Music grades

Cakeguts

missbiggles1 wrote: »

Surely that's an argument in favour of doing grade exams rather than not?

No because spending the time and money taking a test to get a piece of paper that doesn't help you to play the music in the orchestra once you are in it doesn't make any difference. Being in an orchestra and not being able to play any of the music is about the same as not being in an orchestra and not being able to play any of the music. You also have to ask the question whether it is worth joining something where the people running it and choosing new members don't know anything about what they are doing. It is like joining a community sewing group where the members don't know the difference between a knitting needle and a sewing machine needle.

LilElvis

Cakeguts wrote: »

It is like joining a community sewing group where the members don't know the difference between a knitting needle and a sewing machine needle.

I got grade A in my needlework O level. My project ran to a lever arch file and was about "Decorative Use of the Sewing Machine". I've saved a fortune over the years making my own curtains

ThumbRemote

So to sum up the previous 6 pages:

Cakeguts: There is no value in music grades
Everyone else: Yes there is, we see value in them and so do numerous other people and institutions
Cakeguts: Everyone else in the world must be wrong

Manxman_in_exile

Years ago my mum was doing a newspaper cross-word and asked my older brother a question concerning the periodic table. He said he didn't know the answer. She said "But you've got a first class degree in chemistry."


"Doesn't mean I know anything about chemistry," he replied.


Is this thread going anywhere?

elsien

ThumbRemote wrote: »

So to sum up the previous 6 pages:

Cakeguts: There is no value in music grades
Everyone else: Yes there is, we see value in them and so do numerous other people and institutions
Cakeguts: Everyone else in the world must be wrong

Yep, can't believe the topic is still going. Groundhog Day has nothing on mse at times.

DoaM

ThumbRemote wrote: »

So to sum up the previous 6 pages:

Cakeguts: There is no value in music grades
Everyone else: Yes there is, we see value in them and so do numerous other people and institutions
Cakeguts: Everyone else in the world must be wrong

That's a very accurate summary of the 123 posts prior to it.

Cakeguts

ThumbRemote wrote: »

So to sum up the previous 6 pages:

Cakeguts: There is no value in music grades
Everyone else: Yes there is, we see value in them and so do numerous other people and institutions
Cakeguts: Everyone else in the world must be wrong

Not quite correct. Seeing value in something that you don't understand and there actually being value in something is not quite the same.

There are a lot of people who don't take grade exams because they feel that for them it is a waste of time and money.

There are a lot of people who have passed grade exams who don't understand what it is they have passed.

When I explain what a grade exam is and what you get when you have passed one I get a lot of people who argue with me and tell me that I have got it completely wrong but if any of those people read the actual information on the grade exam they would see what they actually get for their money. Most people don't bother to do this so they don't actually know what they are paying for they rely on wrong information spread by other people who also haven't read the information about grade exams.

I would suggest that people check for themselves what they get for their entry fee and not rely on someone else to tell them what they get because there is so much wrong information about these grades passed on by people who try to make them into more than they actually are.

An example of wrong information that has been going on for years is the belief that you can tell how someone will play in an orchestra by which grade they passed. You can't. The amateur orchestras that try to use grade 8 as a standard to choose new members don't know what they are doing and don't understand that grades don't measure ensemble playing. This is just one example there are several more in this thread.

Lavendyr

I'm sorry, are you saying that the many musicians on here don't understand grades?!

SingleSue

peachyprice wrote: »

Do you think someone would even get a foot in the door of an audition without having taken any graded exams?

It happens - middle son received 5 offers for a university place to study music after audition despite never having done grades. One of those offers was made at the actual audition/interview he had impressed so much.

Cakeguts

Lavendyr wrote: »

I'm sorry, are you saying that the many musicians on here don't understand grades?!

If you read through the entire thread you can see that people think that passing grades helps you to play in amateur orchestras, get a place at music college or university, are difficult to pass and also that the standard of playing required is very high. Grades do not help you to play in an amateur orchestra because they don't test the skills required for this. They don't help you to get into music college or university to study music because entry is by audition. They are not difficult to pass 10 year old children can pass grade 8 and the standard required to pass is elementary. Some young people pass grade 8 two years after starting an instrument so they are not difficult for everyone to pass. For university entrance where the minimum requirements are UCAS points then you can use the points towards your UCAS points to get a place. However if the entry requirements are based on A level grades then UCAS points from grades make no difference.

Adults find them very difficult to understand because as an adult you wouldn't work for several months at something take an exam and then get nothing for it apart from a certificate. An adult would expect something like this to qualify them for a promotion or more responsibility at work leading to a pay rise. Grades don't do that because they aren't qualifications in music so they don't lead onto anything except another grade. So many adults appear to try to make them into qualifications for something like getting into an amateur orchestra or part of an entry requirement to study music. The more difficult an adult finds passing a grade exam the more difficult they think they must be. So they find it difficult to accept that grade 8 only requires an elementary standard of playing to pass it compared to the level of skill possible on any instrument. Grade exams don't make sense to adults. However for a child who likes to collect certificates and badges they make perfect sense. They are like badges for brownies, guides, cubs and scouts and swimming badges. The child is happy with the certificate or badge because they don't have experience of an adult working life where you expect to get more than a piece of paper after working at something for several months and then taking an exam. These exams are designed to be taken by children at school. This is fine but these certificates are quite expansive to collect because as well as the entry fee you have to take into account the music for the exam and the cost of the lessons on the pieces and other parts of the exam. While someone is learning this music they are effectively not making any progress because they may have to play these pieces and studies etc for several months to make sure that they play them well enough to pass the exam when they are nervous.

The entry fees are not cheap. Families who are not well off might find them expensive and when you consider that all you get for the money is a certificate. If people who can afford to pay for these exams then there is nothing wrong with them using their money in this way. What is wrong is people putting pressure on parents who are not well off to pay for these exams by making out that their child will lose out if they don't take them. Their child will lose out on a certificate. That is all. You can get extra UCAS points from other sources you don't have to get them from music exams. There are plenty of universities that you can get into without having done any grades so if you want to study music at university not having passed grades will not mean that you can't.

What many people don't seem to realise is that there is a choice as to whether you take grades or not. They are not an essential part of learning a musical instrument. Although from some of the answers on this thread you would think that they were an essential part of learning an instrument.