As spring becomes
summer, we pass into the most popular time of the year for students
to sit their grade exams. The two major accredited exam bodies in the
UK are the Registry of Guitar Tutors and Rockschool (a subsidiary of
the long established and highly reputable Trinity Music), and each
have a slightly different approach and format for their exams. Over
the next few months, I'm going to give you a guide to how to ensure
the best results possible as someone who's been on both sides of the
examiner's desk.
We'll start with
Rockschool. From Grades 1 – 5, their exams funtion in a pretty
similar way:
Technical exercises
– these feature scales, arpeggios and so on.
Pieces – three
chosen from a possible six in the grade book.
Aural (ear
training) – this is divided into “Melodic Recall” and “Rhythmic
Recall” sections, essentially hearing and reproducing a melody and
a rhythm. At higher grades, the rhythmic recall also includes a
harmonic element, ie recognising and reproducing chord sequences.
Sight reading /
Improvisation and Interpretation – you have the option of choosing
either one. Sight reading involves sight reading a passage of tab
after 90 seconds of study, Improvisation and Interpretation means
coming up with a rhythm and/or lead part based on a chord sheet after
30 seconds of study.
General
Musicianship Questions – questions about music theory and
instrumental knowledge.
Firstly, some
general pointers:
Fail To Prepare,
Prepare To Fail:
Before the exam:
Often, the
logistical element is the hardest – simply finding your exam centre
and getting there can be the most stressful part (this also goes for
the examiners, by the way!). Prepare ahead of time – Google the
venue, get a postcode, Googlemap a route (even if you have satnav,
it's duty bound to seize up on you at an inopportune moment, or
failing that it simply won't recognise the address.. I speak from
bitter experience!). Driving? Check parking. It may be simpler and
less stressful to get a train or bus. For example, one of the
Leicester exam centres is located at Sheehans music shop, a short
walk from Leicester train station but in the middle of town with VERY
limited parking.
Aim to arrive
15-20 minutes beforehand. This will give you plenty of time to get
lost, parked, whatever and still be on time, and time to sit, warm up
and focus on slowing your breathing and metabolism after a possibly
stressful journey. Clear your mind and limber up your fingers. To
play your best, just be in the moment. All you're doing is playing
three songs and some scales.
In the exam:
The examiner will
ask you what order you would like to do things – pieces or
technical exercises first. I recommend doing your technical exercises
first.
Something I have
seen all too often is students not knowing their technical stuff at
all and just flubbing their way through it. I get it – scales and
arpeggios are boring and unglamorous.
Tough. You want
the grade? You learn the technicals.
To aid this part
of the exam, I advise being imaginative in your practicing. Don't
just plod up and down the scales. Sequence them. Play them in thirds,
fourths, octaves. Use them to improvise. If you're putting in the
time to learn these things, learn them – they'll stay with
you far after you've done your exam.
Do this part
right, and it's fifteen easy marks, setting yourself up nice and
confidently for an excellent performance of the pieces. Bluff your
way through it, and bang goes any chance of a distinction, you'll be
fighting for a pass and your confidence will be in the dirt. Is that
really what you put in all this effort for?
Moving onto the
pieces themselves, these should be prepared to the point where you
don't need to be reading them. No one ever gave their best
performance while they were glued to the page. Listen to your pieces
in the car, on the bus, while hoovering – really internalise them.
There's a big difference between hearing a candidate play the music
and one who is just playing the notes.
Aural – the most
important thing here is play something. Playing nothing is
going to get you zero marks, end of story. If you don't know, just
have a guess. The scale and key of the notes are given, so hum the
melody, hum the rhythm to yourself and just stick notes from the
specified scale onto that rhythm. You're at least going to get points
for following the shape and contour of the melody.
Sight reading –
the enemy here is panic. 90 seconds, you say? Oh no!!
Relax. 90
seconds is a surprisingly long time. The panic is caused by
information overload. We fight that by splitting the information down
into three groups and prioritising them:
- Rhythm. Tap the rhythms out in one or two bar groups before putting it all together.
- Pitch. This is fairly straightforward as the notes are tabbed out for you. Having already figured out the rhythmic framework, it's easy to flesh out with the notes.
- Dynamics. Loud (f) and soft (p). hese are the icing on the cake. Nice if you can get them, not something to worry about if you can't,
General
Musicianship Questions – nothing too scary here. Generally
examiners will ask you which piece is your favourite and focus on
elements like key, time signature, individiual notes and rhythms. Be
prepared to answer any questions on the theoretical aspects of what
was in the technical section too. If your teacher is worth his/ her
salt, they'll have already gone over these with you. The last couple
of questions are usually general instrument knowledge, so it's worth
Googling or Wiki-ing a few prominent guitar or bass makes and models
– Fender, Gibson, Yamaha, Marshall and so on. This isn't usually
too much of an issue for us guitar players, as we tend to be
gearheads anyway...
...And that's it!
Even at Grade 5, the whole thing is done and dusted in about half an
hour. Don't overthink, don't obsess about things – check out the
articles on dealing with nerves:
Check back next
month for tips on how to deal with the higher grade exams.
