any other musicans against music exams for primary age kids?

[lingle]

I've decided that the whole Grade 1/Grade 2/Grade 3 etc,etc, thing is bad bad bad.

Anyone with me?

Reasons so far:

1. the kids end up learning 3 pieces a year, none of which they chose.
2. it's the ultimate in "teaching to the test"
3. the exam pieces are not chosen for the power to "reach" or communicate with the children's peers
4. being forced to follow an exam piece exactly as written discourages improvisation and creativity and excludes those who learn by ear not eye.
5. there seems to be a pandemic of children at our primary school who play 3 pieces correctly, yet are completely unable to play along with another child or "jam"
6. the first question kids seem to ask each other about their music lessons is "what grade are you on?" not - "what can we play together?"
7. In the case of the violin, I can personally testify that you can reach grade8 with whilst holding the bow completely incorrectly and making a harsh unattractive noise. So passing exams is not the same as having good technique.
8. music should be fun.

10. a child can't do serious work on pieces that attract or inspire them because, if they are "ready" for the next test, such focus on things they actually enjoyed would be delaying their competitive progress. 11. it must be bloody boring for music teachers.

I could go on....

Thanks Lingle that's great and really helpful.

I just wouldn't feel confident setting up a proper tuition business IYSWIM - technically I am only grade 7. I was doing grade 8, and then skipped that to start my DipLCM in teaching, but due to health the principal closed the school. Then I had DCs and moved etc so have never got back to it. I really deeply miss that part of my life.

We are seriously short of money ATM and my parents kindly said they may move the piano here for me if they can find someone. I was thinking of just asking around, and offering very cheap but fun lessons.

A few people here seem to think that just because children aren't being put through exams they aren't studying music properly.

Our local brass teacher doesn't believe in the grade system (because in this area brass was being examined by piano teachers, not brass) but has every year had someone go from a 800 pupil secondary school to the Royal Academy to study. The two (grades and musicianship) are not necessarily linked.

"The two (grades and musicianship) are not necessarily linked."

absolutely. in fact, the things you have to do to pass the bog-standard grades (can't speak for the jazz syllabus) tend to inhibit key parts of your musicianship.

Freudian - our teacher charges £10 for half an hour which is the bottom rate you'll find round here (Yorkshire commuter belt)

The idea that you learn 3 pieces a year is, as confidence said, the sign of a rubbish teacher. My dh is a musician and teacher. There is no way his pupils learn three pieces a year.

A couple of his pupils don't want to do exams and that is fine. He still follows the ABRSM exam structure with them, just doesn't do the exam.

You can looks it as any other academic subject. We don't all say let's not do maths exams and just make it fun....i'm not saying maths shouldn't be fun btw! If they want to go on to study music then you'll need those exams.

Mustdash - For ABRSM exams the examiner might not play the instrument they are examining for, whereas I think for Trinity (dh doesn't like their exams) you used to be examined by someone who plays that instrument, not any more as it was too difficult to arrange.

While we're at it let's get rid of swimming badges, ballet exams....

You don't have to do them.

"You can looks it as any other academic subject"

you can, I suppose, my goodness, what a shame to do so.

Yes but lingle you can't deny that it IS a discipine. Enjoyment is obviously vital and the point, but the more you can do the more you can enjoy it. And this involves learning tehniques which do not necessarily come naturally nor which are filled with fun per se.

I had to literally bribe DS1 not to give up piano round about Gd 1 as he was bored with practice. This got him past that point and he is now around Gd 4 and plays for fun by himself quite a bit. AND practises by himself without me having to stand there.

Confidence - my dh thinks your answers are spot on.

Lingle- for my dh music is an academic subject. He is fed up of it being sidelined as there is no time. It is hard work to learn the skills to play well. Learning an instrument influences other areas of academic life - improving academic performance, even when the child has had to miss a maths/english lesson to go to their music lesson.

Of course you should get enjoyment out of it and my ds2 loves to play in his orchestras. I can't say he gets enjoyment out of every practice session at home as it can be hard work. He plays well, but struggles with theory. That is when it seems like an academic subject. It is the same for football. He loves the match, but sometimes he might find the odd training session hard or not much fun, but we tell him he is learning the skills to play well in the match.

yes Katisha I do agree it is a discipline. My own poor playing is evidence of that! I've done a couple of years of remedial lessons now - and can almost play a long quiet note on the top string without fear! I did all the exams - but I feel the main technique the exams taught me was exam-passing technique.

I don't think acquiring technique has to be boring if it is the right technique, geared from the outset towards making a good rhythmic sound and being able to communicate with others. My girls are so far outside the middle class classical music culture - no one has told them scales should be boring and are practised alone, so they aren't bored of them and do them as a call-and-response. No one has told them you can't play Vivaldi if you can't read sheet music, so they play it anyway because they can hold it all in their heads (a fundamental musical skill that an examiner would - disgracefully - give them zero points for - zero!). No-one has told them that bowhold exercises are boring, so one of them actually got into trouble with her teacher because she is constantly doing them with a pencil in class - I had to go and explain what she was doing.

These girls are far from academically gifted and have to earn every bit of support from their families. Nor are they angels - far from it, given that they are 10 year olds. But they are fascinated by violin technique - they want to make the instrument sound like it should.

Any violin teacher would kill to have them, and I'm hoping to get some money for a proper teacher for them after they leave us. But I don't know if their enthusiasm would survive a switch to exam-based learning.

I'm a violin teacher and I think you'd be amazed at how the prospect of an exam makes kids practice. It's a good goal to work towards. It's not the be all and end all obviously but I do think that the exams provide a structure and also encourage healthy competition.

It's very hard to get kids to practice, especially scales and technique which are the building blocks of all playing. You can't improvise or jam very successfully if you cant play scales and arps in lots of keys. :)

point taken that it makes them practice

But isn't the real question why they don't want to practice?

As to jamming, you can jam using just open strings very successfully, I'm baffled as to why people think you wouldn't be able to. You just have to start by playing the bassline, or failing that a descant, while someone else plays the tune, then increase the complexity of the accompaniment, moving towards a full melody as your ability to use your left hand increases.

We've borrowed a couple of little cellos for a our school "orchestra" at present. By doing this, we've gathered solid evidence that any child with a good ear, whether they can play another instrument or not, can pluck a rhythmic bassline on a cello's open strings, copying a friendly adult. One non-instrumentalist even made a fuller contribution on cello than a trained child who simply doesn't listen to the other instruments. This is how rock guitarists start, after all.

one point I haven't acknowledged so far is that exams can be a substitute where there is no musical culture in a house, as there was none in my childhood home. My kids are lucky that there is a musical culture in our home - but I really try to replicate that when volunteering with the other kids at school.

I agree with OP

DS1 has been playing the guitar for 3 years and is amazing! No exams as his teacher doesn't believe primary school pupils should be doing any music exams but should be playing for enjoyment. DS2 started a few months ago and absolutely loves his guitar too.

That's what music is all about, playing for pure pleasure and not for a certificate

@ lingle,

seriously, though, I'd like to know how we got to this awful point in classical music learning. Are the exam boards or the parents to blame?

This is something I've thought about at some length. My thoughts FWIW:

1. Bach, Mozart and the lesser composers and musicians who did similar jobs in their day were trained in, and judged on, their ability to improvise and fluidly "play" with music just as much as their ability to play a score perfectly. In those days being a "musician" never meant being confined to this kind of straightjacket.

Then some time in the nineteenth century, and gathering pace in the twentieth, things became more specialised. Orchestral music became bigger and more complex; virtuoso pianists and violinists became more virtuosic. This gave rise to the performer who didn't compose (or at least understand the basics of composing through improvisation) and the composer who didn't perform - two hitherto unknown species.

Nowadays this is the standard. To have any kind of job, let alone a successful career, as a classical performing musician you need to reach such a phenomenal technical level that people end up concentrating all their energies on that and never finding time for anything else.

1. I also have a theory that, at least up until the changes in GCSE music etc from about the 1980s onwards, "music education" actually meant two discrete things that people never really consciously differentiated.

On the one hand it meant learning the skills and craft of how to play and/or compose music.

But on another level, it was part of an initiation into the upper middle class. Being able to discuss Beethoven or play the piano or violin was one of the badges that helped people be "in the club". And subscribing to the received wisdom that beethoven must, by definition, be superior to Duke Ellington or The Beatles was part of that. It had nothing to do with musical skill or insight: it was simply a signifier, not a thing of significance itself.

This fed the abiding presumption that "music education" must mean "classical music education". You couldn't "educate" people into popular music because that wouldn't give them any badge of class that they didn't have already. This was a great shame because it was popular music that took up the mantle of the all-round musician who could play, compose and improvise, after it fell away from classical music. Partly because there wasn't the same requirement for insanely high levels of technical performing skill.

This presumption has been challenged considerably in the last few decades, but is still remarkably strong in some circles. It tends to be strong among middle class parents because it reassures them that their kids are learning something measurable that will set them apart from others, rather than anything as woolly as "developing creativity". It's also strong among exam boards because they are, by nature, conservative institutions (the whole notion of "examining" people according to an unchanging standard being innately conservative).

On the other hand, and just playing devil's advocate to some extent:

You have to remember that "music" encompasses an incredibly wide field of activity, and WHATEVER you teach kids about it will probably omit the majority of that field. Yes, it's sad that a lot of kids learning classical grades don't have the ability to jam (yet). OTOH, the kids you're doing all that fascinating violin stuff with aren't learning the skills they will need if one day they want to join a professional orchestra.

Who's to say that the choices you're making about what to omit are better than the choices anyone else makes?

As I said originally I think this depends a lot on the individual student, and teachers, parents and schools need to be flexible and open minded. Systematic, exam-focused learning of classical music skills has a place to play where appropriate, but it shouldn't be seen as the only valuable path.

I have to say I agree. My heart sank when, the lesson after his Prep Test, DS1 was handed the book for his Grade 1 exam :(

DS1 is 8 and loves playing the piano, but I do feel that concentrating so hard on the exams might eventually dampen his enthusiasm. At the moment he practices the pieces for his lessons for 20 minutes a day and then is allowed to play whatever he wants. You can hear the change in enthusiasm when he moves on to playing what he wants. His current favourite is also Fur Elise Freudian, so far he is up to the 3rd page.

I don't recognise the description of "learning just 3 pieces a year" either. I didn't do exams until the very upper years, but did follow a similar program, but I certainly did many pieces, not just the exam ones. My teacher also had us choose a book of music if we wanted like pop songs, show tunes, Xmas carols, etc, to do in addition to classical music.

The assumption that children should want to play with each other, jam, compose, express etc, sounds a bit anti-classical-music to me. All those are great skills if that's what a child wants, but who's to say that they should be what music is about, any more than learning classical style? I'd have been so turned off music if I'd have had to do that. I was very shy, very unexpressive outwardly, and hated any sort of improvisation stuff. Yes, I wish there were aspects of it that I were better at, but certainly lessons like that would have put me off and I'd have quit early on. Structured, formal lessons suited me. I didn't want to do exams, and that was fine, but I still learned the technical requirements, a large selection of pieces, etc. Lots of effort was put into technique like bow hold and sound quality too - and as far as I know, that certainly does matter for exams! - but the point wasn't to learn it for passing exams, but to have a nice sound. I played in many orchestras and loved being part of a bigger group that my little sound could contribute to.

I didn't particularly find scales or exercises fun. There were lots of times that I didn't want to practise. But I'm very glad I persisted and was encouraged to. If things aren't fun, it doesn't mean that the child isn't getting a lot out of it still - much of it depends on the child's personality. I don't think I'd have found some of the methods described here fun at all either. The entire experience was enjoyable for me, particularly being able to be part of orchestras and bond with a group that way, but it doesn't mean I enjoyed every aspect of it.

I do wish I'd done more exams on violin as well as piano, because I can see now just how much use the technical requirements would be in further playing. All the arpeggios and scales and so on that seemed boring to me at the time, and that I didn't practise much because I didn't do the exams, would come in very helpful now for orchestra music. But I preferred to concentrate on pieces. I played things I liked. I played duets with my teacher. But I didn't do some of the things I found boring, whereas I did on the piano because I did them for exams, or at least, following an exam-style progression, whether or not I did each individual exam (I did some but not all). I generally enjoyed working for exams. My stage-fright let me down in terms of actually doing them, but I enjoyed the structure and method of them.

I had good teachers, for piano particularly, who were by no means exam focuses, even if they did do exams with children. Exams themsevles aren't the problem, but poor teaching is.

So I think it really depends on what a child's personality is like, and their musical goals. Some of us wanted a classical music education. Doesn't mean it's for everyone, but it doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with it, either. So we can't do some of the skills that you think are important - I doubt I'd have been able to do them anyway, and why should my interests and talents have been ignored? I'd have been a nothing in your sort of system, wouldn't have shown any talent, would have been unhappy with lessons, and wouldn't have ended up doing anything musical. I wanted to learn to play in an orchestra, to play classical music. There's room for lots of different approaches and skill sets.

Very interesting post confidence. Thank you!

I enjoyed my time working for grades. It motivated me to practise (a bit!) and I'm sure gave me skills I used in my orchestral playing. I think the grades work and playing in orchestras gave me different skills. Neither made me a fantastic musician, despite playing in proper symphony orchestras and reaching grade eight. But I could hold my own. I don't think either was responsible for me not being someone who could sit down with confidence and play for fun. I don't think I was ever going to be a jazz player. Not in my personality - I like to get things "right". But I adored the feeling of sitting "in" the music, preferably counting and please god no solos!! So did grades hurt me? Don't think so. Was my musical education worthwhile? Absolutely. I think a balance of ensemble playing and individual piece work is probably ideal. And exams are a great motivator as long as they aren't all you do and you don't judge a person's musical ability solely on them. Someone with great musicality is likely to do well in exams, others without might also do well.

Just a view from a parent whose children learn clarinet in school, from a peripatetic teacher from the county music service.

They don't do 'music exams' as I remember them (learn 3 pieces and some scales, stand in a hall on your own with an unknown examiner and have to play them, do some sightreading and rhythm clapping and leave in a blue funk). However, they do work through 'levels'.

The way this seems to work is that the music service has proiduced a series of books, each with 20+ pieces in and some scales. The books contain a huge variety of music, and in addition their teacher gives them trios and duets (as their lessons are group lessons). I suppose there are probably 2 books per level, but the children don't play every piece in every book - DS loves jazzy pieces so he will play all the jazz and some other stuff, DD is at a lower level but seems to like the smooth song-style pieces so she will probably do more of those.

The teacher continuously assesses their progress against the requirement for the level - composition, conducting, performing, reading music, scales etc - and toward the end of their work on the level will ask them to do more work on 3 particular pieces from that level for perhaps 3 weeks to get them to 'performance' standard. I as parent also have to sign a declaration that they practise regularly and (for the most recent level for DS) at least a specified number of times (4) per week.

They then get a certificate to say they have completed the level. I recently booked DS onto a county music jazz course and they accept levels or grades as equivalent, so there is no issue about needing 'grades' to get into ensembles.

I love this system, as the continuous assessment keeps the children moving forward all the time at their own pace, they learn a wide variety of music (both solo and duets / trios / quarters), never have a 'high stakes' exam and have a reason to keep practising all the time. They have made more progress than I could have believed possible in 25 minute group lessons weekly in school and more importantly have a real love for music and their instrument. They also love performing, never having had it equated with testing, and DS was an unexpected star of the school concert last year (being chiefly known for being a very good footballer, his musicianship was unexpected to most!).

very interesting points confidence.

I'm sure it depends, to a certain extent, on the child and why they are playing music in the first place - but for myself, grades would have stopped me dead. As it was, I played my way through all the 'grade' pieces and many, many more during my piano years - lots of fun, and I wan't bad at it. Never intended a career in music, did learn to read music and count perfectly well without exams, did eventually transfer my music skills to enjoying other instruments/voice and have nothing but warm memories of my music lessons.

Lingle, jamming with open strings is fine but not really what I would call much of a jam!
It's all well and good until you want to play with a sax player who mainly plays in flat keys or play along to your favorite pop tune which will never be in D major.

No I'm sorry but you do need to practice scales and have the ability to play in lots of keys to get the most out of being a musician and playing an instrument.

I certainly think they're not the be-all and end-all, and am quite keen for DD1 (8) not to be pressured into exams too early. I'm yet to be convinced of their usefullness before Grade 3, and after that it's certainly not essential to do every single one - they're not exactly cheap either are they!

Disclaimer - I'm not a professional musician, nor a music teacher, but DF and DB are musicians, and I work with a lot of them !

To clarify about DD and exams - she's been learning the piano for about a year, and came home a few months ago with the ABRSM Prep Test book. I sent a note in to the teacher saying that I was very happy for her to learn the pieces, but wasn't keen on exams at such an early stage. So the next week the teacher sent home a book of easy duets, which we have been having brilliant fun playing together!

Her singing lessons OTOH, happen in a group of four at school, and the four of them are working towards Grade 1, which I am fairly relaxed about.