I can't find any "general regulations" or equivalent for the Practical Musicianship exams. I have all the specimen tests and Musicianship In Practice books, but what it doesn't say anywhere is how long you have to look at any of the material before you have to attempt it. It's a big difference to sing at sight the moment a piece is in your hand or to look through it and establish the pulse, rhythms and intervals all the way through before having to start. Anyone done one of these exams and can perhaps let me know how long you got to look at stuff before you had to do it?

Thx.

A minute.

(Paragraph 7 of the first page of the syllabus).

Thanks. Looks like it's skipped over the bottom paragraph every single time I have scrolled down the pdf!

Is there any limit to the number of instruments/voice you can use in the exam, and at what point do you have to declare a particular one? If I do grade 6 I will do the adding accompaniament to a melody, so that's piano. The interpretation at sight will most likely be on viola but improvisation I do best on recorder. Since it's a test of musicianship not a particular instrument I don't think this inconsistency should be an issue, I am just wondering if I have to say I intend to do x test on my viola and then they give me that and I wish I had got it on recorder or sang it, or if they give you the list of possible clefs and ranges and you pick what you feel comfortable doing it all on. It does say "instrument(s)" in the syllabus.

Thanks.

Actually the thing about the minute was about halfway down the page, I don't think it's your PDF skipping.....


The regs don't say how many instruments you need to use, just that you must use at least one and your voice.
So I think you have to take a commonsense view on how much stuff you want to carry into the exam room.

If you really want to juggle a viola and a bow and a recorder or two, then do so. If you want to go for the easy life (which is the line I took) take the instrument you can do most on. In my case that was a recorder, and I sang the vast majority of the tests. MrBouffant went into his exam empty-handed, doing the instrumental bits of the exam on the piano.

Yes it is, thanks. It still does it, I didn't know that part of the page was there. It goes straight from "instruments" to "marking scheme" unless I click in the middle of the page. No idea why.

Probably because you are continuously scrolling down from the very top, therefore it will skip the bottom third of page 1. It does that because it makes it quicker for the user to scroll through numerous pages

Car Expert

Thanks.

And for my next question the syllabus says you don't get a mark, you get an alphabetical grade. But that makes it next to impossible to work out at what sort of level you will pass, i.e. in grades 100/150 so 2/3, theory IIRC is 66, so again 2/3, so does that mean you'd be looking at about 2/3 of the material correct in PM exams too for a pass? I've been going through thinking about what I think I can do perfectly, then realised you aren't expected to get 100 of everything to pass the exam! Duh!