Making the Grade
Published: 1993 Author: Neil Smith
IN THE UNITED KINGDOM we have a number of graded music examination systems administered by some of the major colleges of music. These systems have been running alongside the state education system for many years and provide examinations up to Grade 8 and the diploma levels beyond. A pass at Grade 8, for example, can be used as part of the entry requirements for a college course and various examining boards in state education use the marks in higher grades as evidence of skill level in a particular study area.
The problem with examinations was highlighted for me some years ago when a new pupil brought along his guitar and two pieces of music, one of which was Barcarolle by Tansman. He announced that he had two years in which to learn these pieces, as well as other tests such as sight-reading, aurals, scales and arpeggios, etc, and therefore should start right away. I instinctively called a halt to this approach – that of buying the music, sitting down and bashing through the notes until something like the tune emerges. This appalled me and yet when I looked around and asked questions of other people (including some teachers), this seemed exactly what many were doing. In this approach such aspects as form, style, tone, technique and positioning hardly mattered.
Every good teacher owes it to his pupils to find a better way forward than this, some logical musical way of moving through the examination system of their choice. Where grades are concerned there is a temptation to select the required pieces and then work exclusively on these until the time comes to take the examination. This avoids or neglects necessary routines such as sight-reading, repertoire building, technique and other essentials.
The way through this is to start technical work very early on. When a pupil begins to make some progress with melodies, scale exercises can be introduced. Initially a one-octave C major scale should be learned, followed by one octave of G major and then F major. These should be played first in the lesson and listened to each week so that scale playing becomes a routine aspect of the lesson. On all instruments such scales have long been part of the teaching method.
One should also be constantly aware of the ‘pyramid’ effect on the pupil as the higher grades are approached. At the lower grades a pupil will play many pieces of that standard of difficulty. But as the grades go higher, the pupil notices the restriction of the more strenuous demands in the selected works and so tends to play the grade material endlessly, hence the pyramid. This narrows the vision of the pupil in terms of style. It is actually possible to reach Grade 8 without playing works by composers such as Narváez, Bach, Ponce, and many others. By avoiding these composers a pupil can completely block out an area of lute or guitar history. This is not so much a criticism of examinations as a note of caution to widen the area covered in studies.
My way of dealing with this is to teach the grade requirements and then persuade a pupil to leave the set works and read through other material (with the emphasis on reading through and not learning or performing). I also have certain favourite items for assisting transitions from one grade to another. If Grade 3 has been passed then much more barré work faces the pupil and here Sor’s famous B minor Study would make a good link. For a specially fine pupil at the Grade 3 level, we might already have tested out Carcassi’s op. 60. No 2, Study, set for Grade 4. At higher grades technical problems intervene and many who take these need specific technical material. For pupils beyond Grade 6, I recommend daily practice of Etude No I by Villa-Lobos. For Grade 8 and beyond pupils should play Tárrega’s arrangement of the Study in A by Alard. Daily attention to these pieces puts other works into perspective.
Some form of ensemble work, from the very first term of lessons, is a most important activity. Here John W. Duarte’s The Young Person’s Way to the Guitar (Novello) has much useful material and gives the teacher new ideas to develop. One can also write out simple melodic lines for the pupil, to be performed to the teacher’s accompaniment. The busker books work well here. Attention should be given to flat keys as well as to the more obvious ones.
At about Grade 5 level, some of the Carulli or Küffner duos should be tried, and perhaps some Renaissance lute duos. At Grades 7 and 8, Scheidler’s Sonata in D, Carulli’s Largo and Rondo, op. 34, a Vivaldi Concerto, or the Concerto by Carulli are all useful. Moving to diploma level and beyond pupils should be prepared to extract movements from various concertos. Such a selection could include the second movement from Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez or Españoleta from Fantasia para un gentilhombre by the same composer. In addition it can be a good idea at this point to set about completing a suite by Bach or one of Sor’s sonatas. Often pupils play through only a small portion of a major work and therefore, by the time the upper examination levels appear, have any number of amputated movements from various sources. A good teacher can put this into perspective and plan a way forward.
Technical material should increase in difficulty as the grade examinations progress. In the past some examining bodies gave metronome speeds for scale work and although to many teachers this may seem somewhat dictatorial, the establishment of good, high-speed coordination between hands and eyes remains of prime importance in instrumental tuition. Nowhere is this more essential than on an instrument such as the guitar, where the two hands combine in such precise ways to produce the sound.
It is important to have realistic aims where velocity is concerned. A player must possess a vivid aural recollection of all aspects of a work before settling down to play whether in an examination or before the public. Judgement of speed and coordination comes high on the list of priorities when the prospect of immediate performance looms. To this end I recommend that a pupil should play scale work, in private, at speeds in excess of any examination rating. At Grade 7/8, for example, all scales should be worked through at MM = 100 (at four notes to a beat), while in the examination the pupil would perform scales at a rather slower pace. A candidate for diplomas could aim for MM = 120 (also at four notes to a beat), while those at degree level should be able to raise this to about MM = 150. This method allows a sufficient margin in tempo to be able to relax the technique in rapid or complex sections.
As grade examinations advance, pupils tend to become restricted by a variety of technical and musical demands in the set works and so have to select items which avoid a particular technical or interpretative weakness on their part. Some players dislike anything with high notes or fast scales; others find chordal textures difficult. At advanced levels such players have no place to hide and must ‘face the music’ in more ways than one. But the danger signs are usually there early on in the stages of tuition and the teacher must beware of any manipulation to skirt round difficulties, especially at the lower end of the system.
If a student is allowed to develop a bias against a particular historic period, style. or techno-musical configuration. this will emerge later as a fault and in time will block progress, even in a gifted pupil. One method of encouraging an even-handed approach is to introduce various popular items into the student’s diet. These should not be works from the grade syllabus but must contain subject matter relevant to the particular weaknesses observed. Sometimes it is possible to adapt the printed version of a piece in order to produce results. This can include dropping a note from a chord, leaving a note shorter than its full duration, taking out slurs, etc. Eventually the student should make progress and can then restore to its original condition any work altered in this way.
In the area of sight-reading, students should be encouraged to borrow library editions of works for flute, recorder and violin, in addition to guitar pieces. This enables a player to select large volumes of unknown material and to read it, without expense, at leisure. For pupils at Grade 5 and below, these single melodic lines work out well and can be transferred to various positions for more advanced playing. Above Grade 5, it would be preferable to concentrate on music in two or more parts. Much violin music is suitable, simple duets are of value, and, later on, the violin works (BWV 1001–1006) of J.S. Bach can provide serious study. It is important here to be flexible in approach and not insist strictly at first on the holding on of parts in contrapuntal duet compositions. Even if the student falters in the early stages at this level, good results will eventually emerge. Playing with some of the finest music on disc (such as the CBS Masterworks recording of concertos by Bach, Handel and Marcello) is recommended, particularly as ensemble playing of this kind tends by nature to be less wayward than solo work and so readily lends itself to such study.
If a student manages to take on board all the advice a teacher can give and reads through many more pieces than a particular grade requires, then such a pupil should be in a position to gain higher marks if a viva voce element is included in the examination. A student with a knowledge of style through wide practical experience is in a much better position to answer such questions accurately. If a candidate knows only one piece in a particular style and has little understanding about the composer’s life, dates and musical history, good marks cannot be expected, and in such an instance, the blame must lie with the teacher as well as with the pupil.
Repertoire awareness in the early stages of tuition cannot really be expected, and so obviously the pupil looks to the master for information and guidance. Here the study of Bach helps the student to understand Handel and Scarlatti, and looking at the output of Aguado will throw light on other early nineteenth century musical and technical areas.
A much greater knowledge can be gained by playing through material over and over to absorb the content, to become acquainted with style, form, and harmony – in short, the language of music. In the past, composition often consisted of certain predictable elements of style; today this is less so and a composer may introduce bizarre effects and harmonies at any time, frequently without reference to any previous influence or school. Such cross-styling makes the twentieth century area of a syllabus rather less immediate to the new listener and at this stage perhaps even more material is required from the flexible teacher.
Aural training is a subject already well covered outside such articles as this. So in conclusion I would hope that the reader has found new avenues of thought where examinations are concerned and that the issues raised address the common purpose of making progress through the system of grade examinations.
Copyright © 1993 by Neil Smith