Bang on. Black belt is merely the end of the apprenticeship. Despite the effort and dedication it all really starts only once you get there and I have often wondered whether the same can be said for g8. Though given that it's still a while off yet I couldn't possibly say!

To some extent it's personal.
For some getting to grade 8 (or grade 5) is sufficient achievement.
I remember thinking that when I got to grade 5 I'd be good....underestimated that one.....
So I thought that when I got to grade 8..... wrong again.
In the run up to grade 8 I began to see that for me at least this was more of a new beginning than any sort of end.

[/quote]I have gone from Grade 0 to Grade 4-5 in around 18 months on piano. I have practised a lot, at least 15 hours per week. I have had comments like "Oh you must be really musical/talented etc"

[/quote]


that's talent in my books!!

What is "grade 8" anyway? There are many examples on Youtube (wish Youtube search picked up the same things on the mobile version as on the PC version so i could find them again) which show you a candidate really strongly, musically and technically strongly performing a grade 3 piece. You can move on to a video of a child scratching away at a grade 5 piece. I would put both children as being the same standard, but one will have a higher number on her grade certificate than the other. You can aim to scrape through grade 8 to hang the certificate on the wall or you can aim to come away with a comfortable distinction. You can aim to BE grade 8 (be able to play most of the works on the syllabus and things of similar technical and music demand) or you can aim to DO grade 8 (pick 3 pieces and make them good enough). You can have the music within you so you can pick your own dynamics and phrasing to make a grade 8 piece outstanding or you can have a teacher write everything on for you - either will pass, but only one is likely to be truly worthwhile as a musical achievement. You can play any piece at an appropriate level for the grade or you can play it with professional poise and delivery. No professional player is going to play a grade 1 piece the way a grade 1 candidate would play it, but why not because it's a grade 1 piece after all - because they have the music and the skill properly entrenched in them. You have to truly embody the grade rather than do the minimum to pass, otherwise it's not worthwhile.

I have a certificate with "8 merit" on it but all it proved at the time was I could play 3 difficult pieces very well and had memorised some scales. I think I got quite good, but wasn't in all honesty a grade 8 standard player, although racing to the top of the grades did help to improve my playing.

This time round on my new instrument I am taking my time and learning to play, rather than rushing to pass a test, and am finding it all the more enjoyable. And getting better marks along the way, incidentally! However I've read this thread with keen interest as I do hope to be a grade 8 standard player one day in the distant future. It's taken me 18 months of an hour a day to get from 0-3 (distinction).

Whether or not you can play a new g8 piece without making an error or whether you take an age to learn three by rote makes no difference to the initial question. Of course there is a difference between the two ability wise but the exam is a measure of how well you can play three pieces, some scales and a bit more, and based on an index of 100. You score more than 100 you're better than the designated ability, less you're not. The fact that the marker starts with 20 and then adds/subtracts depending on what (s)he hears supports this.

Being able to play a range of pieces from one grade is all very well but it shouldn't detract from or be confused with the passing of a grade exam.

Grade 7-8 time: 196h 25mins, over 51 weeks.

The total time between my Grade 5 and Grade 8 exams was 2 years, 2 weeks and 2 days. The total amount of practice over that time was 400 hours and 10 minutes. I have taken about 8 years to get to Grade 8 (I can't remember exactly when I started playing so I estimated, and there was a gap of about 3 years of not playing between 4 and 5 but I picked up pretty much where I'd left off), which would give a total at approx 200 hours a year of 1600 hours.

Thanks for remembering to post. There are too many variables to really draw many conclusions - depends to some extent on when you decide to take the exam but I guess the thing that stands out for me is that it doesn't really take as much as you may think (certainly not the 10,000 hours that have been mentioned) - and that the numbers that were suggested by UCAS are not a hundred miles out even though they initially seemed very low. I don't think either of us are so driven by exams that we rote learned our exam pieces and played nothing else in order to rush through them as quickly as possible, so it is probably a reasonable order of magnitude though obviously everybody will be different. Congratulations on taking your Grade 8!

So only 4 hours a week?

On the oboe it took me 500 hours to get from Grade 5 to 6 (though I did want to make absolutely sure before I stepped in the exam room ). I think 6-7 is going to be about 400 hours and 7-8 well, where's that piece of string? I was pretty quick to Grade 5 though (hepled by previous experience) and my current estimate from 0-8 is 2000 hours.

NB - I don't write down timings for every practice session so these are approximate. At the moment I aim for about 7.5 hours a week of practice plus about 4 hours of orchestra and windband.


Though that refers to research on reaching "Expert" ability. That's some way beyond Grade 8 (as I am rapidly learning!).