Spring / Summer 2026 music thread

Well done to her. Hope she can get over her disappointment and realise that it is a really great achievment.

Huge congratulations @achangeofnameisasgoodasareston the impressive results - they’re not even her first study! She must be all round so talented!

Tough week for DD2 who took two exams on consecutive days -an ARSM diploma and a grade 8. Neither on her first study so she only has half an hour lessons on each.

Merit on the flute diploma (44) which she's mildly irritated about, and a 116 pass on grade 8 singing.

Don't think she's completely delighted, but I am just so pleased they're done. A lot of work to do two in a session - especially given all her ensemble work is on a completely different instrument.

Onwards and upwards.

Thank you, yes two concerts this weekend too and then all done. I think that is a good plan, we have a very long way to go so a lot could change. But at the same time I don’t feel ok about really discouraging something where there is a huge love and clearly an abundance of talent (I am a piano teacher so not just making assumptions). But there are many many talented children out there and I don’t have a ‘Sheku’ in my house I know that.

@678socksthat sounds like a tough week and good luck for tomorrow! I can feel the hesitancy with regards to a music career. I’ve frankly given up trying to persuade DS to consider other things as a career. He’s so stubborn! So I’m with you on the “follow your dream” thing. I just naively hope things will work it out by themselves and maybe worry about it when he’s much older…

Music festival all done, three studies (one voice) all done in one week, not sure I want to repeat that but the cello was a good dry run for grade 5 tmw. Not sure I would want two post grade 5 exams in the same exam session to be honest. We have done lower grades and that was ok but not again I think. Got to get one child through grade 5 theory before September but he is brilliant at it. Assuming tmw goes as planned then the other needs to get a move on because she has only just started grade 4 theory as she finds it very challenging. Think of us tmw, school play with a singing solo in the morning and then cello at the end of the day. In theory she should get a distinction but who knows…..she will be very disappointed if she doesn’t (and I know that some JD’s seem to require it). Mind you especially given the brexit chat I am not sure how sensible encouraging a music career is these days….but she is 9 thankfully so at the moment I can just say ‘follow your dreams’.

Is Keighly Harmony still a thing (I remember doing that)

Thanks all. I think she wants to get them done before A level mocks hit. To be fair she manages on not much practice (I’m always amazed by how much practice everyone’s DCs do on here!) and she may do the performance exam for singing as she’s already doing all the sight reading and aural stuff on piano and cello. I know all her teachers speak to each other about it (she has all her lessons in school) so hopefully they’ll drop one back if she’s struggling.

@achangeofnameisasgoodasarest - if she can do figured bass and chorales she ought to be able to do Grade 6 theory as the figures are pretty basic still at that level. Counterpoint is probably more advanced than Grade 8 but I remember it being the bugbear of my musician friends at Oxford..... If she wants to try figures at the keyboard then Continuo Playing according to Handel is a good workbook - I imagine there will be one kicking round at school somewhere.

@QueenMabby I was a multi-instrumentalist as a child and I wouldn’t have liked to do two exams at the same time as your attention ends up divided. Could she do the exams in two different terms?

@achangeofnameisasgoodasarest why not get a grade 6 theory workbook for your DD to look through to see where there might be any gaps in her knowledge?

@QueenMabby your DD seems to have endless energy and ability so perhaps it won't be too much. Howeder, I can categorically say (even before the results come out) that this week's exam scenario has not been ideal for DD2.

Will 2 at once be too much?
I'm sure she would manage if it's necessary - but is it really necessary? Would make more sense to put singing off till spring. Three grade 8s within a year is already insanely impressive.

@achangeofnameisasgoodasarest- best of luck for you DD’s results. I’m sure she’s done brilliantly.
Dd sang in a local cathedral earlier this week. @Compsearch- she also enjoys her robes! She had a solo which went well although the organ was massive and very loud and there were no mics on the choir!
Two concerts this week - both piano. It looks like she’ll be doing her g8 in the summer. Her pieces are nearly there but she definitely needs to work on her scales!
G7 singing will also happen in the summer and dd is a bit worried by the fact that her teacher then thinks she can sit the g8 at Christmas! Cello teacher is also working to Christmas for that g8. Will 2 at once be too much?

thanks @StuntNun - suspect that all might be being covered elsewhere but I don't know (she shows me a lot of stuff when she comes home and I don't understand any of it, but inversions definitely seem to be a big thing). Think I'll just have to go through the theory syllabus for each grade with her and identify gaps if she reckons she wants to do it. Was hoping it would just be simple, but I don't know what she doesn't know !

No there’s more learning on top of that @achangeofnameisasgoodasarest extra inversions, cadences, musical terms, ornamentation etc.

@Compsearch thanks, really useful - perhaps she isn't doing the analysis bit - not sure! Maybe I'll have to actually ask the harmony teacher - don't know him at all - just grateful she's getting the chance to do all this. Either way, it presumably will improve her A Level composition.

THough she was aghast at his suggestion that she should just be able to 'feel the figured bass under her fingers when you sit at the piano"...she's not really a pianist and harmony doesn't come naturally - she's definitely having to work it all out.

@achangeofnameisasgoodasarest I did grade 8 theory back in the day. I’d be surprised if the structure has changed much - in my day it was a mix of the harmony type exercises you describe plus analysing a chamber piece and an orchestral piece (including eg transposition qs). I’d agree that it is a big step up and probably worth doing each grade (ie 6, 7 and 8, or at least 6 and 8).

I only did it because I wasn’t doing A level music at the time but was considering apply to do music at university. In the end I did A level music in a year and didn’t apply for academic music so was a bit unnecessary, but would definitely have been useful if I had done eg music at Cambridge which has a lot of compulsory harmony in first year.

@horseymum I think you can now do the A Level without needing to do all this harmonisation too - harmony classes aren't compulsory (for nerds only, DD says - but she's a proud nerd).

DD was the first tranche of kids to do the online G5 - the pilot one during covid that went so badly they gave us all half of our money back. Doubt she remembers a single thing from it!

We’re working through grade 6/7 theory books here but as part of composition lessons which makes it more fun! The teacher makes sure they apply it and it’s helping it sink in.

Mine have both done ' practical musicianship' (which actually involves sitting in a classroom!) throughout JD but never seem to get a certificate or anything. The report card seemed to indicate they listened to some music and wrote some figured bass ( middle one) but after four years it didn't seem to have been aiming for anything. I wonder if it perhaps filled in some of the gaps between higher music and a level as higher is pretty light in terms of any kind of theory. I don't know if she could have done grade 8, it was certainly never mentioned. Younger one is slowly meandering towards grade 5 theory in these classes but needs a shift on as will do grade 8 in the autumn!

@achangeofnameisasgoodasarestgood luck for your DD’s exams. Two exams in a week is impressive!

@StuntNunDS did his theory last year and I still remember the agony of waiting so well. Fingers crossed for the 28th.

@Siriusmuggleand @Comefromawayreally hope things work out well for your young musicians.
@Compsearchglad he enjoyed the evensong. I love the robes too. It’s a pity DS doesn’t want to be a chorister 😂.

Thanks @StuntNun -

I'm trying to work out whether 'harmony' lessons are essentially the same as theory lessons. If theory is all harmony then she's covering it - writing figured bass, bach chorales and counterpoint with a teacher each week - but I wasn't sure if there was something other than harmony in there

Fingers crossed she gets good results @achangeofnameisasgoodasarestit can be impossible to tell how well you’ve done in exams.

With regard to the music theory, it is useful to have but there’s a huge jump between grade 5 and grade 6. Up to grade 5 is purely memorising but from grade 6 you need to be able to actively write music including harmonies and figured bass. It has been made more of a jump by grades 1-5 moving to online exams which necessitated taking out any composition elements from the lower grades. Your DD would probably need some theory lessons to be able to take the higher grades.