Musical Grading and my Experiences

This week I will be talking about my musical grading and experiences. I have passed both grade 1 and 2 in my clarinet practical exams and will be doing my grade 4 at the beginning of next year. I must admit its quite scary to stand there in a room with an examiner who has a blank expression on their face, as you're left with the suspense of "did I do well or was that horrible?" but other then that it's not too bad apart for the other down side of having to worry about playing your pieces correctly and remembering all the scales and arpeggios which you have to do.

 There are many academies you can do your exams through and I did mine through ABRSM which stands for the Associated Board of the Royal School of Music.

When going into the exam room you are with an examiner from England. First they start off with you doing scales and arpeggios, then they move onto the aural training. "Ear training or aural skills is a skill by which musicians learn to identify, solely by hearing, pitches, intervals, melody, chords, rhythms, and other basic elements of music." After this they move onto sight reading, which is where they give you a short piece to read over for about a minute (no playing though it, just analysing) and once that minute is up you need to play through it as best you can. In my opinion I like the sight reading the least because of the fact that the examiner keeps a complete poker face during the piece, which is rather nerve wrecking if you ask me. Once all of this is done, you finally get to play through your pieces. two being pieces with accompaniment and the third being a study, this is a prepared piece which is played alone. After months of anticipation you finally get your results. :)

ABRSM logo