Mumsnet Talk

DD1 is preparing for Grade 1 piano. Doing quite well, but still stumbling over some corners in her pieces.

I've just had a quick play through of the pieces she's doing and I'm surprised how tricky they seem. Admittedly I'm out of practice, but I do play from time to time and did get as far as Grade 8, so I ought to be able sight read Grade 1 quite easily. Shouldn't I?!

Is it harder? Has there been some sort of re-levelling of grades? I don't remember there being a Prep test when I was learning - does that now take the place of what I think of as Grade 1?

Not that it matters, but I'm just curious. And from now on will be a bit more sympathetic! .

I've heard the opposite actually. Pieces that are now grade 6 in some instruments were grade 4/5 previously.

I don't think music exams are harder. Grade 1 has always required quite a reasonable level of playing which is why students will often need a year or more of tuition before being ready to sit the exam. The prep test was introduced because it took such a long time to reach grade 1 standard.

Interesting. I was obviously better than I remember when I was 7!

I believe that grade 1 piano is and always has been much harder than grade 1 in an instrument where you are playing a single line of music e.g. clarinet but agree with other posters on the general standard over the years.
I would describe my playing standard on main instrument as grade 4 which I took 30 years ago, but was shocked to discover recently that the main piece I studied for this grade is now a grade 6 piece !

No I don't they are harder. I've got all my piano books from exams from the 70s and early 80s and current pieces are of similar standard. Scales have changed slightly though.

I'd agree that grade 1 piano is harder than a single line instrument - in fact when I was young you couldn't sit exams below grade 3 for woodwind. However the rest of the woodwind syllabus is pretty much the same now as there are pieces on there I played on the flute when sitting grade 5 and grade 8 over 30 years ago!

Grade 1 piano is way way harder than grade one singing.
DD2 failed it and gave up DD1 has grade 3 singing.
It's a real shame, but the pieces for the piano were dreadful and she just would not practice. The choice for singing is much better.

DS never feels an achievement when he passes singing exams as he feels like a fraud because they are so easy compared to instrumental exams.

I'd say flute and recorder exams are harder now than in the early 80s. DD1 is playing a price for grade 7 recorder that was on the grade 8 syllabus when I did it. I understand that a few years ago, pieces that were on the grade 8 flute syllabus when I did it were also featuring on the grade 7 syllabus. DD1 is doing grade 6 flute this term as well as her grade 7 recorder and although I never played the pieces she is doing for grade 6 they do seem more flashy than the ones I did when I did my grade 6 (I know I did Mozart (it was always Mozart) and I'm fairly sure I also did Dance of the Blessed Spirits - which is way easier than the pieces DD1 is doing). I know flashiness isn't everything, especially for a flautist who is also an accomplished recorder player, but I think in an exam situation for a 13 year old flashy will always = harder however nerves of steel that young person is.

colleger DD1 finds the singing exams more nerve wracking than the instrumental ones. It's the remembering the words.

sydney I'm almost certain that in my day we just had to do major, both tyoes of minor, chromatic, and maybe dominant and diminished 7ths (but I'm not a billion percent sure on that). We definitely didn't have to do things like pentatonic. And the jazz syllabi have even weirder things. Things whose names I forget but they sound fiendish and alien. Of course, in my day there wasn't even a jazz syllabus anyway.

With the pieces, it works both ways - a piece I played for Grade 5 recorder a few years ago is now set for Grade 4. Since I started taking exams in the 1980s, I haven't noticed a massive change at all - some of the pieces I did then are back on the syllabus. Some have been downgraded, others upgraded BUT in a higher grade you would be expected to play the piece so much better/ more stylistically, even if it's appeared on a lower grade syllabus before. The boards publish criteria that pieces are marked against for pass/merit/distinction/fail, and the criteria for Grade 6+ are very different to Grades 1-5.

Also my late father-in-law passed Grade 8 in the 1950s. Now, he might have become old/ forgetful/ stiff-fingered, but I heard him play many times during the 90s/ 00s and there's no way he'd pass Grade 8 nowadays. I do think Grade 8 might be a bit harder than it used to be, but I'm pretty sure that the grades haven't generally become either easier, or very much harder.