I have a new piano pupil who has just started GCSE music this term. She told me today that she was really worried because her school music teacher has told her that she needs to pass Grade 5 by the end of next year in order to do her performance.
I'm fairly sure this isn't the case, but thought I'd better check with people who are familiar with the requirements.
I've read threads about GCSE performances before and I seem to remember that Grade 3 -4 level has been mentioned. This girl is only Grade 2 level at the moment and it will be quite challenging even to get her to Grade 4 level by then.
Advice, please!

I'm fairly sure the GCSE level is about 3-4. I've just helped someone learn a grade 5 piece in order to get accepted on an A level music course. She took grade 4 piano in the summer just after she did her GCSE music.

I believe you have no need to worry. The idea of GCSE music these days is that it is available to everyone, so if you are a complete beginner at the start of the course and take 2 years of lessons on your instrument you would be able to take the course and get some sort of grade. It will vary a little according to exam board but it works something like this. The mark is worked out by a combination of the difficulty of the piece and the standard at which it is performed. To get full marks you would need to play a top difficulty level piece (which I believe is grade 5 standard) to a very high standard. However, you could still get a high mark (though not full marks) by performing a piece at the next level down (something like grade 3-4) to a high standard - a higher mark than performing a grade 5 piece poorly. Likewise you could play a piece at grade 1-2 standard but play it well and still get a reasonable mark (though obvioulsy not as high). All you need to do is just get your pupil to work well over the course then perform a piece to the best standard she can at the end of the course, whatever difficulty level this is. Of course the more advanced a standard this is the higher a mark she can get, but you are not up against an impossible race to get her to grade 5 standard if this is unrealistic.

Hope that makes some sort of sense!

This is exactly my understanding of how it works.

If the examination board is AQA (which it most probably is, as this is the most common one) then the standard is no where near grade 5.

When a performance is being marked for AQA it is marked out of 25 marks.

15 marks are awarded for interpretation.
10 marks are awarded for accuracy.

If the student plays an easy piece (grade 1 standard, or around that) then 3 marks will be deducted from their final score.
If the student plays a piece of standard difficulty (grade 2 standard, or around that) then no marks will be deducted or awarded to their final score.
If the student plays a more difficult piece (grade 3 or above) then three extra marks will be awarded to the students final score - although the final mark cannot exceed 25 even if the students original mark is 25 and they play a more difficult piece.

A level standard is approximately grade 4-5 for AS and grade 6-7 for A2.

Hope this has helped!

Source: Past GCSE and current A level music student.

My daughter has also just started GCSE music (Edexcel). The information we have from her school also states that students should be playing around grade 5 standard by the end of the course. Happily not a problem for us (her!), but it seems your pupil's school teacher is not alone.

I think the Grade 5 is the minimum that would be required for progression to A-level music, and to get say A* at GCSE. It's perfectly possible to get a B or C at GCSE with Grade 3.

It really depends on what your pupil is expecting to do for A-levels, but she should be encouraged to work through the piano grades at a rate suitable for her. If she puts in enough practice and enjoys piano, there's a faint possibility that she could reach grade 5. If not, she should perform something she can play really well at grade 3-4 standard.

I don't know what the standard expected these days is, but when I took it back in the stone age (It was GCE O-level back then) it was MUCH easier than the Grade 5 piano that I had taken two years before.

When I was teaching in the mid 1980's the required standard was still the same. A good Grade 3 would pass easily.

I do not imagine that much has changed.

I managed well enough with the grade 2 piece and grade 4 piece which I played as my two GCSE performances and I got an A*. Infact, I got the highest in my class.

Even if you get 0 marks on performance it is still possible to get a B, and with 60% marks on performance it is possibly to get an A*...

Well done! How are you finding A-level?

Yep...had a pupil who was Grade 4 piano. The Music teacher GCSE said that was perfect and they would most likely get a good mark. ( AQA )

He played the piece perfectly ( well Merit in his exam) and scored 100% in his performance section. Basically Grade4 piano & above confidently is 100%. ( Apologies for sweeping statement!).

I agree with Louise...Grade 3 or 4 seems to be the benchmark.

I was told first that performance not too big al part of the GCSE - even if you fail it completely, you've only missed out on 30% of the marks. Second, the marking of the performance is split into sections, 3 of which are out of 8 marks and difficulty, which is out of 6. That means you can play a grade 1 piece and still get 24/30, which is 80% and an A. Finally, the standard necessary to get 6/6 for difficulty was, in my GCSE, about grade 4. Grade 4 and above was fine, anything less and you might lose a few marks, but you still had the other three sections of the performance on your side, and the rest of the GCSE as a whole.

So ultimately, for mine at least, standard was not a tremendously big issue. If you're on another board, though, my post is just a waste of space.

Thank you all so much. I felt pretty sure that this girl had been given the wrong information or perhaps had misunderstood what she'd been told. She was very worried and said that she wouldn't have chosen to do music if she'd known that was the level she needed to get to. I can now reassure her about what's expected and work steadily towards a realistic level of piece for her.

She doesn't need to be grade 5 standard, and certainly doesn't need to pass the exam as they mark her performance not an exam certificate
Grade 3-4 is fine, and lower with deductions as explained above.
The most important thing is that she plays a piece well within her capabilities so she can play it well.

Only one of the schools at which I teach has a grade 5 guideline - more to deter floating students who can't think what else to do for GCSE and can bash out a few chords on their mate's guitar than someone with a full and genuine commitment to become a better and broader musician.

My understanding is that officially, it should be about Grade 4, but then I've come across GCSE candidates playing or singing at only Grade 1 standard who've done well. In my experience, there's a geat deal of adjusting of marks to accomodate everyone.

Sorry wurlitzer but I've just checked the AQA requirements. Individual and group performances are marked out of 30. To obtain the top marks you must play a piece of "above Grade 4". I prepare pupils for their GCSE performances and was very sure that was the case, but thought I'd better check it.

That doesn't seem very sensible to me:
First Diploma is meant to be the standard of someone after a year of music college.
So, before that you are on the grade exams.
UCAS awards points for grades 6-8 which implies they are of AS/A-Level standard
UCAS don't award points for grade 5, which suggests that is below AS standard, which must therefore be the top of the GCSE standard.
But, given that GCSE awards go from A* down to G (plus X) that leaves plenty of room for the music grades to have some sort of equvalent value in the GCSE grades.

I am finding it very enjoyable
(Although I wish we could do more Romantic music as opposed to Baroque & Classical!)


Also, not to be rude but a lot of people are quite off with their answers on this question. As I said before, it is possible to get 100% for performance at GCSE by playing a grade 2 piece.
It is equally possibly to get 100% for performance at AS level by playing a grade 5 piece and to get 100% for performance at A2 by playing a grade 6 piece.

Having had a quick look through a syllabus that would seem to be the case, but it doesn't seem very sensible in the larger scale of things (ie: when compared to UCAS recognition of music exams and recognition of diplomas)

Yes, I agree with you.
I think the performance standards should be slightly higher for both GCSE and A level.

I'm sure that's the reason for it - eek!
I'm also sure that these guidelines can be negotiated for a keen student.
Good luck!

If you actually look at the exam boards website the syllabus will explain exactly what the board requires. I thought the performance element of GCSE was quite easy to undertand when it came to requirements.

I honestly don't think a Grade 2 piece would get full marks because it wouldn't fit the criteria for the difficulty mark, though it may get a high mark without the difficulty addition.

At the end of the day GCSE isn't about what grade someone is it's only down to how they perform a particular piece on the day. Someone playing a Grade 3 piece correctly could do better than someone playing a grade 6 piece badly.

It's probably better for a candidate to play a piece well within their capabilities that they enjoy than struggling to play something off some exam boards list. We worried about the ensemble piece when Emsoboe did GCSE it wasn't anywhere near as difficult as the solo piece. In then end we decided that they were testing different skills. It wasn't easy to change the duet as it was connected in style to her composition (OCR).

The thing we found most overlooked and inadequately explained was the evaluation of the performances and compositions. I'd guess that in most cases this is left to last and covered in a rush.

I have a pianist who is just starting their GCSE who has just passed grade 2. My aim is to get them to grade 5 by the end of spring term before they take GCSE.

At present the pupil is doing all the technical work for Grade 3, and working on Tchiakovsky Daydreams. Of course it is up to the pupil to do the work. I have a scheme of work for them to follow and it will involve them learning far more pieces at a far greater rate than they have done recently!