aural help please!

[Soveryupset]

Hi, my dd1 got a merit in her g3 violin exam but actually scraped a pass in the aural. It is all our fault as neither the teacher or us at home covered it much.

Is it worth signing her up to singing lessons for the future? Would that help? I bought the practice book from abrsm but wonder whether it's going to be enough...?

why didn't the teacher cover it ? There is an abrsm app which dc have found useful.

Hi Lizs I looked at the app but I thought it only worked with iPads and we don't have an iPad...

Why the teacher didn't cover it is a whole different story...let's just say that we are moving her but in the meantime I wanted to make sure this is something we can maybe do something about to help her catch up?

A decent teacher should cover this. I don't think singing lessons are necessary. I managed Grade 5 flute and passed the aural with only a small bit of practice during my lessons (not comprehensively because my teacher didn't play the piano, so I couldn't really do the conducting time etc). Just practice playing chords on the piano and getting her to sing notes back, playing short tunes for her to remember and sing back etc.

Wouldn't bother with singing lessons - spend your money on the aural test practice books with CD's to practice from.
Encourage dc to sing at home , in the car , when practicing, as much as possible.
Good luck.

Oh - make sure you get the correct exam board books as the requirements are quite different!!

We work through the exam board books/cd in the 2 months leading to the exam - and when we meet something tricky, get the piano teacher involved...

it is all just about general musicality, rhythm and listening.... lots of listening to and lalala-ing to music here, not much actual teaching, but she generally only loses one or 2 marks for the (ABRSM) aural test...

As your DD will be moving onto grade 4 or 5 next, I would suggest getting the Aural Training in Practice book for testing herself in the different parts. She will need to know how to sight sing as well so it may be worth her while joining a choir to get some practice.

She also needs to be familiar with the features of Baroque, Classical, Romantic and 20th Century music so get her to listen to Radio 3 or Classic FM occasionally either while you're taking her somewhere in the car or during breakfast.

Whenever she listens to any music (not just classical), try and get her to tap the beat. I sometimes do this with DS (9) who claims that he hates piano but even I can get him to count the beats of a piece of pop music when it comes on the radio and it helps. The last one he counted correctly was "Moves like Jagger".

I found this website very helpful too.

Also don't panic too much...

I spent extensive amounts of time working with two grade 1 students on sightreading last term; they both scored 13 on it, despite merits overall - i.e. just a fail. It happens. The violinist told me she played the whole thing on the wrong string, which is why it sounded okay to me (I was listening outside the room - she played confidently and with good rhythm at least, and knew what she'd done wrong when she came out!). I guess no amount of practise can compensate for doing something daft on the day!

I do, however, make sure we do loads of aural in the lessons, though I don't insist on extra lessons for it. Singing lessons will only help if confidence in general is an issue, vocal quality is not being assessed.

Thankyou for all the suggestions!!!

There are some very useful books called Aural Test Survival Book - one for each grade from 1 to 8 for ABRSM.

They have lots of tips and useful information and are only a few pounds each. Only a part of the aural tests are singing so I wouldn't spend money on lessons, and AB make it clear that it's accuracy of rhythm and pitch which matter, not quality of sound.