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News

Music Grades Are Bad

8/23/2019

46 Comments

 
Last weekend I had an experience that reminded me why I don’t teach grade exams in music.

I had a new student. He is musical and curious, with interests in film music, hip hop and (to my delight) Bartok. He had just failed his Grade 6 piano. He had been playing for years, but when asked what pieces he had enjoyed, he could not name one. He had quite liked a Bartok piece he’d started for a grade exam, but it was too hard, so he’d learnt an easier piece. In his words: “I’ve had to pick from the grade book each time, so I’ve never really liked anything.”

So I got to perform the role every teacher who’s ever watched a Hollywood film wants to play: throwing the textbook in the bin, and starting as if from scratch with music he liked. It was great fun, hopefully for both of us.
This experience is one I have had many, many times. In fact, most students I’ve taken on mid-way in their study of music have developed atrocious habits directly from the grade system. This post explains why that happens. I don’t blame teachers for using them; I’ll also talk about what I think drives the popularity of the grades. I’ll mainly discuss the ABRSM grades, but my critiques are about the way grades organise knowledge and so apply to every grade system I’ve come across. 

One further caveat: almost all of this is aimed at teachers of average students. There are often much better teaching practices in, say, the junior music colleges. Students with very high levels of natural aptitude are also less likely to be negatively affected by the grade system as they often speed through them. A large proportion of my musician friends probably fall into that camp, so be aware that some of this may not speak to you.

The Repertoire

Limited Repertoire
The most obvious problem is the constricted repertoire. ABRSM does try. I knew a teacher who sat on the selection board, who cared passionately about getting a variety of works into the curriculum. 

But this is hobbled by the structure of ABRSM grades. Each grade has three “Lists" of repertoire; students choose one piece from each. List A is counterpoint, List B is, broadly, ‘classical’ and List C is ‘misc./modern’. At each grade, you have six choices in each list (except Grade 8, where you have eight choices for A and B and sixteen for C). 

A priori, this doesn’t seem terrible. Until you realise that ABRSM has designated eighteen pieces at each Grade standard, every year for longer than I have been alive. Conservatively, there must be hundreds of pieces designated at each standard. Yet each year, you’re forced to choose between eighteen of them. (Why not just play any of the pieces? I presume it would be harder for examiners to be precise with grading, and a precise number is very important for music, of course.)

It gets worse. Almost all parents just buy the book provided by ABRSM, which provides a selection of just nine pieces. Each year, students choose works in three lists of three pieces and will, almost always, end up playing pieces they don’t like.

I cannot, truly I cannot, emphasise enough how absurd this is. THERE IS NO REASON TO PLAY PIECES YOU DON’T LIKE. Really, none at all. Just to emphasise: we’re doing this for fun. Very few of us are going to be professional musicians and, even if you are, even then: you are doing that for fun too (for the fun of others, but the point still stands). Music is entertainment, joy, transcendence. Stop playing pieces you don’t like.

True, certain techniques need to be mastered if you want to progress beyond a certain level. There is a more limited selection when it comes to mastering counterpoint, but there are more than three damn pieces. I have never struggled to find work a student engages with when given a free hand. 

(A separate problem sometimes occurs: a student likes the idea of a piece but dislikes it once they get going with it. This is often because they think it’s too hard. Knowing when to quit a piece and when to push on for the sense of achievement is one of the finer arts of teaching and learning.)

The Repertoire’s Limitations
The repertoire ABRSM offers is relatively traditional. Broadly, it falls into three camps: music written in the classical tradition before 1945 (perhaps 80% of the selection), music written in the classical tradition since 1945 (perhaps 10%) and, for some reason, jazz music written between 1920 and 1960. 

Now, I am no enemy of musicians achieving expertise within a tradition. I am dramatically opposed to the radically pick-and-mix approach offered by the national curriculum, which offers a taste of everything and knowledge of nothing. And I wouldn’t describe “all music written before 1945” as narrow – it encompasses a huge range of material.

But there are many flaws to ABRSM’s approach. 

Firstly, it is legitimate to seek expertise in a non-classical tradition. Pop and rock music is a rich and challenging and there is no good reason to exclude it from education. Transcriptions of songs are already included in the jazz music section: it seems mad to me that we’re not also putting in more contemporary songs.

Secondly, the benefits of focusing on a specific tradition tend to accrue later in a musicians development. For the first couple of grades, perhaps up to Grade 5, which is as far as most students get, the focus is mastering reading, basic dexterity, aural skills and touch. This can be just as well developed through transcriptions of pop music as through anything else. Even later on in one’s specialisation, maintaining a modicum of skill in other traditions is possible and well-advised.

Finally, plenty of students only listen to pop music. Now, I am extremely in favour of introducing students to new music, it’s half the bloody point. But there needs to be a link between listening and playing. Many students I have met view the thing they do on the Tube with their headphones to be a completely separate species than the thing they do in their practice. To become a full musician requires joining listening to performance and that will often mean playing a variety of pieces.

The Limitations of ‘A Repertoire’
Beyond the specific problems with the selection, a deeper issue lies. I hope all my students will play music all their lives. But they’re all going to stop playing grades sooner or later. When they stop, typically at the end of school, they are often adrift, without the skills needed to make music as an independent adult. 

One of these skills is work selection. Find repertoire, picking skill-appropriate pieces, working out what they sound like, and determining for yourself when you have mastered them enough for performance, or just for personal satisfaction. Grade chasing robs students of these skills.

Repertoire as Repetition
ABRSM is very keen to avoid ‘grade skipping’ and many students and teachers follow their lead. Fo many learners, the regular schedule of music is to take a grade every year. This means focusing on three pieces a year, every year, regardless of the natural pace of your learning. You may get to play more pieces, but many don’t. (Many students also end up being overextended as they move up the grades, being advanced by ambitious parents beyond their skill. As their exam marks dwindle, they are discouraged and eventually stop.)

Even if well-managed, this process is boring. If the most common complaint I hear from students is that they don’t like their pieces, the second most common is that they liked them enough at first, but that learning them for the exam has sucked all the fun out of them.
A non-Baroque bit of contrapuntal repertoire.

The Skills

I have a salient memory of my teenage years. I was 17 and post-Grade 8 standard. I was very well-taught, with a Grade 8 in theory and lots of experience in choirs, ensembles and as a composer. I was the very model of a modern music generalist. 

A band at school had misplaced their keyboardist. They were playing some easy stuff (Coldplay, perhaps?) and asked me to step in. And while I could whack out the chords – Gm7, Cm7 etc. – I could not make the damn thing sound like music. I sucked, and I didn’t know why. I would guess that this experience would be common to the vast majority of grade-oriented music students in the same situation.

The grades also suck at building practical musical skills. ABRSM officially recognises this. These practical skills are so important that they’re stuck separate grade system of their own, called ‘Practical Musicianship’. (I mean, what the hell are the rest of the grades for then? I’m tempted to start a petition to rename them ‘Impractical Musicianship’…) While the Practical Musician grades exist, they not required to advance through the performance grades, so no one does them. The kids are already over-burdened with exams, so bolting on even more is unlikely to go down well.

Chords and improvisation
Following my sudden conversion on the road to Chris Martin, I developed my chord skills. I began to realise what I hadn’t understood before: this was crucial to playing music, not just pop music. Harmonising melodies on sight, filling out written chord sequences, improvising melodies over chords or a bass line: these are skills that are important in basically every genre of western music. 

I now integrate these skills from day one of learning. The funny thing is, it’s pretty much the easiest thing the kids learn, early on. Playing a four-chord song in root position with a bass line can usually be achieved in the first lesson, even for kids as young as five. I can then sing the melody and, hey presto, it’s lesson one and they’re playing their favourite song. (As they develop, they sing the melody themselves, we learn the other inversions and they learn how to move between inversions.)

It’s enormously important students learn these skills if they’re to keep playing. So many musical environments – playing in a band, performing for a theatre show, doing piano karaoke at a party – rely on the swift and confident executions of chords. 

Theory, but only theoretically
Theory skills, unlike Practical Musicianship, are compulsory knowledge: you have to sit Grade 5 theory to advance beyond Grade 5 performance exams. 

This is a disaster.

First, many students don’t get this far, so never learn any theory ever. 

Second, it encourages cramming. Theory is seen as an unfortunate appendage to the real work of climbing the performance exam ladder. Cramming schools and tutors all over London welcome in students and pump them up to that crucial 66% pass mark. Relieved, they rapidly forget everything they learnt. 

Third, it’s quite hard. Learning theory as a separate discipline is an odd and artificial way to understand it and many students struggle with both comprehension and motivation.

Theory is not separate from practice. It should be worked into learning from the first lesson. One of the easiest ways to do so is through learning chord sheets and improvisation: ideas like cadences, transposition, scale degrees, major and minor, etc., are all easily learnt through absorption when learning songs using chords.

It should also, however, be taught when learning pieces and technique. This might slow things down a little, but if you don’t have the pressure of an incoming exam, that’s not a problem. Students absorb huge amounts of your language: if you tell them to ‘go from the recapitulation’ or ‘let’s take it from just before the perfect cadence’, they’ll quickly work out what’s going on. If you learn your scales and arpeggios in circles of fifths order, that sequence will likely be ingrained in you without even thinking about it. 

I’d rather my students were playing a slightly easier piece that they understood than a harder piece that was a just a series of mechanical movements.

Sight-reading and Aural
Both sight-reading and aural skills are part of the grade exam – they make up 14% and 12% of the mark, respectively. As a result, they’re often de-prioritised relative to learning the pieces.

I have seldom met a student who isn’t concerned about the aural section. Very few teachers work this into every lesson, because it simply isn’t a large enough percentage of the exam for it to merit weekly focus. 

Ideally, all students would be singing in choirs. But with our etiolated public realm, teachers must take this on themselves. Sight-singing, in particular, is a brilliant way to learn aural skills but is not integrated into the standard curriculum. 

Again, the problem here is partly a matter of the separation of aural skills into a separate module, unrelated to the pieces the student is learning. There are several ways to change this. For example, many pop songs are not available on sheet music, so you have to work out the tune or chords yourself, building valuable transcription skills. 

Sight-reading tends to get a fairer shake, perhaps in part because all pieces begin as sight-reading. But the narrow range of repertoire learned for each grade means that many students learn each one as muscle memory and forget how to read them altogether. (To test this: ask a student to begin a piece in an unfamiliar spot.) This style of learning has a devastating effect on learning. I have genuine encountered Grade 8 students who can barely read a note of music (but also, remember, don’t have any aural, improvisation or chord-reading skills).

Ensemble playing
Ensemble playing is another musical essential that, while official recognised by ABRSM as part of their ‘Group Assessments’ module, is realistically often sidelined due to a focus on exams. At the moment, this problem is harder for the individual teacher to solve. But, for pianists, playing duets or performing with the teacher singing should be a regular part of learning.

Composing and creating
Composing is not hard and every musician can do it. Not every musician can, or should, try to create amazing pieces in an individual style. But coming up with simple, stylistic pieces is not difficult. In my experience, children love this. Being taught to make a basic, four-chord pop song is often a revelation for an eight-year-old. (For many, it’s also a revelation that makes them think “wait, is this all there is? What if I just…”) Many are also capable of more than that. I’ve heard some lovely, inventive pieces from kids. And they often really enjoy playing them, as they’re written so precisely for their skills. 

As they develop, it’s good to work on further skills, like composing for other instruments or using software to record music or set it to video. These are the skills that will encourage a student to continue playing as an adult by, say, writing music from a friend’s YouTube channel, or making radio mixes of game soundtracks. All of this stuff gets crowded out by exams.

The Psychology

Being put off
Exams are off-putting for many students. Some don’t perform well under such pressure, many are so over-examined that they are exhausted by the very idea. It’s not revolutionary to suggest that exams might make music less fun. Perhaps it’s slightly more revolutionary to insist that fun matters. This is mainly intrinsic (fun is almost the only point of music, see above), but also instrumental: if kids aren’t engaged, they will quit or stagnate. 

But the exams are also off-putting because they are quantifiers. You are a certain grade and a certain mark. If you’re Grade 8, you’re the best. If you’re not, you’re not. Pretty much the first thing two child musicians will ask one another is what grade they are at – how else would they establish a hierarchy? 

Now, most students aren’t going to get that far. Few people get to Grade 8. So many adults have told me they were never any good because the ‘only’ got to Grade 5. But that’s fine! There are loads of great pieces at that standard! Enough for a lifetime of playing. And yet, they all give up. I can’t think why…

The gradual erosion of the soul
Music exams are truly disastrous. I’ve listed a wide array of problems above but they all stem from the same place: a lack of freedom. If you have to do exams every year, what do you do when your student suddenly turns up thrilled by some new monomania? What do you do when they’re sad, and they’ve written a song about that? Students, particularly kids, are weird, tempestuous and opinionated. 

Music should be a perfect outlet for that. It must be. This is both because of the nature of the subject – artistic, creative, abstract – but also because of the pedagogical tradition. Music has managed to maintain a one-on-one format, which makes a more flexible teaching style possible.

I hope my focus on skills has mitigated any sense that I am opposed to rigour. If anything, my problem with grades is the deep lack of rigour, the incredible shallowness of their demands. If you remain to be convinced, I urge you to consider the following thought experiment.

Take an art form that, currently, is not taught using grades. Let’s say, poetry, or painting. Would you press a button that would instantly ensure that all child-poets or child-painters took part in a grade system? Why not? Not because these arts don’t require skills or rigour, I expect, but because of an instinctive recoil at the idea that a self-expressive art would be so reduced in freedom. 

The Problem​

So how did we get here? If music exams are so disastrous, why do we do them?

Training and habit
Most music teachers don’t train. While a Certificate for Music Educators is available, few take it. It is also, as it happens, provided by the grade examiners, so I have little interest in it.

For those of us without training, the structure granted by ABRSM is a life-saver. It takes time to develop your own curriculum, your own set of preferred pieces and books, and skill to steer students through the choices. For stretched music teachers in schools, with too much to do and too little time to do it, pre-made courses are a godsend.

Moreover, most musicians were put through the grade-mill themselves. As teachers tend to come from the top 5% of music learners, they often can’t see how damaging the system is for those without such aptitude. For many, it is just the way things are.

Qualifications
We have a deeply qualification-focused education system. To steal an example, think to yourself: Is it better that I get an A* in A level French and forget it all the next day, or better that I get a C and remember every bit of it? 

Exams are tokens that prove your ability. They are cashed in for access to the next level of education, which itself is a token that is cashed in, either for further education or for a better-paying job. Music has got sucked into this vortex. As music teachers, it is our job to try and drag it back out. Doing so is, ironically, going to be better for your students’ education (it might even get them more tokens!), but it is also better for their life. 

Here’s a follow up to the earlier thought experiment.

Would you rather: (A) your student gets Grade 8 and it got them into a university one place higher on their preference list, but they don’t enjoy it and never play again; or (B) your student has a great time, has a life-long hobby in music, and goes to a university one place lower than in option (A).

Even this artificially extreme contrast ought to be a no-brainer. The difference between going to a slightly less-preferred university is likely to be fairly slight. The difference between having an active artist hobby as an adult and not having one is enormous.

In the real world, we don’t need to make such dramatic decisions. I’d encourage allowing children to do a single exam, at a comfortable standard, in both theory and practical music, in Year 12, to give them their token.

If you’re teaching at a school, you may not be allowed to make this choice. I wasn’t. It was horrible, and I don’t know what to do about it.

What now
I don’t know what to do about the whole damn mess. I’m honestly surprised that the insufficiency of music curricula is so little discussed. We get some fraff about the GCSE and A-Level curriculums (I’ll write about the Stormzy vs Mozart nonsense in the future) but little equivalent concern about the ABRSM Grades, which are sat by a much larger number of students.

I’d love to hear of organisations that are trying to make changes in this area, do let me know if you know of any.
46 Comments
Qft
9/27/2019 10:35:06 pm

Thanks Joe. As a parent embarking on the whole grading system and being skeptical gives me a bit more confidence to not follow this path.

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Majella
10/31/2019 09:41:52 pm

Really worthwhile read. In many ways I felt I was reading my own thoughts in relation to graded music exams in Ireland.

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Karen
12/1/2019 05:31:02 am

You make some very good points here. I do wonder if the system.us flawed in that is a 9 year old taking say a grade 8 piano exam, marked in the same way as say a 40 year old taking the same exam? ( I understand that in days gone by you had to be 16 to take that exam. I understand that this has changed now). I noticed that a 9 year old recently took her Grade 8 exam and got a Distinction. Was she really marked in the same way a 40 year old would've been marked? Would they really expect the same standard? What do you think? Many thanks. Karen.

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Sarah
12/18/2019 07:47:06 am

Have you taken a graded exam before? It's very structured and the mark scheme is very clear. Clearer marking than my university degree."Would they expect the same standard" yes, for example a piece is marked out of 30, so you either play the piece with the correct notes, rhythm etc or you don't, if you don't you get marked down accordingly. Regardless of age, the test is marked exactly the same, it doesn't leave much room for subjective marking. Plus it can be appealed if the candidate disagrees with the mark or if they're 1 mark from a pass etc.

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Anna
1/16/2021 12:12:44 pm

But isn't the whole point that music is not something that can be consistently measured by a clear marking scheme? Musical performance is not as reductive as hitting the correct notes in the right rhythm -- if it were then all professional musicans would have been replaced by computers some time ago. Surely the point that Karen is making is that a 40-year old may be bringing a different level of maturity to their performance than a 9-year old, and therefore there nature of their performances may be very different. Not necessarily better or worse, just different.

Wong
1/10/2020 12:57:13 am

Thanks for the article!

When we google ABRSM around, we will often only see comments like exam is good, it is a structrual music learning, has a well defined goal and achievement. I am an adult learner, but now preparing for the ABRSM grade 5 exam (took grade 3 before) and I am skeptical about this.

I enjoy classical music, and I enjoy quasi modern piano music more, written by composers like Joe Hisashi , Yann Tiersen, David Nevue etc. Not dreamed for myself to play bach or chopin very well, but I will enjoy if I can play even part of the piece.

When I ask my teacher, how can I learn to play these music and making progress, the only path pointed to me is ABRSM system :(

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Joe Bates
1/28/2020 03:53:37 pm

Hi Wong, sorry for not having replied sooner: I don't regularly check my comments.

If you teacher is focused on ABRSM, you could try requesting that you study the jazz syllabus, which is somewhat better at teaching core skills, and doing the Practical Musicianship exams. As I say in the post, these are not an ideal replacement, but may be you best way if you can't opt out altogether.

Within the classical system, I would strongly recommend that you focus on sigh treading. Ideally, your sight reading should be at least one grade level above the rest of your work.

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Edwin Brophy
2/27/2020 04:44:45 pm

It depends how musically high level the student is. It is not about how “musical” the student is. For me exams are important because I want to climb ladders. I did grade 7. I really struggled with grade 8 stuff but feel like with enough practice eventually I will get there. But it wasn’t quick or easy to get through the grades. I had to work harder to get to grade 7 than many people took to reach grade 8. For me the high pressure of an exam is worth it to really “stretch” my playing.

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Damian
10/29/2020 09:13:14 pm

Of course it is Edwin- well said! 'Stretching' yourself that is. Things are meant to get more difficult and challenging- that's the point. Plus you don't just have to stick to the graded pieces anyway. My piano teacher used to work through a variety of books, as well as ABRSM. You can't just 'duck' out of the way of something just because 'it seems difficult' at first- good grief!

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phil newton
4/29/2020 01:16:59 am

Bravo-! I ve waited years to find this approach come from out of the woodwork at last .I ve been of this view for 40 yrs at least .The worst cases of it were as a peripatetic string teacher in musically unsupportive schools where the heads ,parents , music advisers, facilities, tuning, classroom staff and not least ,unsurprisingly; the children themselves, were utterly unaware and out of step with
the needs of support and follow -up such as essential tuning skills between the lessons were absent .Yet exams were heralded as the indicator of "progress"! I avoided entering as I avoided them for group teaching for extra musical or social/peer group skills as being intrinsic as in dance , drama or sport.See Witkin and Paynter 1970 .But happily some heads welcomed this as a breath of air .
The Exam justification ;"They indicate to anyone where the pupil is"!! ?? -

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phil newton
4/29/2020 01:30:40 am

Error
It should read "I avoided entering , favoring group teaching being more appropriate in those circumstances ......"

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Spike Kitt
5/23/2020 04:51:31 pm

Enter the Gordon music learning theory, approach.

Which starts with Audiation as the main key skill, before learning
to sight read, because:

"Audiation is to music, what thought is to language"

Thank me later...

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Eli
7/22/2020 03:11:02 pm

Sounds interesting and real... Is this how colleges teach jazz in North America?

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Ryan
6/29/2020 03:26:25 am

Loved reading your article. I'm currently taking piano lessons after a 10 year hiatus and was wondering if I should continue on the Abrsm path. (I was previously grade 3). Should I just avoid them entirely? My long term goal is to play the Chopin Ballades and Etudes and be able to sight read quickly.

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MaryJane
11/19/2020 08:35:20 am

Ah I love this comment. I also started playing again after a 10-15 year break, having been around Grade 3/4 previously. It was listening to Ludovico Einaudi that inspired me to play again and I have just been working my way through his books. I would love to do my grades one day but really don’t enjoy the pieces :-/

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Ian B link
7/12/2020 10:13:38 am

I did piano ABRSM grades 1 to 7 (failing grade 6 I might add) and was mostly stuck into the '1 grade a year' pattern (or thereabouts). It eventually led me to stop taking further lessons and start looking into repertoire further.
I started teaching and I have no issue with putting students through ABRSM exams providing it is clear they still love the instrument and music and many of them do one grade a year. Some students however do not do exams at all and play solely for fun which I also encourage.
I don't think the grade system in itself is harmful but more about how teachers approach it.
And now? I decided after 20 years to go for grade 8 after which I may do a diploma purely because I fell in love with the instrument all over again and want to finish what I started.
Note that in music there is no finish line. In exams there are.
In case any of you ask, I am training myself for grade 8 and diploma. Video recording practice sessions and reviewing from the teachers point of view is really helpful. I'll let you know how I get on.
Anyway back to the article - mostly agree. I don't think it's the exam boards fault however :)
ABRSM just revamped their requirements and allow for a 4th piece of the students choosing as well as overhauling their technical requirements.
Let's see what happens...

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Ian B link
1/8/2021 03:43:54 pm

So I'm back 6 months later to state that after 22 weeks of hard work, falling in love with the music, hating the music, and everything in between, I gained 135/150 distinction at grade 8.
It was certainly fun after all these years to jump back I to this but looking back at my other grades - particularly grade 6 (fail) and grade 7(102/150) it's amazing what those 20 years of perspective have done regarding understanding, interpretation, and of course closely linked to these - result.
More and more I agree that the exam factory is not a good approach once the grades start to slip. The overall musical maturity needs time to catch up.

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Eli
7/22/2020 02:32:44 pm

Hey, whoa! When I was 12, I happened to go to this folk music festival in my country and I can't describe how much I fell in love with one of the bands who played celtic music. -I'm from Latin America. I asked my parents to take me to violin classes, and even if I do appreciate their effort the reality is we had zero idea where to go, and this music is really rare over here, compared to the rest of pop or classical music. So, I ended up in one of these renowned institutions offering ABRSC exams and as I prepared grade 5 -practical and theory exams I realized I was getting no better at the skills I really wanted to learn, and I became really confused, as I didn't know where I should be looking for. Music classes became such a pain but I still was longing for those folky tunes I'd listened to. So I kept, but I also suffered the stress of being taught by a bad tempered german lady who was not supportive of a love for popular music even if it is just as challenging as the classical, -I mean the rhythm! it's quite something. I personally feel that teachers over here would be also unattentive towards me as an older learner, bc I was no hope for them in becoming professional -I so much made a mistake! so, they were focused in small children who did were their hope to become professional musicians, but I felt this was unfair... I still haven't found one professor with your vision, and I feel like I realized too late I really would've loved to become a pro folk or pop/ jazz musician, even if I do enjoy classical music ( I do wish I could play Corelli, though! maybe one day), but it's not what my heart calls at first for playing, d'you know what I mean?

For now my background is more solid in biological sciences but I sadly still want to pursue a career in art, maybe create some sort of aural art piece blending environmental issues with music, and I'd love to do a masters on something related to this. I feel like the UK has a better experimental scene around this, so I just had this idea, that preparing a grade 8 might give me a curricular support to apply to a masters with a more creative approach... but now that I read your post I'm not so sure about it D:

I still need the practical skills, though, as I reckon scales and chords are a must have skill for real musicians, but I still don't know how to systematically practice them. I'm using the app Perfect Ear but I feel something's missing! I'd really appreciate any suggestions on this *fingers crossed

Well thanks for this post! it reminded me of those years and confirms that I was no loner in this. It also gave me an idea of what I should look for next in developing musical skills.

Cheers from this self-called celtic heart searching her way in Mexico

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Damian.
10/29/2020 09:26:38 pm

Actually, I'd like to add something else- I've always thought there's plenty of styles to choose from- not just classical- and why dismiss anyone's chances of 'becoming professional' before they've even started?! People's tastes can change as they get older, so they may well appreciate something they learn now, or in the near future, at a later date. Plus, are ABRSM the only 'graded' exams available? I thought Trinity did as well. Sight reading is brilliant skill to be tested in, which can help learn any style of music, that's written down, quicker in the future. Finally, most people get nervous at first when doing any kind of live performance- a graded exam is also a chance to get some experience at this before encountering 'a bigger crowd' of potentially family, friends, fellow students etc. It ALL helps!

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Damian
10/29/2020 09:47:54 pm

Oh yeah- and have you never heard of Rockschool, if you think classical is boring etc? Trinity do rock and pop exams. As for not being 'able to play in a band' etc, well it's up to you and every other student/,teacher to get a decent method book for the relevant instrument! Exam boards aren't responsible for that you know- theory/exams are a starting point- not the end- the rest is up to the musician(s) to branch out - you can't expect to be spoon fed everything in life! If you're trying to 'bring down the establishment' so as to spesk- I don't think it's going to happen this way- just sayin!🙂

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Gabrielle Peacock
10/31/2020 12:30:26 am

I think music is a old as the earth and nobody owns it and no organisation can control it or decide who is or isn't a musician.

I am 41 and teach the piano and have a DipABRSM performance, which was hard to achieve, but I just feel that it's sad if music is confined to being about achievement. It erodes my soul, as as a teacher. Is music a sport ?

I got a grade 7 distinction in violin when I was young and carried on practicing over many years. I assumed I could just go back as a middle aged adult and pick up a grade 8, but it didn't work out even though I practiced 5-6 hours per day for it for an entire 6 months

Does anybody know whether adult candidates are often treated differently? Exam boards of course deny it with consternation and claim that they monitor examiners for being unduly harsh by counting how many 'passes/fails' each one awards, but that doesn't address the age question at all. Surely a certain amount of ageism is in most people's human nature? People can feel less concerned for an adult candidate, surely? Or maybe they can think the person has left it too late and just switch off to them?

Also I found out that my violin exam was assessed by an expert in a totally different instrument. It seems fundamentally flawed; A violinist has to make leaps of say an augmented 9th in a split second purely by ear and has no keys, frets, holes or valves to assist in the process. If you misjudge a move, you're semitone out. If somebody hasn't tried a violin out themself, how can they empathise with its demands, especially at grade 8?

I actually think the grades repertoire selection is ok and increasingly interesting and diverse, but some pieces are just dull and of their time and don't appeal to the young, whereas some are unnecessarily difficult and there is often little correlation in the difficulty of pieces being set for the same grade and I found this is the case with 2 exam boards I am aware of.

Diploma pieces can vary from about grade 8 level to 'borderline impossible' and the principle is that you have to sound fairly worthy of a public concert, regardless what exact level of repertoire you chose to play. It's confusing all round.

I also think though that grades can help some children to get motivated and they like a certificate, same as they like to get a swimming badge or a rosette for horse riding. But I find these days though that older youngsters are often too distracted by social media and their own culture to prioritise practice. This concerns me as I was a late starter and actually did my musical progressing between the ages of 12 and 20, as there was no social media available and not even a cinema in my area :) Aside from the international prodigy factory, I think we could end up with a predominantly skill-less generation? I am not a parent and don't understand why people are allowing all this time-wasting to go on in their homes, but I guess it's due to peer pressure.

The other thing I would say about grades from a teaching perspective is the importance of tempi. Some people play with grate feeling but just have no natural dexterity. I have students whose interpretational skills are post grade 8 but just can't play fast regardless how many scales and Czerny etudes they rehearse. It's a bummer :(

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Natalie
11/28/2020 03:19:29 pm

I stumbled upon your blog when I was researching about whether taking the exams is the pathway I should take as an adult learner. I’m 29 this year and have been taking lessons for half a year. I’ve invested lots of effort (and money), squeezing out time every day for practice. I’m conflicted whether I should start preparing the exam from grade 1. My teacher didn’t seem that keen for me to take grade 1 but grade 3 instead. I’m not that keen on exams but without it I can’t really track my progression apart from learning different pieces of music each week. Then again, when I look at the ABRSM pieces, I do not feel inspired. Like any learner, I would love to have fun and have a solid foundation of music and sight reading, but the beginning steps of sight reading/ scales are extremely tedious and takes away the time in learning music I like. I’m trying to balance what I would like to play and what I’m currently capable of and often end up feeling unsatisfied with my progress .

I’m wondering what kind of a music curriculum would you recommend for an adult learner like me ? And what can I do to stay motivated?

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Edwin Brophy
12/14/2020 03:14:26 pm

Grades are just a powerful tool to challenge your playing. They are NOT suitable to be a musicians only learning. Never. You must be comfortable playing music at the grade exam you are doing. 3 pieces is just too slim. If you are playing lots of music at grade 2 standard, I would recommend do a grade 2 exam. Try practicing over a longer time period before doing the next exam. If you have a grade exam certificate, you may want to take some light relief repertoire and gradually work your way up repertoire difficulty, until you feel ready to tackle a higher grade, rather than a rushed approach. I have now learned my first grade 8 piece, long after I passed grade 7. I would not want to rush the jump from grade 7 to 8, as more efforts are needed to get used to pieces at that level.

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Peter
1/1/2021 01:10:22 pm

Using the ABRSM as a lazy way of teaching, in which the student only learns 3 pieces per year is obviously no kind of musical education and leads to the theoretical possibility that you could achieve Grade 8 on your instrument having only ever played 24 pieces in your whole life, which is ridiculous. But I doubt this is what ABRSM intend. Personally, I would never dream of doing all the exams - my own daughter did none until Grade 4, when she had already been playing and singing, for several years, a wide variety of repertoire, including pop, jazz (improvised), medieval, renaissance, baroque (with baroque bow), classical, romantic, contemporary, full English choral tradition, folk, klezmer... but I think the couple of exams she has done have proved useful in giving her the discipline of working towards a high pressure performance moment - especially useful for children who don't get many (or any!) opportunities to play in a concert. It also gives her a sense of achievement as she proudly shows her certificate in Celebration Assembly at school, and it serves as some sort of marker of progress, should she need to show the world proof of attainment level to join courses, orchestras, music schools, or whatever.

So I definitely agree that exams should never become the only focus of learning/teaching if you wish to produce fully rounded musicians, but they can certainly have their place - let's face it, when else are you ever going to learn a scale of F# melodic minor!

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Alessandro
2/4/2021 12:54:19 am

Thanks for the great piece. As an adult learner (1 1/2 years, at grade 4) who started my piano journey as a tool to make my own music, I feel the two activities (producing in my bedroom, and taking weekly piano lessons) are completely separate.

Is there a way to identify more “progressive” teachers who take the integrated approach you mentioned?

If not, I think there is an opportunity to create a resource/business for students to find the right teachers and also define an integrated roadmap of learning. Feel free to email me if that sounds interesting!

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Elias Nicolas
2/6/2021 07:57:15 pm

Great article: Candid and full of wisdom, uncovers business-driven grading systems and the futility of fragmented music education.Thank you!

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Andy
2/17/2021 07:37:04 pm

When I was 9 years old I asked for a guitar for Christmas. My dad was a copper, but also sang in a band and played (strummed) guitar.
I duly went for lessons and after a year of playing ‘Minuet in E’ et al, I gave up. Completely disengaged. I’d been introduced to classical music by my mum - Holst’s Planet Suite was my first album, and loved it (still do) - but the vehicle being used to teach me was simply not relatable for me.
We knew a fella from our street who was from Spain, and he taught me some pieces I liked - most importantly some picking techniques I could use with any set of chords. I then chose a few of my dad’s songs and found I could play any of them with that set it techniques.
Fast-forward a ten years - admittedly not particularly technically better, but I’m playing the occasional song at college parties and getting good feedback. The kind of feedback every 19-year-old wants.
Fast-forward another ten and I’m playing guitar at a new band’s debut in Dubai where I work.
Now I have two amazing children. My son, who eclipses me in every way has just got a distinction in one of the mid-to-higher grades in piano. I sit and listen to him play. I’m in awe. He’s ten times the musician I am. He’s also a great drummer.
But keeping him going is becoming excruciating.
Andante in A - 18th Century.
Etude in A minor- 19th C
Toccata in G - 17th.
I mean... how to lose a talented musician!
Film Noir saved his psyche, but, come on - even that was the 50s.
ABRSM - they are talented musicians right?!
So convert / enhance / do whatever it takes to use modern (that’s this year, by the way) pieces into grade pieces - PLLLEASE - before you convert even more eager young musicians (like me, if it wasn’t for my friend Emilio) into adults who look back and feel sick when they see a musical instrument and possibly associate the same emotions with their parents who are their only motivation (can we call it that?) for trudging on.

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Peter
2/17/2021 09:35:07 pm

Hi Andy,

Well, that's a very strange notion. My daughter is 10 and plays 17th century music all time. She has brilliant fun doing it too:

https://youtu.be/GyH_Xcf2rfc

If you have such a negative attitude towards music before the 20th/21st centuries, I can pretty much guarantee you were badly taught, which is a shame because you're seriously missing out.

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Andrew link
9/9/2021 10:55:41 am

Peter - you've completely missed the point of this article. This isn't about what your daughter can or cannot do. I am sure she is brilliant. You've singled out one single example (of your daughter enjoying what she's doing) and used this as absolute proof of how you believe the author is so wrong. This article about the broader issues of imposing exams on students and what many of them do or don't get out of it. Your's isn't even a valid argument under any circumstances. And then to suggest that Joe was badly taught is taking things way too far. He hasn't got a negative attitude towards any music that I can discern. He is negative about the exam process as am I.

I have taught the violin for many years and I have the same view as the author of the article.

Good luck to your daughter. She is clearly exceptional. I hope she does well. But do take care. Many students taught with too much emphasis on exams grow up to hate what they've experienced and cease to play. That is very sad.

Joe Bates
2/20/2021 10:50:53 am

Thank you all so much for the comments, and my apologies for not replying individually. I just wanted to say how much I appreciate getting your varied perspectives on your music education, and to hear from people with whom this article has struck a chord.

As to some of the welcome criticisms:

First, I should be clear that many good teachers use grades, and many students succeed with them. That said, I think there are few uses of the grades which other approaches don't do better. For example, while grades are a good way to practice performing under pressure, they are not unique in that regard. There are many ways to practice that skill, so I don't view that as a dispositive argument in favour of grades, given their other disadvantages.

With that said, I recognise that we have a qualification-driven education system, and some sort of qualification may be necessary for students. In a future post, I'll give an idea of what I think a better system might look like.

Second, I am, of course, aware of the jazz and rock grades. These don't solve the problem. First, they suffer from most of the problems laid out in this piece – lack of repertoire choice at each stage, lack of rigour, etc. Second, my concern with classical music's dominance of the grade system isn't an opposition to classical music, but an opposition to dominance! Students should learn a broad and integrated curriculum, in which great music from the past and present sit alongside each other. Simply replacing classical with pop will be an improvement for some students, but it isn't a solution to the systemic problems of grades.

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Caroline Wilkinson
3/1/2021 06:51:09 pm

This article is so insightful. I learned piano and flute to grade 5. I also did grade 5 music theory. I stopped playing when I went to university. I was no where near the standard for the classical orchestra and didn't feel skilled to adapt and try new things. I would have loved to play keyboard in a band.

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Sean
3/24/2021 01:11:49 pm

Hey Joe, I'm literally about to sign up for grade based lessons ... but I've been uncertain.

Your article really does put my concerns into words.

What I'd like to ask is ... in lieu of what you've shared about grade music, how would you suggest a newbie get started then?

I'm 40 this year ... can read A LITTLE bit of music (I've been sitting in on my daughter's grade based lessons ... approximately grade 2 now), I've played the guitar since I was young.

I really want to enjoy playing the piano ... now I'm stuck at how best to start, who to look for, what kind of classes (if it's even available!)

What do you suggest? Thanks in advance!

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Peter
3/24/2021 03:04:12 pm

Hi Sean,

It probably depends what you mean by "grade based lessons". If it's a teacher who just teaches exam content from grade to grade, I would look elsewhere. You can take the odd grade now and then if and whenever you fancy, and it won't hold you up long, but to collect a pile of useless certificates one after the other is pointless.

It also depends on the styles that interest you. Exclusively "grade based" lessons won't teach you anything about jazz, for example. You might prefer to look for a flexible all-round teacher capable of responding to your particular needs and interests. You also need one with high standards and expectations. Many of them are so ground down by uninterested kiddies who never practise that they learn to expect slow progress and having to teach the same thing to the same person a hundred times. I turned down a teacher for my daughter because she advised me in March that the child was very promising and might be able to do her Grade 1 by Christmas. I responded that I expected her to be at least Grade 3 by Christmas, and started looking for a teacher with higher expectations. Hard to find, but I finally did, and in fact, the child was Grade 4 Distinction by November! You just need the right teacher and a bit of regular practice. Little and often. Grades are irrelevant once those two things are solved - particularly for adults.

Peter

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LostShepherd
7/14/2021 02:30:21 pm

Hi Peter,

I started doing classical grades (Trinity board) around 40, have played guitar all my life and have just decided to step back from my Grade 8 to focus on Sight Reading.

Retrospectively classical grades were not the right route for me, I would have been much better doing Trinity Rock & Pop or Rock School Piano as I would have been playing songs I enjoyed.

Also I find that now at Grade 7 I am not able to sight read even simple pieces, whatever you choose I would recommend working as hard on sight reading as the pieces themselves.

A lot of it should boil down to the type of music you enjoy and want to play, classical is not the only route. Lessons are expensive too, over the next couple of years I have just signed up to apps to get me where I think I need to go.

he certifications are nice and do keep you focused but I'd rather be a competent sight reader with no certificates than a Grade 8 who can't sight read.

Good luck with it and I hope you find your right path to enjoying piano to the max.

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LostShepherd
7/14/2021 02:31:02 pm

Sry meant Hi Sean :), but hi Peter too!

Mo
4/30/2021 09:25:11 pm

I started having cello lessons in1992 when I was 45 - I gave them up when I went to university full time in 1996. I had done grades 2, 3, and 4, with two distinctions, and a pass at grade 4, when I was doing first year coursework and essays.

Three university degrees, and a book later, I retired from academic study and decided to take up the cello again, at the age of 72.

I had taken piano lessons from the age of 42 and took all ABRSM exams from grade 1 to grade 7, but this was on the basis of learning three pieces for each exam, and I later realised that this did not make me a competent pianist - I just passed the exams! Fortunately I had kept my cello!

This time around, with the cello, I have the incentive of wanting to play with my two granddaughters who play the violin, and a daughter who can play the violin, and the viola.

I had not played the cello for twenty five years, but I found an excellent cello teacher who understands what I want to achieve, and within 16 months I have gone from playing grade one pieces again, to beginning to play grade 6 level pieces. I am not intending to take any exams this time.

I have sung in a Bach Choir for nearly 20 years; I have learned a lot about music through this experience, and I think it has helped immensely with learning the cello, but my time with the choir is limited due to my age. Re-auditions take place next summer.

So I intend to go on a residential course with the cello next summer, when I have played more higher standard repertoire, to share the playing experience, learn about playing with others, and I hope to join a local amateur orchestra in autumn 2022.

I have found all this a great but stimulating challenge - but my experience proves that age is no barrier to learning a musical instrument to a level where one can play with others. I practise every day and enjoy all the challenging pieces and technical exercises my teacher gives me to do.

My husband thinks that there are three of us in this marriage, him, me, and my cello!

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LostShepherd
7/14/2021 02:22:50 pm

I am glad I read this blog, it gave me the confidence to realize that mechanically memorizing my pieces for Grade 8 over the next couple of years is absolutely not what I want to do.

As an adult learner I want to spend those years actually learning to sight read to a competent level, something at this stage which I am like a beginner at. I've decided to dedicate myself to working through sight reading via two apps, sightreadingfactory and pianomarvel, whilst also learning some pieces I actually enjoy and can sing with family and friends or in the pub.

When my sight reading improves to a decent level I will return to Grade 8 and plan to take the Trintiy Rock & Pop Grade rather than the classical, I wish I had know about it from the start as it would have much better suited me.

I'll reassess it all annually and see how I go but I very happy with my decision and have started enjoying playing the piano again.

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Andrew link
9/9/2021 10:40:33 am

I teach the violin to all levels of ability. They range from 6 year-old beginners to diploma level.

I stopped doing exams of any kind with students at least 10 years ago. As you say in your article, no other art form is so exam orientated. Thank you for doing your research and covering so many aspects of how exams strangle musical development.

What I can't get my head around is just why so many musical instrument teachers are so 'hung-up' on the need to do exams. There's a kind of blindness which I have no explanation for. Why ask students to play so much music which they don't like? If you're going to have exams why is the latest pop music not included in the lists? That's just crazy.

I was looking through my collection of music recently and I picked up a Grade 6 ABRSM Violin book. Looking through the music I wondered why, culturally, none of the pieces related to the lives of young students? On top of which, most of the music is so obscure, even by 'classical' standards. And dull isn't the word for it!

Learning a musical instrument is a deadly experience this way. What on earth went wrong?

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Dave
10/5/2021 02:08:20 pm

I gave up playing trumpet 4 decades ago thoroughly disheartened by grades, I was 14 years old, grade 6 standard.

40 years later I found the trumpet in the attic, battered but still playable. I needed a Covid lockdown challenge and started play again from scratch.

This time it was a musical revelation : You tube, online sheet music, backing track apps, Minus one play alongs, all brilliant. I now love playing as a hobby, and have an endless list of music I can play, want to play and aspire to play. Non of this includes ABRSM grades.

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Edward Hill
11/19/2021 06:16:19 pm

I agree with what you are saying having done the grading system. I too found it hard to re-adapt to the improvisation requirements for more "popular "play. However, I will say one thing, I can never remember being so frightened as when I took my first exam aged 9. To go in by yourself, play to a stern faced and often over critical examiner, and know that you HAVE to pass is quite a life skill and helped me in many other ways later on as nothing compared to that. I recently re-read some of my examination reports and i was shocked at how mean some of the comments were. A minuet that I played at Grade 2 was described as being "too pedantic." Mozart was pedantic. A lullaby was too "slushy"...What do they expect ?.. A semi-breve in a sight reading test was held on to for "one beat" too long costing a clear 4 marks- I mean what ? A friend on grade 1 Violin had " no musical talent" which was a travesty of the overall purpose of the ABRSM which has to be promoting the practice of playing an instrument. Not smashing them at the first fence.

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Em
12/29/2021 11:05:50 am

Thank you for this excellent analysis. I also prefer to teach (violin) without the pressure and distraction of exams, and may well direct pushy parents to this page as you explain the considerations very clearly and comprehensively!
I would say that exams work well for some children - my younger self included - as a motivator to practise harder/better. But this should not come at the expense of being exposed to a broader repertoire, and even for exam-oriented students there is no need to do every grade.

Also just to note that ABRSM do accept Grade 5 Practical Musicianship (or Grade 5 in a jazz instrument) as an alternative to Grade 5 Theory for moving on to the higher performance grades. I suspect most people will find theory easier - non doubt due to the unfortunate neglect of practical musicianship that you also discuss - but I have started incorporating more practical musicianship into my lessons and am hoping to put some of my more musically able students forward for the exam (although obviously theory is important as well!)

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Rob Manser
1/6/2022 12:52:13 pm

I sympathise with all of this and agree with much of it. However, I personally believe that the best approach is to do the grades, but to also support it with decent broad teaching from a good teacher, and to pursue one's own interests.

It's the same in all subjects - in my professional field of Physics and Maths there's a vivid difference between exam passing machines and people who love and understand the subject. Usually the former do not make it through interviews once out of academia, or even within academia at higher levels. However, both understanding and exam passing are vital skills, and exams get you to broaden your horizons, become rounded in understanding and flexible. They also shine a light on your own interests that you may not have done if you just focused on those alone.

So whilst I do sympathise with the dangers of creating exam passing machines with little or no interest and passion, in defence of the graded exams they do create a broad understanding and musicianship which can otherwise be lacking, widening your abilities and opportunities.

To take me as an example, I did a few low grades on the Clarinet as a child, admittedly got a bit bored with what they teach 11 year olds, quit at 14 when I moved to a school that didn't teach music, and later took up guitar aged 18. I practised the guitar for about 3-4 hours a day and very quickly found myself in bands playing live and eventually writing and recording music. My problem was that my experience and ability was very limited - my teacher only taught me blues rock, and that's what I tended to play. Those were the bands I got into, and the problem spirals very quickly. All the scales I knew were from that genre, the techniques, etc etc. As such, despite reaching a fair technical ability, there were lots of very basic things I simply could not do. As such I couldn't, for example, play as a session musician, or explore my other musical interests without taking many steps backwards. Creativity becomes limited too when you inevitably turn to writing music. Even though I've always listened to everything from dance music to rock, classical, folk, pop, jazz etc, the techniques and scales you know as a musician tend to direct what you write, so this varied love of music wasn't coming out in what I was creating and playing. I'd accidentally ended up in a genre shaped hole.

As an adult I have now started my third instrument, the cello, and with the aforementioned experience I'm doing three things:

1) Learning with a good teacher, who spots my weaknesses and chooses pieces that work on them, so I can become a rounded player. It's too tempting otherwise to avoid things you can't do and seek the rewards from the things you find easy.

2) Learning pieces on my own that I love, with no intentions of using them as exam pieces at all. This includes working out pieces by ear as well as sight reading.

3) ABRSM syllabus. Gives me a rounded ability, rather than just focusing on the music I can play already and repeating that. Aural tests are my achilles heel, but they do improve listening skills and musicianship too, and I can guarantee I wouldn't work on them if I didn't have to!

So I think grades have a place, but only alongside other things.

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LostShepherd
1/13/2022 11:42:28 am

Hi Rob,

I do agree that the formalised approach combined with one's own learning is the ideal scenario. I think the issue I found (and possibly others) is that there simply isn't time or energy to do both as there is so much in each grade. Working the grades consumed all my piano time and energy in a day so I had nothing left to give to external learning.

Admittedly I am an adult learning and work full time in a busy household, so am not swimming in spare but still this was the primary obstacle blocking external learning for me.

Since pausing my final grade I have been focusing heavily on sight reading using SRF, while the music itself is bland, its actually taking me where I want to go, I don't feel that reaching G7 actually got me to a place where I could intuitively see the rhythm from the score, its been a major revelation that my brain is now freed up to concentrate on the notes, as the rhythm comes automatically. Previously I was trying to see both things at the one time and it was excruciating a lot of the time, now I feel like the rhythm naturally presents from the score without me having to focus on it, which is opening it up beautifully for me.

I feel if I had slogged on with G8 I would not have made these leaps forward.

On a side note while I know there are many good sight reading books out there, I am finding the online options very good in the sense of piece variety, financially not having to buy book after book and general clutter of having them lying everywhere. Its certainly an option that suits me, once I progress sufficiently with SRF I will likely move onto something like Piano Marvel to try and further consolidate.

I guess it all boils down to what you want, for me personally I just want to be a fairly competent sight reader so I can have fun playing the piano and enjoy the social aspect that brings.

For me personally this only came from

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Nick Cooper
11/11/2022 12:01:58 am

Covid Lockdown brought one big benefit, I think. Having to try remote examination meant that ABRSM had to begin accepting video performances. Which in turn meant that a separate "performance" grade was introduced, which looks at playing and musicality, not sight-singing and aural exercises. So for those of us who can't pitch a note accurately and aren't particularly adept at identifying minor 7th chords, it means that one can concentrate on how to put music across. It also requires a 4th piece, which need not be from the lists, although at an equivalent standard. So a student can expand repertoire beyond the prescribed pieces.
I was very grateful to be able to do G8 by video performance, rather than a formal exam in person. (It also meant that I could take my time and concentrate more on music for the various bands I play in, not being tied to set timetables for exams.

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Helen
3/9/2023 11:47:30 pm

Very interesting article, and one I wholeheartedly agree with. Learned piano at school, stopped exams at Grade V, because of the theory, and never really got fired up. Decades later, having taken up the drums and rejected the idea of taking exams in them, it's the mindless, blinkered march through grades that makes me sad about my time on the piano. I failed my Grade III, took it again and got Distinction, not because I was determined to prove I could do it. It was merely because I got to spend much longer with the pieces, knew them much better, was much more relaxed about them. So, grades tell you the stage you're at with the piece that you're playing, not your actual ability (but that's how they're seen) and cut short the progress you might make with a piece, given a timetable of your own choosing.

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Helene Destrempes
5/24/2024 10:40:49 pm

Dear Mr. Bates,
Your comments on exams just make me feel a tiny bit better.
Got my marks today; I just completed level 7 in recorder and the examiner really was a hard marker. I am a 65 year old university professor myself and I know a few things about marking too.
The comments were partially great (Super! Excellent! ) but the marks did not follow. She literally marked me as not to receive the higher mention. I did make some nerve mistakes, but otherwise was so well prepared and played well. My teacher congratulated me after my exam. After getting the marks, I was so sad. It's as if a whole year of practice had been washed down the drain, knowing I played well.
Oh! I did pass. Here, in Canada, at the Conservatory, the marks are on 100%. I got between 86 and 89% for all pieces, probably just a few marks over what I got. I am upset because I know, and my teacher too, I deserved slightly better marking.
The examiner was a well-known professional musician. She came in saying we had to be done within the hour. She never smiled and left. She did congratulate me (Bravo!) but ended up being a harsh marker.
At my age, I tell myself ; I will continue to learn, but do I want to put myself through the same misery for the grade 8 exam next year. Not sure. I really took it hard. I know : everyone tells us not to take it personally, but, honestly, who doesn't! It's going to take a while for me to get over it. I worked so hard to get that mention, and did not succeed. On the other hand, no one can take away the fact that I mastered the « Suite royale » from Marin Marais, among other pieces, and that I am proud of!
I thank you if you read to the end! I had no one to tell all of this!
Thank you for your writings.
Sincerely,
Hélène Destrempes

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