I have had to soften my anti music exam stance a bit... but only a bit

[lingle]

A year ago I had a big ranty thread saying why I thought music exams were a really bad thing for younger children www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/1189631-any-other-musicans-against-music-exams-for-primary-age-kids and found lots of people agreed.

DS1's piano teacher then told me she wouldn't teach him any more unless he entered for his grade 2...... Ds1 had to choose... I lined up an alternative teacher...but he chose to take the exam. And I have to confess it was a positive experience.

Things that made it positive were:

1. it was his choice and he had genuine options (I had an alternative teacher )
2. we went through not just the main but the alternative lists and chose the pieces that we as a family could all bear hearing for a long time.
3. he'd been playing pieces a little above that level for a while.
4. he's nine and very mature for his age
5. his teacher felt that practising the scales strengthened his fingers.
6. we all knew, him, me, teacher, that once this was over she wouldn't be suggesting any more exams till grade 5.

Things I would change are:

1. I'm so glad this is an isolated experience for him because it seems to really encourage the children just to think about themselves.
2. I hated having to temporarily undo his good habits. For instance, if he gets lost, it is second nature for him to keep the thread in his head and start again at a later place - as you would in an orchestra. But for a piano exam you can't skip five bars of your piece so you have to do the awful "stop and hesitate and do it again thing".
3. I think the technique in the scales could be learned in a more interesting musically varied way. We played them in thirds, we started at the top, we accompanied each other.
4. I hated the way the exam encouraged him to be so self-centred. I think it would be nice to have a jamming element. The examiner plays three well-known tunes, the child chooses the one they like best, the examiner tells the child what key it is in, and the child then joins in using mainly tonic but getting extra points for being able to switch to dominant/subdominant at appropriate times. But keeping the pulse is the main thing. It could be done instead of the aural tests (after all, it isn't a singing exam).

I think you used to be able to do no. 4 (or something similar) instead of scales. Dh did it. But they stopped allowing it because so few people wanted to do it.
Not sure why it makes them "self centred" either. Could you explain it?
You can play back the aural instead of singing as well.

I'm not sure no. 2 is necessarily "a good habit". Yes if you're only playing in an orchestra, but if you do any solo work surely it's not helpful? It would be best to be able to have an "orchestral technique" and a "solo technique" and to be able to do either, according to what you're doing, I'd have thought.

Now what are you going to say when your 9yo anounces he wants to do grade 3?

LOL about grade 3 - I'll have to start another thread!

It will be classic stealth boasting "oh poor me, my son insists on taking piano exams". :)

re self-centred. I feel that if everyone gave preeminence to "keeping going so you don't knock the listener off course" then that would be a more giving, more audience-friendly approach, even for solo work. Some of the children at school think DS1 is far far more advanced than he really is. They think this because at last year's "recital" he covered up all his mistakes without compromising the pulse for one moment - so everyone enjoyed his performance. Nearly all the others slowed down or stopped when they got to a tricky bit. It's not their characters, it's that they are not being taught to think about the listener in the performance situation.

I was always taught to keep going and an ABRSM examiner I know says that it is much better to keep going and cover a mistake than to stop and start again. Of course you would be penalised for missing 5 whole bars but fudging a few notes and keeping going (keeping the pulse is very important) will get much better marks that having to slow down or start again

Thank you for linking to that thread. It was a very interesting read and has made me think.

Firstly the subject of music exams. My main opposition to them is that they can so easily take over as the primary motivation for learning an instrument. I've been reading quite a bit recently about intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation and can't help thinking that practising pieces, scales and aural skills for the sake of getting a distinction, or whatever, is very much an extrinsic goal.

As a 33 yo professional musician, I still struggle with the idea that my job on stage is to entertain and communicate and that the audience is not there to find fault with my playing. Even the (local) newspaper critics see their function as being to make people feel that they missed something by not attending the concert being reviewed. Of course this mindset is partly a result of years spent at music college, where performance classes are seen as an opportunity to criticise ones fellow students, and lots of auditions, where unsuccessful applicants have the opportunity afterwards to be told their failings based on the five minutes of playing in a state of near-panic that the panel have just listened to. But it started earlier in a system where progress is measured by passing exams.

The teachers described on the other thread who focus on termly concerts sound great. I'd like to see much more emphasis on encouraging kids to become confident performers and all-round musicians (that is, after all, the point of sight-reading and aural skills).

Secondly (although this is less relevant to this thread) I think approaching aural training from a jam/improvisation base is clearly better than the way I, at least, learned. (This has been the big revelation of the morning for me .) It is sooo much easier to internalise the sound and feel of a 12-bar blues harmonic progression and then learn some labels for the chord relationships, than to be taught the terms through theory or with constant reference to printed music.

Thirdly, like DeWe, I want to comment on your point no. 2. I actually think it is a very good habit and I remember being praised for "keeping going rhythmically" when I temporarily found my fingers on the wrong keys during a piano exam and had to get myself back on track. In fact, I can't remember a single teacher ever telling me that it was better to stop and replay, except as a last resort.

X-posted.

Yy "think about the listener"

Nice to meet you silkenladder, thanks for the interesting post. So encouraged to know that a professional likes the exam-jam idea.

"As a 33 yo professional musician, I still struggle with the idea that my job on stage is to entertain and communicate and that the audience is not there to find fault with my playing." Yes, I have friends like that. I'm a ropey grade 7, they are diploma standard, when we play in a quartet they would never ever dream of judging me - yet they judge themselves all the time to the point that I wonder if they are enjoying playing.

Ha, ha, lingle, my instinctive response to your "exam-jam" was actually "oh no, how terrifyingly horrendous". Then I read the other thread and thought about how much my aural skills have improved since I have been playing jazz (18 months) and how crap they were when I was a teenager taking those exams. It made me think about how I was taught to recognise tonic, subdominant, dominant, etc, which was basically as an academic exercise and primarily for the purpose of passing the aural component of ABRSM exams.

Tbh, though, those particular aural skills tested in those exams are not the ones I use in my orchestral, chamber music or even teaching work. So I was mainly thinking theorectically about how they could be taught more naturally (but, I suppose, still with the goal of passing those exams in mind).

I like the guitarists' way. Lots of three-chord songs, a fourth chord pops up occasionally. After a while they just start to be able to tell. A move to chord V feels wrong - they try IV, it feels right, they get more confident...the special fourth chords take longer.... it's all very natural.

Yes, that way sounds ideal. I'm going to have to do some thinking about how I can incorporate some basic improvisation into my lessons - maybe start with some call and response stuff?

I must say I find it slightly amusing that you describe yourself as "a ropey Grade 7" and then go on to say how self-critical your diploma-standard friends are . It's polite, after all, not to blow one's own trumpet and people who talk about their successes constantly, or name-drop a lot are usually seen as insufferable (or trying to mask a lack of confidence).

Qualifications aside, in any case if you can keep up with your chamber music pals, then you're hardly a lesser musician than they are. It may take you longer to master a piece if your technique is less practised, but the more important qualities in an ensemble are being able to keep in time, in tune and to blend well sound-wise.