A number of pupils recently are talking about their level by the type of repertoire they are playing.

I'd always indicated my pianistic ability by my musical ability although I knew I'd never passed Grade 8, save the scale requirements I'd done everything else under "relevant musical experience".

However for the inexperienced this appears to be pieces and pieces alone and not a combination of repertoire, supporting tests eg. sightreading, and aural and other areas of technical expertise.

What do you think.

Interesting point.

For me personally, the grade is so much more than the pieces, but I know from lots of people who would say that if you can play 3 exam pieces at grade 3 then you must be at grade 3! I suspect part of this also relates to the old story that if you have worked solely on exam pieces you can go from prep/initial to grade 8 in 27 pieces and what a limiting musical experience that would be - but we all probably know people to whom this applies.

I have a pupil who is working at Grade 5, but she has great difficulty in reading music and she really struggles to sightread grade 2. It takes us weeks to work up a line of music. She has been working at grade 5 pieces for nearly a year and i am starting to believe it likely the syllabus will run out before she gets her pieces learned and polished - I have discussed the need for her to move on her pieces to prevent this (i inherited her from another teacher who retired and with whom she had started these pieces). I wouldn't say she is a grade 5 level pupil as she doesn't have the full playing ability of this level.

In my personal view, grade levels are so more than exam pieces - they are about supporting tests, scales and I also believe they are about the repertoire you play at that grade before you move on to the next level.

Elizabeth

To me, it's not just about the pieces.

I passed grade 4 early this year and think I am about grade 5-6 currently. Have just started tenor clef and a tiny bit of thumb position. Haven't started grade 6 scales yet.

HOWEVER...

I feel that my supporting musical and technical abilities are much stronger than those of most 5-6 graders.
These include:

-musical interpretation
-sight-singing
-harmonization (theory)
-intonation
-bow technique

In fact, for my exam, I lost the most marks on the 3 pieces (27, 29, 27 respectively)
The supporting tests were either full marks or 1 mark down

As to technique on the cello, although I've not been formally introduced to grade 6 scales or thumb position, I've been working on more advanced bowing and shifting techniques in the lower 5 positions that most cellist would probably put off till later on.

So, yes, I would say that I'm officially a grade 5 cellist; but, no, I think I'm way beyond it in some aspects.
A grade does NOT consist of just 3 pieces and scales!

I think it's quite normal for people in the early stages of learning to judge themselves to be the level of the exam passed.

Those more serious about music will look a the bigger picture. Grade 8 is definately not about 20/30 pieces and scales. To be grade 8 standard rather than just passed an exam it should be about understanding pieces of that level, picking others up of a similar standard and being able to play them without too much fuss to a decent standard. It's also being in a position to move on and tackle harder repertoire with support rather than being taught note for note.

I think it is a general human tendency to want to judge one's ability. If you live in England and are learning an instrument the most obvious way of doing so is to use grades because most of the other people that you encounter who know something about music learning know what you are talking about. If you go somewhere else, people will use a different method - in France people focus on the number of years you have been learning (which in my opinion is even more meaningless).

I think that the basic premise is, as Notmusimum says, that you are the level of the grade you've just passed.

If you've just got 112 in your grade 3 piano, you are a grade 3 level pianist, by definition. It doesn't matter if you got 8 for scales but full marks for aural or if your teacher still writes all the sharps and flats on your music or whatever. Different people have different strengths and different teachers have different methods.

Personally, I do use pieces as a judgement of someone's playing ability, and not supporting tests which, in my opinion, are simply tools to help you play better.

A key point for me, as a teacher, is how long it takes someone to learn a new piece, up to a passable standard, of that grade level. If you need 6 months to learn the basics of a G3 piece, I think you are not really a 'solid' G3 player.

I agree it's so much more than just the pieces. It's also so much more than "just the exams" - as people have pointed out, you can get to grade 8 without much more experience than just the 3 pieces per grade, but it will not make you a musician. I only ever did exams in grades 2, 3 and 4 on piano but now have an honours degree in music teaching and my final recital in 3rd year is accepted as equivalent to ABRSM diploma (it counts as a prerequisite to the Licentiate).

A pupil of mne played Fur Elise last year for a Young Musician of the Year that I organised. She was only 10 and had sat her grade 2 a few months previously. However, she loved the piece (and I mean the full piece, not just the beginning that everyone knows) so I let hre try it. She worked away at it, and we did lots of technique work to get the semiquaver runs even etc. So it's hard to determine what "level" she was - technically she had only achieved grade 2 but she was playing a much more difficult piece, and playing it as well as someone who had done their grade 5. She was definitely not "grade 2" anymore but she also wasn't "grade 5". I think music is such a diverse experience that you really can't put a true label on a musician.

If someone's passed Grade 8 then to me they "are Grade 8". However I then don't make any huge judgements about musical ability based on this. If I was asked "is X better than Y" then my judgement (which doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things anyway) is based on a lot more than grades, if I know them well as musicians. Same as with academic stuff, I always think that passing a Chemistry A-level just means... you've passed a Chemistry A-level.

Some really interesting responses thus far.

The main reason I asked was that I was aware of the number of Adult Learners and Pupils who were stating things like:

I've finished playing my grade 4 book and started the pieces in my grade 5 book...

or another player managed to learn a <masterpiece for the instrument that happens to be on the Grade 8 syllabus> in record time...

and as a player who had relevant musical experience and had never taken grade 8 piano and now is I wanted a "teacher eye" perspective on the subject (well any eye).

It concerns me that a player can get from Grade 1-8 in 21 pieces. The repertoire for most instruments is so vast and there are so many other opportunities to make music.

I see the point of scales even when there are some that do make me want to tear my hair out. Sight-reading more than any of the other supporting tests is the skill I end up using on a day to day basis. Aural skills and the supplementary knowledge associated with it again is bread- and butter stuff.

This is why as a teacher I will ask, "I'm sorry are you ready, wouldn't you be better spending time learning more repertoire whilst you concentrate on scales + arpeggios + technique + sight reading + aural training? (delete as appropriate).

I don't think there's anything inherently shocking about such statements. It is a way of comparing the relative difficulty of pieces, with a big emphasis on relative since obviously a professional player is going to play "Au Clair de la Lune" (for want of a better example) very differently to someone who has been learning for six weeks.

Sorry to change subject, but could you please tell me what is meant by "thumb position" ---- i do not play cello. Thank you.



I thought that was put very nicely. I would be very bored just sticking to the exam pieces --- i am not meaning the exam pieces are boring ---- i very much enjoy majority of them --- they all seem to have different technical challenges. But, is lots of fun doing other stuff as well, and good experience etc. Sometimes, when playing a piece of music i have no idea what grade it is, but just enjoy trying to play it. People get so caught up in this grade thing.

Of course a grade is so much more than 3 pieces. We often hear on this forum from people who have heard of people who have got to grade 8 in 21 pieces and never done anything else... but who are these people who actually do that. I wonder if it is an urban myth. Does any teacher simply teach the 3 pieces and the supporting tests, the pupil passes and then on to the next grade?
I don't know anyone who does and I don't know any players (and I have met a lot over the years with all kinds of backgrounds) who have simply trotted through grades. Most people who play an instrument or sing play or sing in a group of some sort (that is of course harder for pianists) and are therefore exposed to all kinds of other music beyond the grade exams.

What constitutes a grade are the techniques, the scales, the level of sightreading, the particular difficulty of the pieces set, the aural skills and the musical interpretation as outlined in the syllabus, whether this is ABRSM, LCM, TG or any other exam board. However, what the pupil presents in the exam is a snapshot of this through a choice of 3 pieces and the supporting tests.

There is a lot of talk about grades and what grade people are, simply because it is a way of comparing. Comparisons are not always odious. Of course, if people are using it to get one up on others, that is unpleasant. eg. "I'm grade 6 penny whistle and you're only grade 4, aren't I clever".
But there is a need to know approximately what grade you are if you want to join a group. You need to know what level of music you can play so that you know whether the group is suitable or not. There's no point joining a grade 8+ orchestra if you're still working towards grade 5 because the level of music played would be beyond you and you wouldn't necessarily enjoy constantly having to struggle.
This is why there is a lot of talk of grades in the UK where the graded music system is just about everywhere and most groups will state some kind of grade level. Here in Austria, there isn't a graded system - each music school has their own system so the only way of knowing vaguely where someone is at is to find out what repertoire they are playing and then of course how well they can actually play it.

Indeed and there are pieces in the lower grades which are "playable" but probably wont be terribly musical given the "current" level of the student. I speak from experience.

I do agree with corenfa though. A Grade X player is one who has passed Grade X. It doesn't matter how many pieces they have played on the way there and if they have just scraped a pass and don't have a wide ranging background technical and theoroetical knowledge. Now someone who plays a lot, pays attention to technique, etc. and consistently passes with high marks is probably the better musician. But that's the difference between a pass and a distinction - just as in A level grades.

Re. the professional player comparison. I have just been to a fantastic masterclass in which is was quite apparent that the two (obviously very fine) conservatoire students still have a long road ahead of them to begin to approach "the master".

I currently teach singing to a 10 year old who is learning piano with another teacher. During the first lesson I introduced a few warm-ups that she could practise herself during the week, which included little runs (CDEFG and back down) and arpeggios. As she was working towards grade 3 piano that term I thought she'd be able to do most of the keys - how wrong I was! She was unable to play a simple C major scale or arpeggio. Well, she sat her grade 3 piano exam and scraped a pass (actually on the pass mark). Lo and behold, a couple of weeks later the Grade 5 book was on the piano when I went there. As I am working through various aspects of songs with this child, the gaps in her musical knowledge are glaring.

Last year, I started a very musical little boy of 7 who had already sat Grade 1 (merit) and had immediately started on Grade 2. He had problems of technique and rhythm, and so I suggested he leave the grade pieces for a while and concentrate on something else, so that we could establish a good grounding before moving on. We had a couple of lessons before I received a call to say he wouldn't be continuing as the parents felt I was holding him back and his aunt (who had passed grade 7 they told me) was able to teach him. Now, I also teach his cousins and occasionally get updates on his progress. He sat his grade 2 at christmas and got a pass this time round. He has now started grade 3 but is finding the ABRSM repertoire too difficult so has changed to LCM.

To me, neither of these children are of the standard on the exam book. Yet to their less knowledgable parents and peers they are at this level, simply because they are working on the pieces.

I wish, in this country, we didn't have so much emphasis on sitting exams. Yes, they have their place, but for a lot it simply means that they have practised 3 pieces, 4 if it's LCM and they go for the study instead of scales, for anything up to a year (the piano teacher of my singer only enters students once a year which is why she skips grades) before moving on to another 3 pieces which they practise for the following year.

I started teaching full time 18 months ago, previously having only a couple of students at any one time due to also working full time. Lately I have been shocked at some of the stories I've heard about other teachers of piano, and can only count my blessings that I had such a wonderful teacher myself when I was learning.

There, that's my rant over for the day!!

More interesting replies.

Very interesting how many experienced teachers and European musicians are more concerned about producing complete musicians rather than "grade jockeys" [pupils who jump grade fences from 1-8]. Yet with our exam focused culture, parents and pupils appear to want to be "grade jockeys" with everything measured against definable criteria, hence my desire to take grade 8 piano aged 41!

I'm not saying the discipline of the excerise is not good for me, but I do recognise it as cultural given the length of time I've played the piano and the type of music I've been playing on it for the last ten years!

To answer the original question, I always thought of the grades representing some sort of minimal (or perhaps average) level of musical ability in all relevant areas (i.e. technique, rhythm, sight-reading, musical interpretation/expression, etc). For example, after you graduate from any given year in school, it is expected that you should be able to perform tasks like math or reading to a certain level of competency. We all have our weaknesses and strengths, but presumably we wouldn't pass if we didn't achieve some sort of minimal level of skill.

The problem seems to be that growing as a musician is about growing in both breadth and depth in all areas. But, unlike school, there isn't a minimum amount of time that you need to spend at each level, so it becomes very easy to teach or learn in order to pass the tests, rather than to teach or learn in order to grow in skill and understanding. As someone said, there's "playing" (i.e. just managing to get out the right notes), and then there's "Playing" (with the appropriate level of musicality).



I'm really sorry to hear that you lost your pupil, but if someone like him wants to continue pursuing music, they will eventually find that rushing ahead may actually end up stalling their progress in the long run, and that they are not truly at the level that they are on paper. It seems like it's already becoming clear that you were right to "hold him back."



I don't see an inherent problem with these statements (though perhaps I might if I saw them in context). If you're not rushing through things and are truly trying to develop your musical skill, comparing grades can be a nice way of tracking your own progress and growth. Also, some people are really just born to teach. Even though they may not currently be ready, they know where they want to end up, and are trying to learn as much as possible at each step along the way so that they will be ready when the time comes.

Just a quick twopennyworth. My teacher commented to me recently that he thought I was playing around Gr 5-6 in terms of technique, but more like Gr 7+ in terms of expression and musicality. I thought it was interesting that he chose to make the distinction, since like most people, I'm used to the "generic" kind of description that X is a "Grade 6" (or whatever) level musician. But the problem is that the "generic" labelling is based (as Inacka says) effectively on an average, and as such it doesn't really convey enough information.

This has happened to my son on the piano. After week one he was given the grade 1 specimen pieces and the scales. I have no idea how but within four weeks everything was near perfect so teacher then gave him the grade 2 specimen book and scales and by five months (now) he would have passed but I wouldn't let him sit as he can't even find an A on the piano! He is going with a new teacher next term (RCM) but had this not been the case I would have been very worried about what his teacher was going to give him next. I feel that he is technically very poor (although not as bad as me ) but he seems to be able to get to grips with pieces very easily.

As for what level. I genuinelly don't think someone is grade X until they can play a number of grade X pieces after a few attempts. Maybe not perfectly but at least correct notes and rhythm. I can only go back to my experience with DS but when we were picking grade 5 pieces we did so based on the ones he found easiest. Now, after a couple of months he can now play the other pieces that seemed impossible with relative ease after a few attempts. But I still feel in some ways, exam aside, that a grade X musician should be able to read grade X sight-reading and not a level approximately two grades below.

I agree with you about our exam focused culture having a big effect on the need to take grades.

It's very difficult to avoid the exam conveyer belt if Bands, Bursaries etc are asking for grades. I know people who avoid this by teacher recommendation but that will depend on who your teacher is and how confident they are to judge your level of playing without the piece of paper to prove it.

In some ways it will be good if my kids ever get to grade 8 because there is nowhere to go after that and they can start learning to be proper musicians without teacher, student, parent, or school focusing at some point on grades. And before anyone mentions the diploma - it aint happening on my watch!

Can I quote you on that, Ms Wit?

Yes, because he should be at boarding school, university or have given up by then!

Sadly speaking from experience I can tell you G8 is only the beginning. Sorry to burst your bubble and I don't mean that Diploma has to be worked towards either.

The strange thing is that G7 onwards was the time when I really felt that teaching had to be right. Before that I hadn't thought of G8 only whatever came along next. Post Grade 8 I'm vaguely aware, on the one hand, dip may be in the pipeline at some point in the future. I've no idea what's happening on the other instrument.

Soemone who has passed acertain exam officially has a 'grade' whatever one it may be. But 'grade' only reflects how difficult a piece you can learn by rote and stumble through play. Frankly a distinction even at grade 1 is better than hearing grade 4 or 5 pieces murdered by non practising or poorly taught pupils.

What a shame, you're going to miss out on so much if he's at boarding school

It's great! I miss out on all the arguments, "do your homework", "do your music practice" etc and we have such long lazy holidays. But most importantly - they love it!

The arguments are part of family life - and the holidays, and feeling proud when they do their practising without being asked, and ferrying them about to concerts, lessons, sports fixtures, listening to the music they play, meeting their friends, helping them with revision, testing their scales, laughing at the Apprentice with them. And yes, they love their school, too.

Chris H, there is no point trying to talk me out of boarding nor is sending them to boarding school relinquishing parental responsibilities or having less of a family life - a comment often made by those who have no experience of boarding. My other son has been boarding for four years and I see so many benefits. We worked out exactly how often he was at school and it works out at 26 weeks in the year so half of the year he is home.

FWIW, I never want to help my child with revision (I leave that to school), would prefer not to help with music practice or ferrying them to and fro. In fact my children would have fewer opportunities if they were at home because I cannot be in two places at the one time. But I go to every sports match and every concert, their friends come and stay all the time and we have 26 weeks of TV to laugh at together although DS1 and I prefer our walking holidays.

Anyway this is WAY OFF TOPIC!

Ms Nit it may be but I don't mind (speaking at the OP).

In fact I think it would make a very interesting subject for the parents section. I know it would polarise views and I see yours completely and BTW I do not think it makes you a bad mum (in fact if this makes your relationship work then I believe the complete opposite!)

However It would be nice to have the thread back, and it was kind of you to recognise it had gone off topic.

Way off topic but I'm going to wade in anyway!
Totally agree with practically everything my learned friend, NitWit, has to say about boarding. One of my sisters went to boarding school and the rest of us didn't but she was every bit as much a part of family life as the rest of us. We did envy her very long holidays though.

However - I think that 'long lazy holidays' can become a thing of the past as children get older. I've worked at two different boarding schools and both expected a lot of revision to be done in the Easter and Christmas breaks (supervised by parents) and for the musicians to do a lot of practice during all holidays (supervised by the parents.)

Boarding suits some parents and some children brilliantly well and I would definitely say don't knock it til you've tried it.

Actually - dragging this topic back on track - Public School children are often on a lower 'grade' than other children of similar age and ability because of the very short teaching terms which make preparing for an exam much more difficult. The boarding environment, however, often makes them far more disciplined practisers, and gives excellent opportunities for ensemble playing so their general standard is often much higher than their paper qualification.

That hypnosis seems to be working! :that mwah ha ha emoticon thingy that TDM has:

The question ? What constitutes a grade? ? is both easy and difficult to answer. What it means at face value is that on a certain day, at a certain time, in front of a certain person an examination candidate has successfully fulfilled certain requirements. It doesn?t go any further than that. Used intelligently these ?snapshots? of progress and ability to perform certain tasks under certain conditions are very useful indeed.

Used exclusively they are useless. I make a distinction between, for example, a pupil who has passed Grade 5 and a pupil whom I would describe as a Grade 5 player.

I have a pupil who has passed Grade 5 (106) and whose parents insisted on a race through the Grades to that level or he would give up. Since he didn?t want to give up I went along with this, thinking to myself that when we got to Grade 5 I could hold up the theory requirement as a stop sign and would at last be able to do some proper teaching. But oh no ? they decamped to Trinity Guildhall and I have prepared him for their Grade 6 which he takes next week and which I think he will fail. He simply doesn?t have the all round musical experience needed to be a Grade 6 player I have done my level best to get him up to scratch for the exam but a little voice in my head says that I really will be rather disappointed if he passes.

I have another pupil who passed Grade 5 last year having taken a two year break between Grades 4 and 5. I told him I didn?t want him to consider Grade 6 this year ? I wanted to widen his repertoire and general musical knowledge. Although he hasn?t taken the Grade 6 exam I consider him to be a Grade 6 player. He has covered all the technical requirements and is happily working through a number of pieces about Grade 6 level as well as getting through some Grade 4 standard pieces at the rate of one a fortnight. He is a bit exceptional for this area but at least his parents listen to me.