# Non music qualifications compared to music exams.



## Jaws

Just had a bad experience of an adult boasting about passing a grade exam. Have come to the conclusion that many adults here in the UK can't calibrate the standard of grade exams compared to general adult advanced education, or music exams compared to professional orchestral musicians, so I will try to show how the exams for a musician compare to a degree in any other subject. 

In terms of a degree, grade 8 is an exam that you would take at school before you start at university. It is the kind of exam that might help you to get a place by showing that you had other interests, but which would not be counted towards your entrance qualifications. It is similar to any badges that you might have got for swimming, or a dancing exam. 

Generally or on average an " A" diploma like dip ABRSM or ALCM or ATCL would be the equivalent of an exam that you would take either at school before you start your degree or at the absolute latest before the end of the 1st year. So easier than an end of first year degree exam. The " L" diplomas like LRSM, LTCL, and LLCM might be sometime during the 2nd year so like an extra exam in the second year of an undergraduate degree. The "F" diplomas like FRSM, FTCL and FLCM might be in the 3rd year so a bit like an extra exam in a 3rd year of a degree course, but not as difficult as the end of degree exam. 

Someone studying medicine has several more than 3 years of study to complete their time as an undergraduate. A student hoping to become a professional musician would also have several more years of study after FRSM, which is the last music exam. 

It is important to remember that for school students end of school exams like A levels, grade exams and the lower music diplomas are the highest achievements at school. Equally it is important to remember that these exams form the bottom of the achievements possible in adult education. So an adult boasting about their school achievements in front of other adults with 1st and 2nd degrees would be regarded as maybe a bit juvenile or even very stupid. This is why it is a very good idea for adults who have taken grade exams as adults not to tell other adults about them, as this comes over as someone who thinks that everyone is interested in what they achieved in their school exams. 

Most adults are interested in each others work and lifestyle not what they did at school.


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## Head_case

?

Not sure why you're so hung up on this. Exams aren't important. Well, maybe driving exam is an exception....as are medical exams...eye exams...dental exams


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## Jaws

Head_case said:


> ?
> 
> Not sure why you're so hung up on this. Exams aren't important. Well, maybe driving exam is an exception....as are medical exams...eye exams...dental exams


The problem is that I keep coming across people who seem to believe that a very basic beginners exam called grade 8 here in the UK gives them a qualification that makes them almost professional musicians. They can't seem to get the point that someone carrying out a medical exam, eye exam and dental exam would be better qualified than an 18 year old school leaver, and so would a professional musician. I wondered if the reason that people couldn't calibrate grade 8 exams in the UK was because there weren't any adult qualifications to compare them to. There is a reason for this as well. Grade exams were not designed to be taken by adults.

The other problem is that here in the UK the adults that take exams are usually the people who are not getting on very well. The ones that are getting on well don't have time for exams as they are too busy having been asked to play in groups. So those people who do take the exams are likely to find them quite difficult. They then confuse difficulty with standard. Just because some people take 8 years to pass grade 8 doesn't mean that it is a high standard exam. Some people can pass it in 2 years. So I wondered if comparisons with adult qualifications might help people work out that grade 8 is a very low standard in terms of adult education, but a high standard in terms of under 18 education.

Adults who boast about having passed grade 8 clearly don't realise how low the standard of the exam is. The interesting thing is that no one ever seems to boast about how many A levels they have passed or the grades that they got. It is also clear to me that teachers of adults never explain the limitations of the grade exams. If the limitations were explained I can't see why any adult would want to take any of these exams, let alone boast about passing one.


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## Head_case

I think some people (horrible adults!) take the exams for the same reason, people like to pay money to have big long letters after their name: some kind of false sense of prestige; delusional sense of importance; social sense of belonging to an elite club (which they pay a yearly subscription).

Such adults need things like pieces of paper to validate their poor standard of playing lol. It's not worth letting such people get to you. Sure they might have their grade exams - if they're boasting about it, then thank goodness they have their grade exams! Otherwise they would be even more insecure without them 

I saw a kid in concert who hasn't gone through puberty who plays Grade 7 piano and is a concert pianist when he's not on Playstation. It's not that he's 'only' Grade 7. He's miles beyond it...his intonation and subtle crafstmanship but that's just the listed standard he's at.

Of course - professional musicians aren't interested in Grade exams. Most rockstars like Jethro Tull, never even sat Grade 1, but sold more than Emmanuel Pahud (world class concert flutist who did Grade equivalent exams as a schoolboy) has ever done. Here's what he says about his flute background:

http://www.j-tull.com/musicians/iananderson/equipment.html

Jethro Tull is really funny - scroll down to the 'How to play the flute' part of his biography. After recording Bach's Bourrée and selling loads of classic flute rock albums, he pays his daughter to start taking Grade exams to learn how to play the flute, this is what he recollects:



> "Oh no, Daddy," came the swift and deflating response: "That's not how you play an E. You have to have your little finger there on that funny key down at the bottom at the same time. And you don't put your first finger on the left hand down for that D in the second octave. Oh, Daddy! Get a life. Or a second job." (Actually, I'm making that last bit up, but you get the drift).


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## Lunasong

I very much enjoyed reading the ramblings of Ian Anderson re flute. Thanks for the link.



> it's all too easy to get caught up in the never-ending search for the unattainable when the problems lie with basic technique rather than with the equipment.


Wise words and perhaps even on topic with the OP.


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## PetrB

Jaws said:


> The problem is that I keep coming across people who seem to believe that a very basic beginners exam called grade 8 here in the UK gives them a qualification that makes them almost professional musicians. They can't seem to get the point that someone carrying out a medical exam, eye exam and dental exam would be better qualified than an 18 year old school leaver, and so would a professional musician. I wondered if the reason that people couldn't calibrate grade 8 exams in the UK was because there weren't any adult qualifications to compare them to. There is a reason for this as well. Grade exams were not designed to be taken by adults.
> 
> The other problem is that here in the UK the adults that take exams are usually the people who are not getting on very well. The ones that are getting on well don't have time for exams as they are too busy having been asked to play in groups. So those people who do take the exams are likely to find them quite difficult. They then confuse difficulty with standard. Just because some people take 8 years to pass grade 8 doesn't mean that it is a high standard exam. Some people can pass it in 2 years. So I wondered if comparisons with adult qualifications might help people work out that grade 8 is a very low standard in terms of adult education, but a high standard in terms of under 18 education.
> 
> Adults who boast about having passed grade 8 clearly don't realise how low the standard of the exam is. The interesting thing is that no one ever seems to boast about how many A levels they have passed or the grades that they got. It is also clear to me that teachers of adults never explain the limitations of the grade exams. If the limitations were explained I can't see why any adult would want to take any of these exams, let alone boast about passing one.


Good luck trying to explain to many that those official grade levels for music performance are for AMATEURS. The fact that a few much more advanced students, playing at a much higher level, pass through these exams and into the RCM, for example, only distorts the basic fact the entire system was set up for Amateurs, and Nowhere States that when completed, the student who has taken the highest exam may not be near qualified to audition as a music major at a university music department or conservatory.

I think you need to let people be proud of their achievements, no matter what those are. There may be some puffed-uppedness, if that is a term at all, but the real prepped for conservatory and beyond musicians know the difference, and can allow an adult amateur their triumphs.

I do wish the fact those grade systems are for amateurs would be made clearer by the institution itself, but that might just be really 'bad for business'


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## mamascarlatti

Wow, lots of hate here. I can tell you that as an adult beginner who is truly hopeless I'd be quite happy to overcome my nerves and relax my fingers and enjoy myself enough to even take Grade 8, let alone pass it. I'm perfectly aware that it is something that children seem to take in their stride, but see, I wouldn't.

I can also tell you as a literacy teacher, that many adults would be chuffed to get an A-level, or even an O-Level, because they didn't get any qualifications at school.

So get off your high horses and let people feel good because of what they achieve. It might have been easy for you but very hard for them.


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## Den

mamascarlatti said:


> Wow, lots of hate here. I can tell you that as an adult beginner who is truly hopeless I'd be quite happy to overcome my nerves and relax my fingers and enjoy myself enough to even take Grade 8, let alone pass it. I'm perfectly aware that it is something that children seem to take in their stride, but see, I wouldn't.
> 
> I can also tell you as a literacy teacher, that many adults would be chuffed to get an A-level, or even an O-Level, because they didn't get any qualifications at school.
> 
> So get off your high horses and let people feel good because of what they achieve. It might have been easy for you but very hard for them.


It completely agrees

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
http://tunemaximum.com/ listen radio stations


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## Head_case

Den said:


> It completely agrees


Then yous completely misses zhe point.

Here is what Jaws was complaining about:
*



Just had a bad experience of an adult boasting about passing a grade exam.

Click to expand...

*It's not that exams are bad in themselves (as I mentioned - medical exams! driving exams! dental exams! are all important).

Jaws was referring to:

a) braggards who use examinations to dent others confidence 
b) examinations being used by arrogant people to lord it over those who have no exams.

Maybe some here should consider getting off their high horse and re-read their own comments before accusing the OP of 'hate'?

There are many composers who are self-taught whose learning goes beyond the grade system or the conservatory.

Ernest Toch (listening to at the moment) was self-taught - having learnt composition from copying Mozarts' own string quartets, to go on to become conservatory professor.

Zbiegniew Preisner, also was not formally taught, and wrote some amazing contemporary film music (Decalogue; Three Colours, Red, White & Blue; The Double Life of Veronique; a short film about killing etc) as well as 'Requiem for my Friend'.

Myaskovsky himself, was an officer and not a composer - as many of the first generation Russians were. Their entry into the conservatory, or what was to become the conservatory, was based on their 'love' i.e. derived from amare - 'to love' which is where we get our word 'amateur'.

From from it, amateurs without a grade standing or conservatory background have as much love if not more than formal professionalism. This is why I referenced Jethro Tull: no grade school; no teaching, no basic awareness of how to play the flute. Yet his popularity and exposure of the flute, and his music, goes beyond the majority of all the conservatory 'grade' professionals you can think of.

Food for thought ...


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## Jaws

mamascarlatti said:


> Wow, lots of hate here. I can tell you that as an adult beginner who is truly hopeless I'd be quite happy to overcome my nerves and relax my fingers and enjoy myself enough to even take Grade 8, let alone pass it. I'm perfectly aware that it is something that children seem to take in their stride, but see, I wouldn't.
> 
> I can also tell you as a literacy teacher, that many adults would be chuffed to get an A-level, or even an O-Level, because they didn't get any qualifications at school.
> 
> So get off your high horses and let people feel good because of what they achieve. It might have been easy for you but very hard for them.


You may have missed something here. Many of the children who pass grade 8 also play in ensembles, like youth groups or school orchestras. Adults often don't have the opportunity to start to play in a group as soon as they take up the instrument, so they take exams, often instead. Doing it this way round makes the exams harder, as the more different kinds of playing that someone does the easier the fingerings or other techniques become. However if an adult were to join a group earlier, then the exams become a waste of time, because they don't examine ensemble playing.

If someone tells me that they have passed grade 8, I immediately assume that they are an ignorant beginner, and I won't bother to ask them to join a chamber group. If an orchestra advertises for grade 8 players, I will assume that no one in the groups knows anything at all about music, especially as grade exams don't test ensemble playing. An orchestra that doesn't give a standard, I might go along to see what it is like. If someone doesn't mention grade exams then I won't immediately jump to a conclusion about how little they know and might give them a try.

If you knew that people are judging you as being an ignorant beginner when you tell them that you have passed grade 8, would you carry on doing it?


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## Jaws

mamascarlatti said:


> I can also tell you as a literacy teacher, that many adults would be chuffed to get an A-level, or even an O-Level, because they didn't get any qualifications at school.
> .


How many of your literacy students would announce to complete strangers at for example a book fair or a poetry class, that they have an A level in English and the pass mark?

This is what happens with adults and grade exams. They tell everyone on music courses what grade they are even if they are on a course with people they have never met before.


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## Jaws

PetrB said:


> Good luck trying to explain to many that those official grade levels for music performance are for AMATEURS. The fact that a few much more advanced students, playing at a much higher level, pass through these exams and into the RCM, for example, only distorts the basic fact the entire system was set up for Amateurs, and Nowhere States that when completed, the student who has taken the highest exam may not be near qualified to audition as a music major at a university music department or conservatory.
> 
> I think you need to let people be proud of their achievements, no matter what those are. There may be some puffed-uppedness, if that is a term at all, but the real prepped for conservatory and beyond musicians know the difference, and can allow an adult amateur their triumphs.
> 
> I do wish the fact those grade systems are for amateurs would be made clearer by the institution itself, but that might just be really 'bad for business'


The problem here in the UK is that grade exams were not designed for amateurs they were designed for children or young people under 18. They are comparable to badges for swimming, badges for guides and scouts, and for children's dancing exams. Most normal adults wouldn't consider that getting a badge for scouts, or guides when they were at school was something that they must tell other adults. Most normal adults wouldn't also consider that a badge that they got for scouts/guides was a triumph.


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