm not just speaking for myself. I know from my uncle in a brass band in Oldham that there are many adult musicians who'd love to take an exam, but are put off by the hassle of organising the obligatory accompaniment.

Steve

[quote name='Stephie' date='Oct 23 2009, 03:28 PM' post='887507']
Welcome to the forums, Nao!

With regard to your question, I feel that exams are very important. They have always motivated me, and driven me to do well, and I always take an examiner's view on board. Saying that, I know a lot of people who haven't done any exams but are still successful, as well as people who skipped grades 1-7 and did their grade 8. I feel that not all the grades are necessary for everybody, and that if you feel you can skip them you may as well. I skipped grades 1, 4, 6 and 7, and I am very pleased that I did, because sometimes unnecessary extra stress can have a big effect on your results.

Hope that this is what you meant!
[/quote

Thank you I was rather nervous about posting a topic here!
It's nice to know how many people do feel motivated to do these exams and find the examiner's comments useful.

I am very impressed with your output - I do let my students skip grades at an early stage but after grade 5, as it becomes more technically demanding, I tend not to skip grades usually. However, recently I did have a boy who wished to take his grade 7 after completing his grade 5. As he is a very bright child I respected his decision.

[quote name='RoseRodent' date='Oct 23 2009, 08:02 PM' post='887600']

Thank you for a very clear opinion about exams.
I am very delighted to receive such well thought view and I read your comment over and over again.

From what I have seen, there are many teachers who uses mainly exams to motivate students and also to keep their teaching jobs going. Which is nice for someone like me who would like to become an examiner but I do agree with your view that exams alone can not teach music enough.
Like my childhood piano teacher, I also see a lot of teachers who leaves the sight readings and aural until the last minute. I had many students asking me just to teach aural because their instrumental teachers doesn't 'teach' them. Regardless of aiming for an exam, in my view every aspect of music should be taught in a lesson. Hence I do not force exams on students and even without obtaining grades I do see some talented musicians.


"Some people do get too focussed on exams, they always want to be in for the next grade. For me exams are a summative assessment of what you can already do. "

This is interesting - I have many students who likes to see exams as a challenge and have something tough to work for.

"Sometimes I worry the syllabus runs for too long, and it gives people the chance to buy a grade 8 set when they are only really grade 6 and spend a year making the grade 8 pieces acceptable to the exclusion of all else. Give them any other piece at that level and they simply couldn't begin to approach it."

I don't feel the syllabus runs too long (especially for piano ). I can understand if you were a euphonium player but if some syllabuses are unchanged for a long time, this is due to the limited number of repertoires that the instrument has.

I feel that most students never quite feels 100% satisfied with their own output in their performance.
There are no rights and wrong in ones musical interpretation and even if we were to learn pieces very fast,
it will take sometime to understand the work deeply and feel connected with the piece and the composer.
After all, I believe examiners are not just looking for candidates to 'play' in the exams.
They like to think exams are performance platforms.
Yes, there are some people who spends time working on exams repertoires only and feels lost outside the repertoires. I feel teachers should encourage them to come away from exams and expand on their repertoires to spend time finding out what student's musical potentials are. The non exam periods are very important part of one's musical development and parents should not feel scared that their children are wasting time.

I had to respond to this before reading on, so forgive me if I repeat something already said since then. This is really not what I meant! (Although, actually, it never occurred to me, to be honest, that any teacher would do this!) Testing an unseen piece after a short time (but more than a few minutes) of preparation would show the examiner lots of things - has the pupil only learnt by rote, or is he able to work out timing difficulties on his own? Can he see the shapes of musical phrases without a teacher spoon feeding him? Can he make his own decisions with regard to pedaling (if piano, for example)? I would have thought that rather than simply repeat this test with pupils, it would encourage teachers to actually teach whys and wherefores more rather than simply prescribe. If teachers were to send home short studies of this kind for the pupil to do his best with in, say, a week, without help (as I'm sure many of us already do), it would highlight where the pupil's weaknesses were in making his own decisions. Sadly, it's possible to pass Grade 8 without being able to make very many of one's own decisions at all, and without very much experience of a wide range of styles and repertoire. This, I feel, would go some way towards rectifying that. And it would also encourage teachers to study how their pupils actually practise, if they don't already, in order to maximise results in a short time-span.

I think that over the past 10 years, examinations and assessments have got a lot of negative press. I think this is unfortunate because I wholeheartidly believe that they do have an important role to play in education (as they have done for hundreds of years). What we find more and more in music, is exams being misused by teachers - this is a real pity, because it does give over a somewhat negative image, when exams should in fact be a useful and worthwhile experience for all concerned. Interestingly, I find that young people these days are far more used to doing exams than I was 10 years ago - they accept them as a necessary part of their education - the idea that they have to do too many exams is a view which is largely held by adults rather than by the children themselves.

David

Maybe we just take them too seriously? They should be going in there in good humour, looking forward to receiving feedback from an expert, and enjoying the experience. It's all in how these things are presented. Hopefully not many teachers will send a child in knowing that the feedback will take the form of an annihilation of their pupils' efforts, but kids need to be able to relax in the knowledge that these exams are not the be-all and end-all.

Those who teach purely towards exams come in for a lot of criticism here. Just to balance this: Even in the case of a teacher who focuses almost entirely on exam syllabi, the technical and musical difficulties that are in there will need to be taught - and this has to be better than a teacher at the other end of the spectrum who just glosses over everything in the knowledge that it will never be assessed by a third party. Whether the exams are used as a goal to aim for or an assessment of what's already in the bag, I think we should lighten up a bit about them. We're doing this for pleasure, after all. The main thing is that our pupils are learning, they're playing because they want to, and that we're doing our best to arm them with the requirements to eventually be able to manage without us. And we should be learning from them as well. If exams are an integral part of all this, then, well and good. If not, so be it.

I laughed when I read this It's a great example of cultural difference - I really can imagine French teachers shuting the pupil up for an hour, doing something else themselves and asking for payment for an hour's teaching (possibly at a higher rate than usual because after all this is "serious" exam preparation and not a normal lesson).

That said, the very final exam in the French system does involve just this. Since my local music school doesn't go up to this level I don't know how it really is taught. The two lower level exams don't include sight-reading of any kind but one of the two pieces the candidates have to play is only given to them six weeks before the date of the exam.

Thanks for the thought on examiners - yes, I do feel that more specific they are the better.
Although, I heard from an examiner friend that examiners were trained to write the reports in a certain way and my friend didn't quite like the idea.

I too see many teachers misuse exams and also that more and more students take the exams due to competitiveness. I see many teachers completely rely on the exam syllabus and enters students exams after exams and students goes along with what's given. The result is great, if those students wishes to show off their certificates and to rely on them to apply for schools etc but practically speaking, if they do decide to go for a musical career, they would probably feel lost.

I too tend to pick and choose exam boards that is most suitable for each individuals.
It is wonderful that we can choose exams just to play pieces and no scales, aural etc as some students just enjoys playing pieces.

It is a bit strange that you can still pass an exam failing some sections of the syllabus.

A common question I get from students are

"Do I have to pass my scales/sight reading to pass my grades?"
"What happens if I fail my aural?"
When I tell them that they may still pass grades even if they don't pass all the sections, sadly they slack off in perfecting their scales etc. as a pass is good enough for them.

Also, when I found out that examiners may not be examining their specialism (in grades 1-8) I was disappointed. No wonder I got a merit in my second study violin when the bowing was everywhere

I read many singer reports and they all sounded the same. I didn't know that the examiners are not supposed to comment on techniques. No wonder we hear a lot about tempo, dynamics and phrasing!

I do agree that it would be a good idea to have 2 panels instead of one or at least, have an examiner who specializes in the subject that they are examining.

In an ideal world, maybe. But where are they going to get all these specialists from? The ABRSM is a world wide organisation and I know something of the difficulty of organising a single tour for a single examiner in France last year. Our local representative spent hours and hours of her time trying to sort it out. If on top of that, even if only for higher grades you added tha constraint that the examiner had to be a specialist then I think it would cause the system to collapse. Examiners are not (on the whole) professional examiners. They have other jobs - playing professionally, teaching, advising etc. That is, in my view, correct as they should certainly be involved in a wide range of musical activities so as to have a wide perspective.

I think we need to be a little more content with what the exam systems do offer and to remember that what may seem like a nice solution in one set of circumstances would cause chaos if applied world wide. Imagine the increase in fees if two examiners had to be sent for every session - twice the air fare and twice the hotel expenses for overseas students - and even in the Uk it woud double the expense and the amount of administrative work. Imagine the retraining it would need for examiners to be able to work constructively in pairs. Imagine the shortage of specialists in some fields. The whole thing would become unwieldy and so expensive that music would become, even more than it is, an activity only for the well off.

I think we would do much better to simply go trying to ensure that the exams are sensibly used and not abused. In any case, even if people have gone racing through the grades we could argue that they might never have played anything at all if the exams hadn't been there. I'm not suggesting this is a good thing but it might not be one hundred per cent bad. You never know what musical seeds you are sowing. Some may never germinate, some will take a long time to wake up, but some seeds are better than none at all.

I just thought I'd mention that in a workshop at the RNCM woodwind weekend we had the opportunity to have a go at examining. An ABRSM examiner handed out the marking criteria and then played us some pieces very well and hilariously badly. There was also some talk about the the place of aural tests within the exams - but that's been done to death here.

I understand about the cost of fees that involves in inviting the examiners.
One of my friends who is a piano professor at a conservatoire who also examines diplomas do travel worldwide to examin candidates.
If I am right, at diploma levels they do get specialist examiners for the instruments, hence I believe the professor only examines pianist.





That must have been fun!
Can you remember what the criterias were?
And what did they say about the aural tests?

While I entirely agree with this philosophy, I am going to suggest a different metaphor: learning music is like a pentathlon, with multiple circumstances requiring different mixes of abilities. In the past, the more able musicians could all compose in a variety of styles, perform on more than one instrument (and many could also sing well), direct an ensemble and remain on good terms with their employer. Nowadays, an amateur can belong to a wide range of ensembles and choose from an enormous range of music, but to do this at a level that gives satisfaction requires more than the ability to play a well-prepared piece.

In addition to exams, I would like every music student to belong to an ensemble and perform to audiences of more than one person from time to time. Ensemble playing is a situation that exercises aural and rhythmic skills and makes the need for them very obvious. Playing with a good accompanist in an exam is not the same, because the accompanist will compensate for wayward speeds or miscounting rests. Real audiences provide a range of stress levels which, for most people, are less than that of the exam situation. Moreover, being a member of an ensemble with other musicians of similar experience is less stressful than playing a solo, even with an accompanist.

While I see the value of exams in principle, the actual ABRSM exams have characteristics that have been criticised on the Forums. My views in summary:

1 The Trinity/Guildhall aural tests are better than the AB, because they do not require singing or memorising long melodies.

2 Memorising scales and arpeggios is less useful than playing them from notation.

3 While quick study is more likely to be required in real world musical situations, sight reading is also a very useful skill and is easier to test in an exam.

Marking criteria are as in "These Music Exams" http://www.abrsm.org/resources/theseMusicExams0607.pdf p38 "Assessment Criteria"

So even though he put in loads of horrid squeaks, notes not speaking etc. there was enough there to merit a pass (most people thought 20 rather than 23 though).

As for aural, his opinion was that he didn't know any professional musician who couldn't sing a phrase if asked and thought it was a reasonable thing to expect someone intending to become a musician to be able to start doing and to expect to be tested on (huge amount of paraphrasing there). He did admit to it being a "soapbox" issue of his.

I certainly agree with this but it depends on students being able to find suitable ensembles. I'm lucky, I've found a fantastic resource in the Macclesfield Music Centre http://www.maccmusic.co.uk/ (a model of something all students, young and old, ought to have access to) and I've recently found an orchestra a mile from home willing to take me on at my lowly grade. Not all students, it appears, are so lucky - especially adults.

No, but even so it's a skill that needs developing.

Again, I have had the opportunity provided through the ensembles above and also through adult recitals and playdays arranged by well organised teachers and members of these forums.

1. I'm quite happy with AB aural tests - but then I don't mind singing.
2. Something has just occurred to me. I've been pro "play from memory" but perhaps I'm thinking about it wrongly. I suppose if you stick a scale in front of someone and say "play that" they are possibly going to play by reading it, but I suspect more likely, recognise the scale and then actually play it from memory. So it becomes a test of recognising the scale from the music rather than playing a scale someone names. Actually I think both are worthwhile. Mind you I think playing by ear and memorising should be given a bit more status too.
3. I'm doing a huge amount of sight reading in the orchestra I'm with. Some of it way above my playing grade, let alone sight reading grade.

The point of practising them with the music is so that when you are faced with a passage in a piece that starts like a familiar scale but then does something different, you are able quickly to recognise the departure. For example, in Mendelssohn's overture to Ruy Blas, there is a double octave of quick notes in duple time leading up to the brass chords that repeat the slow introduction. Each octave begins like a scale on the dominant, but has an extra note where the raised subdominant is inserted between the subdominant and the dominant. This leads to another point: in real music, even if a scale passage is diatonic, you can't assume that its starting note is the tonic.

Do you believe there is no value in playing scales from memory?

I've always learned scale without the music in front and I can readily recognise the patterns on the page.

No, being able to play scales has value, but practising them from notation and starting on other notes than the tonic has more value than deliberately spending time learning to play them from memory starting on the tonic.

My understanding was that the point of learning to play scales from memory was to ingrain the key signature and the patterns you are going to need to follow if you see that key signature, which essentially has to be "memorised" through the piece as you don't have an accidental in front of each G# reminding you to play it that way. I may not have understood this correctly, of course, but that's why I thought they were to be memorised.

Just for info I wasn't necessarily advocating that certain things should be in the examination, just that in order to make music exams representative of the type of examination that applies to other subjects those items would be implied. I don't think GCSEs are any "righter" than AB exams! In an ideal world we'd all have a portfolio assessment, but it's entirely impractical.

If I could make one major change to the exams I would make the sight-reading more like a real thing that someone might see in the real world, and not just if they are working on one of the most "out there" pieces of music created to cram in as much unusual stuff as possible. I have never had a problem sight-reading my pieces for a first run-through or dealing with orchestral repertoire in a variety of frightening keys, but the sight-reading in examinations I think was well described elsewhere as "awkward for awkward's sake". They are often not very musical pieces, just collections of notes with changes of time signature, key signature and clef, again for the sake of it. Sight-reading is much more usually a collection of known and familiar patterns that you apply in sequence, scale passages, triads, broken chords in various inversions, then bits and pieces of more original stuff and all in an original order and rhythm. I am in 2 minds about going to Trinity for lower grades, as sight-reading can be switched for another musical skill. I think sight-reading is incredibly important and I don't like the idea of leaving it out, but also don't like the way it's done. The Quick Study is the one thing putting me off doing any more exams.




What's that bit about examiners not being able to comment on the technical skills? I was thinking about booking in for a performance assessment, and when you do that you are meant to tell the examiner what is the motivation for you choosing the assessment and what it is you want to find out. I want specifically to find out if there are any technical skills missing from me being able to offer grade 8 on my recorder, as I have never had a formal lesson from a recorder specialist (apart from group courses) and am rather terrified I'd prepare the repertoire and find out I was meant to be doing some advanced technique I have never heard of! A £42 performance assessment is cheaper than lessons, but it sounds like I might not get what I am after.

My (French) teacher is a strong advocate of playing scales from notation (in fact he told me to go out and buy a scale book and to stop playing them from memory). His idea of scales from notation is scales with a key signature at the beginning (ie no accidentals in front of each note in major keys) so that they do look like "real music". Also he has scales starting on any note since (as he points out) composers don't usually include scale passages from tonic to tonic.

I must say that years of playing scales from memory on other instruments means that I get the scale book out in my lesson and put it on the stand but I have a lot of trouble trying to remember to look at it.

I like this idea as I know a girl it would suit very well, much better than aural or scales




Until recently I didn't think much about the pupil who is totally spoon fed. The type that gets good exam results and appears to be a good player until they are put into an orchestral situation and they can't cope.

I think playing in ensambles, for non pianists especially, is equally important as breadth of exam study.

I'm not sure that you'd get as detailed feedback as that in a PA unless you were lucky enough to get a recorder specialist (which I think is on the unlikely side). My experience of the PA is that so long as the examiner knows what they're doing (not all of them have conducted a PA before) they will comment on whatever you ask for; however, I find that these comments are somewhat general in nature. In some ways, they're like the comments you'll get in a real exam - a few positives, some points for improvement, and a positive to end on. The only time we've had comments related specifically to technique is if the examiner is a specialist in that instrument.