Another music GCSE question

[bookmarket]

I don't want to detail the other thread so I am starting a new one.

DD is in Y10 and takes music GCSE. She plays piano grade 4 standard and is working towards grade 5.

She's finding the music theory difficult and starting to hate the GCSE. My DH and I had no music education as children. DD started piano at almost 9. Her GCSE class is small and all the other students are music scholars, having started playing instruments at a very young age with the reinforcement of lots of music at prep school. This is not my DDs background. She's actually pretty good at the composition side and performance.

Due to lockdown, classes are now all theory and DD is losing her way as the lessons are taught to the highest children's ability. Which is everyone else but my DD.

I am sure it is just because of lockdown that they are having to do exclusively theory and perhaps tearing ahead with that part of the course so they have plenty of time for the other parts, and revision when they are back in school. But I don't want my DD to disengage and dread the lessons.

tl:Dr Can someone point me in the direction of videos or resources which will help my DD get her head around the theory required for music GCSE.

Thank you

I did GCSE music a while ago now, but I doubt it's changed a lot! While I was probably more like the other kids in your daughter's class I really sympathise with her position and hope this doesn't cause her to disengage!
I'm guessing a lot of the other students will have done grades in music theory which would give them an advantage. She could look at the ABRSM workbooks, I think they're called music theory in practice. Start at grade one and work from there. Hope that helps!

I can’t answer the GCSE question but my kids although much younger have recently been working on Grade 5 music theory (one passed with Distinction, the second will take it soon). The new ABRSM books that have come out recently called Discovering Music Theory are quite good and come with answer books (some errors in there though). Could you afford a tutor because a lot of it is simple easy building blocks you memorise and then apply (for example, writing out an interval and circle of fifths/mnemonics).

Also try mymusictheory.com and musictheorynet

Yes, as others have pointed out, anyone else who has gone beyond grade 5 would have done the grade 5 theory exam and so already covered the theory part of music GCSE. Could you afford a tutor for her? That would help immensely I think.

I did gcse music (a long time ago) and sounds like it hasn’t changed much! There were the abrsm books which were helpful. This was really common when I was at gcse - lots of students who hated the theory!

Hi I'm a music teacher teacher - piano, cello theory and gcse and a level! Feel free to pm if you'd like some advice x

Is she still having her practical lessons, it’s important to engage with the aspects of music she finds fun.

She is having an online private piano lesson and she practice splaying through the week, both her grade pieces and music she has chosen that she wants to learn.

@bookmarket

She is having an online private piano lesson and she practice splaying through the week, both her grade pieces and music she has chosen that she wants to learn.

Good the music she chooses herself is equally important as the grade pieces, this improves the sight reading and puts the theory that is important to her into practice and keeps it an enjoyable thing to do.

At grade 5 she is probably much better at the gcse theory than she thinks but it’s often just understanding exactly what they’re asking. Maybe get one of the gcse revision guides and ask her piano teacher to take 5 minutes every now and then to explain any bits she doesn’t understand.

Thank you. I think she's suffering due to perceiving herself as the worst in the class, so yes, I agree, she's probably not as bad at the theory as she thinks. She tends to switch off from things when she thinks she is not good at something rather than dig deep and try harder to get it.

I think you need to alert the school to the situation. It sounds like the teacher hasn't realised that she's struggling with this side of it, and doesn't have as much prior knowledge. They've probably forgotten that she hasn't necessarily done grade 5 theory, and if she holds her own with the rest of the syllabus and is just about managing the current work, they probably haven't realised what a challenge it is for her. Hopefully, if you let them know, they can offer her more support. Working through the ABRSM theory books might help, and they could perhaps support her with that.

I know someone who teaches grade 5 music theory in a seven-hour online course (four Sunday afternoon sessions). That assumes the sort of knowledge she'll have acquired up to grade 4 piano. Obviously it's targetting the content for the ABRSM exam, rather than GCSE, but it might be a good booster. There may well be other people doing similar. (Look for someone with experience of teaching - there are a lot of musicians out of work at the moment, and so probably more people offering teaching - some are bound to be very good, but you may be safer with someone with a track record.)

I can never recommend the "take grade 5 and pass first time" book enough. It was invaluable to me nearly 20 years ago and I still use it to supplement teaching theory.

Explains everything for ABRSM grade 5 (& thus GCSE) really clearly and logically. A level however...

I think this is quite a common problem. You will often have GCSE music students who are outperforming GCSE standard because they started playing their instruments at an early age. But to do well at GCSE this is not a requirement so students who came to it later can feel like they're not good enough. It's important to keep the GCSE requirements in mind. My son is doing A level music and in a similar position. He has done his grade 7 and will most likely get an A or B for his music A level but some of his classmates are heading for conservatoires so he can sometimes feel inadequate. But I'm sure a bit of extra theory work will help with confidence. Good luck .

Just to say I was very similar in school.
I wasn’t much cop at theory at all, although performance and composition was fine. Took exams to grade 5 and then stopped because they gave me panic attacks 😂
Performed in an award winning concert band from 11 to 22, and still absolutely crap at theory. Don’t really know the names of the different notes and never have.
But my point is, it’s perfectly possible to get a really good grade at GCSE (I got an A) without being shit hot at the theory, so don’t let her get too hung up on it!

The Muso app is good for getting the basics right and practising theory, she could start at G1 and work up.

Just popping on to add Dd was a late starter to music. She only passed theory winter of year 11. She came out with a 9 in the end (a calculated grade but coursework and composition submitted).

Perhaps it is best to have a word with Teacher. Extra theory lessons for Dd were provided as part of an extracurricular club. Dd also worked really hard doing past papers and using the websites mentioned above. She is catching up with those early starters to music and is very self-motivated probably because she has had to teach herself so much to catch up...we certainly couldn't help! She hopes to read Music next year at Uni.

Sorry a 9 in GCSE not theory .

Which exam board is it?

I think teaching purely theory to year 10 is rubbish at the moment. I am doing full on live lessons with mine. I teach the Eduqas spec where there are 2 set works. Last term, we looked at both. Since lockdown, mine have collaborated on producing revision resources on the first one and done a fantastic job. Only around 5 out of 29 have passed grade 5 theory. So what? You don't need it for GCSE.

The listening/theory is 40% of the total exam. If your DD aces her performances and composition, she could well be sitting on full marks before doing any listening. In your position, I'd be getting hold of the text book and practising lots of listening-style questions. I tell my lot to stick Classic FM on for 20 minutes and ask themselves what instruments or voices they can hear. What time signature or metre is the music in? Is it major, minor, modal or atonal (not covered in G5 Theory!) What form is the music in? What about the texture? Form, texture and half of tonality is not in the Theory spec. Yes, it's good if they have it, but practical musical skills are equally if not more important.

Feel free to PM me if you like.

"Only around 5 out of 29 have passed grade 5 theory. So what? You don't need it for GCSE."
I think the problem here is that the group has a very different make-up; 9 out of 10 having done grade 5 theory and probably higher practical grades, and the teacher is forgetting that they need to go a bit slower for the sake of the tenth. (Form, texture and tonality aren't in grade 5 theory, but they are in ABRSM higher grade aural tests, so the same issue arises that most of this class already have some experience.)

I'm amused to see your suggestion of Classic FM - I've always reckoned that having Classic FM on in the car has been excellent for aural practice - a new piece every few minutes, and DD is used to me asking questions about it. I'm also realising that we've been missing out over the last year because I haven't had to ferry DD anywhere.

I do get the impression on mumsnet that some schools prefer to only teach to established musicians. For example, I have read threads where it is insisted that students are at Grade 5 before they start. This seems a great shame for the more inexperienced musicians. Granted that Dd school do a three year GCSE..they we're able to support newer musicians and they did very well out of it.

You need to get in touch with her school music teacher and alert them to how much your DD is struggling. It may not be that she is being as actively disregarded as your OP suggested but that the teacher isn't aware. In the mean time, get your DD to look at the GCSE music resources on Bitesize and on Seneca. She could also make a playlist of all the set pieces to listen to so she becomes more familiar with them. If she does this with the music in front of her and gets used to using notes from class so she knows what to listen out for, that will help too.

If she is still worried and the teacher isn't able to offer any additional reassurance, is there an older student who has done the same course within the past couple of years who you could employ to go through things with your DD via Zoom?

There's an excellent book called Take 5 and pass 1st time. It's aimed at grade five theory students but explains it all very clearly and is full of tips which take the mystery out of it all.

There's YouTube tutorials for the abrsm theory exams, but might be for her gcse board.

Being honest she may struggle, my DD's school mandated grade 6 (or teacher assessed at that level) for gcse. The performance mark is on quality and scaled for complexity. My dd had taken grade 5 theory before doing gcse so found that side easy

Thank you everyone for your expert responses. It is much appreciated. I don't have time today to digest it all and write a response to you, but I will look closely at what you have shared and see what will work best for my DD.

@lanthanum you are correct about the higher grades Aural tests, but in my experience, instrumental/vocal teachers spend very very little time covering form, texture, timbre etc as it's only a couple of marks on the aural. Plus they use terms such as thick and thin for discussing texture whereas the board I use prefers monophonic, homophonic, polyphonic & heterophonic.

I might have stated this on the other thread but there does seem to be a big divide between state and private schools in their recruitment for Music GCSE. Lots of private schools seem to insist on Grade 5 theory and grade 5 practical to start the course. I suppose they have the funds to run the course even if there are only 2 people taking it. In the state system, it's bums on seats that counts. I have taught several self-taught musicians, some of whom have done very well, but it is a shame that they are up against those schools who have weeded out their contemporaries & equivalents at an early stage.