Experience of music GCSE performance?

It possibly depends on the school but your DS should be given opportunities to re-record it if he wants. We asked all ours to record a solo before half term and on an INSET day at the end of half term we marked them. Some are excellent and full marks so there is no point in re-doing them. Others would benefit from another chance. We give them ample time to record, we mark them, then let them know how they are doing so they can have another go.

Your DS's school should give them the raw marks before the 5th May so they can challenge the process if they want. We don't get challenges but we do get them asking for another chance, hence starting the process as early as possible in y11. Completing the paperwork is a complete faff so getting everything done early makes a massive difference.

I don't know anything about OCR specifically but yes, November seems incredible early and he should be aiming to get the piece as good as possible.

Tagging on to this, hoping someone can offer their opinion: My son mentioned that he’s already submitted his GCSE performance to school, which seems pretty early to me. He’s just rattled off a grade 6ish piano piece and the teacher told him it was fine, but I know it won’t get full marks as it won’t have been polished, and he’s bound to have rushed some of it. He says he can’t resubmit it, but this seems strange to me when it’s only November. It seems like throwing easy marks away if he’s not chosen something according to his strengths and the marking criteria. It’s OCR board. The school’s music results are okay but not great considering the cohort.

If I were you (him) I would dig out pieces he already knows well for these half termly things - pieces he actually did for his grade 5 for example. Free up his time for other things, and to pick the right piece for the actual assessments. It sounds like going easier but getting it spot on is the key.
Ive had one go through it but being honest it all got changed because he was a covid year so I don’t think my experiences would help!
Ive another in y11 now and never even had it mentioned to me so I guess he must be doing ok - oops! His report last week was fine so I’ll just keep quiet!

He could also try pieces from the ABRSM jazz syllabus where only the head (first 8 bars) actually has to be played as written which should reduce the emphasis on accuracy. He should be able to learn a grade 5 piece to a satisfactory standard within a couple of weeks if he is playing at grade 7 standard.

yes Malbec I agree. I know very little about Educas apart from a friend of mine teaches that exam board in his school. My kids both did AQA which is slightly different in therms of the marks for difficulty weighting but it is the specific rules about what can and can't be classed as ensemble & what is classed as solo with accompaniment (to do with things like independent lines etc) and I think Edexel is stricter on this than AQA.

@ReedSaxBass does it not depend on the exam board?

Some of our visiting music teachers have needed reminding on more than one occasion that Eduqas and Edexcel have different requirements, especially regarding the ensemble. I always suggest them speaking to one of the 2 class teachers to be certain as we have to record and mark them in the end. I agree with the comments from @Comefromaway . Each piece is marked on 3 criteria out of 12 to give a total out of 36. That mark then has a difficulty rating applied to it. If you perform a grade 4 piece with Eduqas and score 11, 11, 11, that translates up to full marks. However, if you lose 4 marks for accuracy, you suffer more. I keep telling my students that there is nothing to be gained by performing more challenging music, but a greater potential to lose marks.

Educas has good descriptions of what constitutes a "more difficult" ie top marks piece, but they are always happy to have scores sent in to them for clarification. If any exam board has set a piece as grade 4 or higher, they accept that as MD.

Sounds like he has the performance side under his belt if he gets the right advice on difficulty and has time to practice. Get focusing on comp and listening skills!

Music teacher here.

Unfortunately with performance pieces there’s quite a few marks for accuracy. If the accuracy isn’t there in several places then this will cost quite a few marks.

His piano teacher should be advising on performance pieces?

Marks are also weighted depending on the difficulty of the piece. A much easier piece won’t carry so many marks, so while he might get a higher percentage of success this doesn’t always translate into higher marks.

Grade 5/6 pieces should be sufficient - but not the easier ones. They need to be in harder keys which cover a decent range of the instrument or use some more advanced techniques such as stride piano, arpeggios etc.

There are ways to jump through the right hoops, but you can’t get away with consistent inaccuracies at this point. This covers everything from correct notes, correct rhythm, dynamics, tempo. Yes it is this strict and his teacher may be using caution because all the examiner will have is the recording and the score. Hundreds of them. Insecurities will glare out unfortunately.

Things like phrasing come under interpretation, separate marks available for interpretation.

Is his school teacher giving him a breakdown of the marks - it should be obvious where he needs to improve.

I’d be looking for some decent grade 5 pieces with some more difficult features as a starting point. If he’s not having lessons right now then he really needs some - school will coach him in the listening and composition skills but instrumental skills really need to come from consistent lessons and practice.

Basically your performance is given a level from 1-4 according to criteria. For Edexel as long as your piece is above Grade 2 standard you are marked the same so can get the same marks for playing. Grade 3 piece accurately, in tune with all performance markings as you can a grade 5 piece. There are 24 marks available.

There are then extra marks available for difficulty. Do for example, say you scored 20 out of 24 marks. If your piece was less difficult (grade 3) you’d get 20 marks. If it was standard (grade 4) you’d get 25 marks & if it was more difficult you’d get 30 marks in total.

if you scored 10 out of 24 marks on a grade 4 piece you’d get 13 marks, and on a grade 5 piece 15 marks so it’s best to play a lower standard piece perfectly than make lots of mistakes on a more difficult one.

Yes, for GCSE it is that strict, much more so than ABRSM where an allowance for a different interpretation is made so long as it works and is musical.

‘Do they observe ALL the performance directions, dynamics etc? ‘ Is if this strict? Because I’ve always been told that these are more suggestive and down to interpretation. I’ve never had an trouble on my abrsm exams, other than once being told that I couldn’t keep time, because my teacher had encouraged a lot of rubato (I was annoyed at that one, because it was intentional!)

‘grade 7 standard, but fail to play in tune, or observe dynamics or other performance directions’ again, on instruments like the violin, they are a lot more lenient to intonation on the lower grades in the abrsm, because it’s much more difficult to play in tune compared to the piano. It develops in time. I often got a ‘needs to work on intonation’ on my violin exam but I still got a good mark for my pieces.

I think that the criteria seems to be stricter for the gcse, compared to the abrsm, which is more performance based and the examiner doesn’t even see the sheet music.

Play the easiest piece he can for these performances.

For my performance I played my hardest grade 6 piece and I don’t think that it was great. I don’t think that I got a great mark even though I was far far better to most people in my class. There were so many students who barely played an instrument or if they did they didn’t play particularly well. They got decent marks. So I think that it’s far more lenient than you think. Play a lower grade piece very well.

(I think that it doesn’t take into account higher grades for instruments that have taken years to perform, to all the singers in my class who walked off the street and did a poor performance for their gcse. I was annoyed at that)

Doesn't need to be a new piece every half-term, could be the same piece to show how he has made progress since the last recording. (I am a secondary head of music)

@Comefromaway
Your comment about sight reading is spot on. DS1 has been through Conservatoire and NOS and is currently working freelance as an accompanist / repetiteur. His first piano teacher spent a vast amount of time doing sight reading and as a result he is also excellent at it. He never seems to be short of work since in extremis he can just turn up and play what's in front of him.
OP - Both my sons prepared their own work (obviously with their piano teacher's guidance) for GCSE and A Level music. School had very little input to the performance element. But as always, check the exam boards guidance carefully.

My son's instrument was his voice, he sang grade 5 for GCSE and grade 8 for A level, A level was totally different to GCSE, much less guidance and support from teacher and we ended up paying his old private tutor for a few weeks to get him prepared for the exam

You've got it right.
You have to work with the system in gcse's.
If its a grade five piece they want, then absolutely nail it. Don't over do it. You just shoot yourself in the foot.
Gcse's are a time where you need to figure out that time is finite and you don't need to put 100% into everything, because there is so much to do. Ie don't need to sweat being perfect. Because being nearly there is usually still top grade.

I remember this with art... It was about quantity of what was produced. I learnt the hard way as a kid, I finished peices but not as many as required. They were of 'a level standard' and some people at school even asked to buy them.
But i got an awful grade because I hadn't produced enough material.

So in short, you need to figure out what the hoops are for jumping through.
If necessary ask the teacher what the criteria are ect. But yes. Learn a grade 5piece for gcse.

Then focus all other playing on the grade 7 exam and just fun, because that isn't gcse related :)

I am so glad to hear that there is so much help now with this performance element. When I did A' level music thirty years ago, I was just told to go out and get sufficient performances. The school neither helped with this or provided the opportunities. I realise from reading this how bad it was. Good luck. It sounds like he is going to do really well.

Different exam boards have different criteria for accessing the More Difficult mark bands. Eduqas/WJEC allows grade 4 pieces as MD, whereas Edexcel has it as grade 5.

I have been teaching GCSE Music for more than 25 years. The marks are not awarded in the same way as they are in graded exams. I have had students turn up and play pieces of grade 7 standard, but fail to play in tune, or observe dynamics or other performance directions. Their parents are then angry that little darling did not get full marks, but if they looked at the mark scheme, they would realise that we cannot award them. All our students have access to the performing and composing mark schemes. All are advised to talk to us before choosing what to perform. Yet some think they know it all and mess up. Last year a very able violinist played a duet that did not meet the criteria Eduqas sets. He recorded it the day before the deadline, causing much panic on everyone's part. His arrogance in assuming something called "Duet" would be admissable was woefully misplaced.

I find lots of pianists fail to play strictly in time, or go back and correct mistakes. Do they observe ALL the performance directions, dynamics etc? Is it a fluent and convincing performance? If not, it won't access the highest marks.

So from memory Edexel gives you slightly more credit for performing a Grade 5 piece than AQA in terms of difficulty/perfect playing ratio.

I'm a peripatetic singing teacher, I work in a high school and I prepare kids for GCSE performance recordings. I'm not sure if the exam board he's doing requires a recording or if it's a live marked exam? The way the head of music does it at my school sounds like it might be similar- he gets the kids to perform a different piece in front of the class every half term, but ultimately he wants them to get the best mark possible so when the time comes to do the actual assessment they will choose the best option for them to perform/record. It will usually be something grade 5+ that they know really well and can perform very accurately.

As PP said different exam boards have different criteria but as a general rule, it seems that a very accurate performance grade 5+ with attention paid to dynamics/expression will allow access to top marks. It sounds like the teacher is trying to give everyone a more well rounded experience of 'performance' by encouraging lots of it and a different piece each time, but I really wouldn't worry about these practise performances, I'm sure that when it comes to it, they will know which piece will allow him to get the best mark possible.

Do you know what exam board he is doing? Edexel or AQA are the two most common ones and there are slight differences between the marking criteria.