Music GCSE and A level

[Doloresvivamarie]

My daughter informs me that in order to do Music GCSE and A level, certain grades have to be achieved in their chosen instrument. For instance she thinks Grade 4 is needed for an instrument to do GCSE music.

Has anyone's DC done GCSE with a singing Grade 4 and does the mark of the Grade (pass, merit or distinction) affect GCSE final mark?

Thanks Dolores

They arent tied together at all. Completely separate exams and the gcse board has no way of knowing what music exams people have done.

dd was told that she needs to be able to play a grade 4 piece to an excellent standard to get an a*. I don't know about singing.

OK, that is very interesting.

Thank you

D

I did GCSE music (with the last 10 years!). I was about grade 6/7 on my first instrument but was advised to do a grade 5 piece really well as that would achieve higher marks that a grade 7 piece that was done ok.

The GCSE has nothing to do with external music exams e.g. ABRSM it just needs to be a grade 4 standard piece for the GCSE exam.

At A level it was a bit different as grades 6 and above were equivalent to additional UCAS points and the pass/merit/distinction was worth more points.

Has your daughter done any singing grades? Singing grades are far less challenging than instrumental grades. I think your daughter needs to be grade 5 by the end of the course rather than the start of the course to get a good grade.

What is her music theory like? Singing is a different sort of challenge as you need to know the pieces off by heart. My son is working towards grade 5 singing and grade 3 guitar. Grade 5 singing is WAY easier.

She is Grade 3 in violin and singing.

She likes both, but singing is more her thing.

She is very likely to do GCSE Music so good to have all your advice.

In that case she may find she gets better performance marks on the violin. A reasonable G4 standard violin performance will get her a better mark than a reasonable G5 singing performance - so much more is required if voice is your instrument.

At my son's school the requirements for GCSE music are that the student can read music and play to grade 2 standard. They don't have to have taken any exams but they need to have some existing musical ability to start with. If you have a school with a lot of pupils wanting to do music then it's possible that they have set the entry requirements higher to cut the numbers down.

You might check what syllabus the school follows and whether there is a performance component and what the expected standard is. This requirement might well be just a pragmatic criteria that that school wants in order to make sure that pupils stand a good chance of getting a good mark in perf and hence overall. When I did Music O level (yes that old) there was no perf and it was totally independent of my grade work. I think the point is that while the official grade mark in e.g. an ABRSM exam, probably plays no role in the GCSE assessment, the standard of performance in the performance part does. Does anyone know if any GCSE syllabus actually fold in an ABRSM or other grade mark - then the link would be more explicit.

I looked at the AQA syllabus a few months ago (at options time), it's roughly one third composition, one third performance and one third essay writing. The performance is marked on the difficulty of the piece and how well it's delivered so you could get the same marks for an excellent but easy piece as for a more challenging piece played less well. For GCSE the difficulty goes up to grade 5 standard so there are no extra marks for playing anything harder than that. A slightly wobbly piece of grade 6 standard will get you less marks than a well played grade 5 piece because you maxed out on the difficulty level. I think the difficulty at A level goes up to grade 7 standard but I'm not altogether sure about that, it's further away and was not an immediate concern for me. For maximum performance marks the school would like to be submitting a class full of players of grade 5 standard, asking for grade 4 to start with gives them two years to get there. If your DC has grade 3 violin now she'll be grade 4/5 standard come GCSE time so she should be a strong candidate.

If you find out what syllabus they do it will probably be on line for you to study and you'll get a clearer idea of what it involves.

The difficulty of the performance piece is weighted 1, 1.5 & 2

You can only achieve the highest marks on a performance piece weighted 2 which is generally grade 4

It is better to play a relatively easier piece so if the student is grade 7 but plays a grade 5 piece perfectly they will get higher marks than a grade 7 piece played with mistakes

My daughter's teacher recommends one grade below current level

Music is a bit of a weird one. Both DCs did GCSE music and both were grade 8 standard when they did the exam. Performance only counts for 1/3 of the marks the rest are on oral/written tests and composition. One DC achieved a B despite playing a piece which would achieve a distinction had it been played in a ABRSM grade 8 exam because written paper was not so good. Other DC got a D in one unit even though DC achieved grade 8 with distinction the year before. We appealed and it was up graded but not everyone feels able to appeal.
In the examiners report for OCR Music last year it was commented students needed to play above and beyond the standard expected of the GCSE to achieve the top grade which is nonsense, as the top grade should be awarded if you reach the standard required for GCSE not A level. The whole thing felt a bit arbitrary in the end.
On a brighter note youngest DC discovered a passion for composition he would have never done if he had not done GCSE music
Both have gone on to do A level. One plans to do Music at Uni.

My friends' dd has just taken GCSE music (predicted an A or A*) and has never taken a music exam in her life.
She is an excellent guitarist, but picked up a lot of if on-line, and never entered any exams - so, no, as far as the exam board goes you don't need to have any particular grade.
The school may use it as a 'benchmark' though, to indicate the kind of level of performance they will need to get a good grade.

DD2 did Music GCSE and she didn't play an instrument or do any singing music exams. She chose singing and got B in her GCSE. She is now 24 so a few years ago and B was still thought of as a very good grade.

My dd has been told the same thing; aim to have grade four by the start of year ten in order to feel confident of a good grade.