Instrument - grades

[dlondoner]

Hi everyone,
My daughter started to take piano lessons in her school this year. She is 6 years old. l and currently she takes 30 mins lessons in a week. I would like to know how long lessons/years does she needs to play piona to achieve grade 5-6. Do you think she will to have chance to get music scholarship in 11+?. Currently she loves her piano lessons and practising at home.
Many thanks for all responses x

Wooah she's 6!!! It will depend how she gets on with it. Noone can tell you at this stage. She might change instrument at 10, she might not manage playing with 2 hands for ages or she might be amazing. No one can tell you that.

Putting pressure on now for school entry at 11 is nuts.

One year per grade unless exceptional or estimate. I'm also not sure a grade five piano at age 11 is music scholarship worthy either.

Very much depends on the calibre of student applying to the school. I’ve taught children who have been awarded music scholarships who are grade 3 level. If it’s not a very musical school and not many strong musicians apply then you may be lucky!

Do 6 year olds usually get to grade 1 piano in a year? Really?

My son started later and got a music scholarship, it wasn't his exam grade that got him it. It's the way he plays and his potential.

He absolutely loves his piano, if he could give up every other subject and just sit at his piano then he would.

@SunflowerDuck in my teaching experience yes if they practice hard and enjoy it. It's not the hardest of instruments to learn in that when you learn where a note is you just press it in front of you (unlike brass where you need to learn how to find the note). It does require some coordination though, but like anything you don't necessarily dive in with hands together.

I've taught it for 17 years now 🎶

@babysharksb1tch She loves music, even singing. Ofcourse she doesn’t get Piona lesson for 11+ assessments. Just wanted to know if she has enought time to improve - as she only takes 30 mins lessons during school time. Wanted to know if she needs to take more lessons because she can not wait for her Piona lessons and she is happy to take 1 hour lesson in a week but I was thinking its a bit a lot - I don’t want her to get tired and bored of it.

@SunflowerDuck I would never want to put pressure to her - thats one of the reason I started this thread.

OP, it's so lovely that she enjoys it. Are her lessons 1:1? If so then that a week is absolutely plenty. The best thing to do is encourage her to practice little and often.

Be aware also that practicing piano can become boring, it's not a very social instrument. Encouraging her to join local choirs is a great way to improve her musicianship, especially if she loves singing. Could you reach out to the local music hub to see if they run any county music groups? Do you have a large concert hall that does outreach work? You could also go and see some live classical music and listen and name the instruments of the orchestra.

I have no idea about music scholarships as it's not an area I specialise in, I work with older kids with college/ university applications but I presume they would look at her general musical listening ability as well as her piano playing.

Agree with PP that one grade a year would be pretty good, anything over that is exceptionally talented.
To do Grade 6, students must have passed Grade 5 practical (ie playing) and theory (a fairly tough/comprehensive written exam in the theory of music). I think it would be quite hard for all but the most dedicated (and intelligent)10-11 year old musicians.

It depends which school but tbh I think having a music scholarship as an aiming point is odd.

At 6, if your dd loves music I would be thinking about a second instrument (musicians get better by playing in groups, so something orchestral probably) and opportunities to sing. If your dd is naturally musical and loves singing then a choristership will offer a first class musical education. (Also a much firmer path to music scholarships!)

I have a very musical child: he attended a pre-school music class for a couple of years, then an infants class, then started violin in Y1 and woodwind in Y3, and became a chorister in Y4. He has developed a whole load of musical skills and continues to love making music.

Oh, and woodwind grades are quicker, I think, particularly for the early ones. It took my dc two years to get to grade 1 on violin (but he did start very young) and then a grade a year, whereas he went to grade 1 woodwind in two terms and grade 4 two terms later. It was his second instrument though and he is music-obsessed.

@zib I don’t think that woodwind grades are necessarily quicker, as you said it was his second instrument and so he already had a lot of the skills needed to learn the instrument E.g reading music.

I agree with others (and Zib) that playing another instrument would be good too and experience playing with others.

It all depends:

on the school
on the cohort applying for a scholarship
on whether your dd has a musical aptitude
on whether she will want to apply for a scholarship

usually for a music scholarship you would present 2 instruments (one can be voice), but it isn’t done on grades alone, the scholarship day can be tough. My dd (presented cello/piano, but would now - 4 years later - present piano/voice in all likelihood) had to: prepare pieces in her chosen instruments. Play as part of an ensemble comprised of the ragtag lot that turned up for scholarship entry (so varied instruments - from cello to flute to harp plus voice etc), sight reading her part; had to arrange an instrumental piece as part of a group - this was set up so that the best arrangement meant each participant played their second instrument; an interview about her music interest and accomplishments; plus various other musical tasks over the day.

dd was grade 4 cello (age 10), which is a tough grade threshold (apparently - her teacher was delighted with her exam result) and grade 3 piano, but her ability in both instruments was a lot higher, she just had trouble taking the exams (ASD). She got her scholarship.

music scholarship is an odd one to be aiming for from initial music lessons, though. So much changes over the years at primary school - you might as well be aiming for an art scholarship, or a drama one (and why not an academic one?) at age 6. You really can’t tell what’s going to happen (dd would now enter for a drama scholarship rather than music, if she were to take the assessments now).

at age 6, I would have said ds would enter for an art scholarship(if I’d had to name one), but as it happens he will enter for drama (if he chooses to, still undecided)

Most kids that start playing an instrument drop it at some point. DD1 plays cello, but now she is 10 and has found other interests, it’s getting harder to encourage her to practice daily (and we only ask her to do 10 minutes, whereas her teacher wants her to do 20). I find that exams are part of the problem, as playing the same songs repeatedly to practice them sucks all the fun out of it. I wouldn’t concentrate on grades too much. Encourage her to play for fun.

Grades are just not important and often mean that a child has played the grade pieces to death but not been exposed to anything else. My sons both missed out quite a few grades while learning. DS1's first piano teacher (madly eccentric but brilliant 😁) didn't like grades at all, so the first piano grade DS1 did was 5 - but he'd learned a far wider range of music than grade pieces by that time.
Let your daughter just enjoy playing the piano and if she wants to do grades then let her. If she progresses well that's fine, but as lots of people above have said, not all children stick with it.
One last thing - the more your teacher focuses on sightreading the better.

I agree with everything people have said about children doing what they enjoy because otherwise they won’t practice and will end up resenting the instrument/lessons/you…

HOWEVER
all directors of music are thinking about their orchestras and ensembles. There are some instruments which they never have enough of. Or sometimes, any of. Eg violas, double basses, trombones, tubas, bassoons, harps, percussion. Your chances of a music scholarship are exponentially higher if one of your instruments is one of these - you will be useful to them in a way another pianist never is unless they are literally a prodigy.
Also - I don’t mean to belittle these instruments as I played one myself - but the grades are maybe less challenging. I passed grade 2,3 and 5 all with distinction within three years of starting the instrument, and I am definitely not a musical genius.

Although grades are not important for grades' sake alone, they do push the student to achieve harder technical levels that they might otherwise not attempt without taking grades. I think it's possible to become too hung up on grades, but after the first two, it's either going to be a serious journey to the higher grades or it's going to peter out at a level of probably grades 3-4. Mainly due to the amount of work and self discipline involved. Without a grade structure, there isn't the urge or pressure to achieve higher levels of ability within a certain timeframe.

I doubt many children (excepting the genuinely gifted and invested musicians) loves doing all the practice that's necessary to achieve the higher level grades (or indeed the lower level grades to be honest), but doing the grades and all the practice involved, no matter whether they feel like doing it or not, does install a type of discipline which is transferable to other areas of life.

It depends what you want to get out of it - a child who plays for fun but likely at a lower level if the practice is patchy, they aren't doing any technical elements such as scales and arpeggios (very necessary for building speed, strength and note placement memory) - or a child who can play to a high level but accepts the "fun" playing has to come after the serious practice has been completed, rather than instead of.

Most parents I know who have children who have gone through the grades would mostly agree that they had to nag, cajole and push their children through at least some of the practice at least for the first few years, and this is where most give up, but after that, it becomes ingrained and the children become good at self-starting.

My boys did grade 5 theory in years 4 and 5 - really not hard to get it done before the end of primary. The elder one studies with me for three weeks beforehand. The little one did grade 2 in year 3 as a warm up and then again a few weeks of cramming

Wow that's impressive Revenge! I think that it is definitely not the norm that a Year 4 aged 8-9 year old could comfortably pass that theory exam without too much effort though.

Mine did grade 5 theory in year 5. It was normal for choristers at this school to do it before end of Y6. It's no harder than KS2 SATS.

There's a big difference between Years 4, 5 and 6 though otherwise Year 4 could do SATS (I'm sure some could but not the norm). Also it depends on the quality of the music teacher for preparing students as they go along.

Anyway I don't dispute it's possible, of course it is, but I think it's misleading to suggest it's as easy as the Year 4 curriculum for an average child, especially from a non-musical family. Anyone who isn't familiar with it and wants a quick look to see what's involved can google Grade 5 Theory knowledge and will see the basic list of requirements as a starting point.

Is there not an alternative option called 'practical musicianship' that you can do as an alternative to grade 5 theory? There was in my day.

Very few people seem to take practical musicianship, but I know someone who did, because she was struggling with the theory.

Personally I agree that the theory isn't difficult if you know what you're doing. I still have my certificate from 1969 to show that I was 8 when I passed mine and I was/am by no means a genius - musical or otherwise.

Scholarships will be looking for musicianship and sight reading too as a large part of the assessment.

And yes, a second ensemble instrument would be good - and fun.