The higher the grade, the more technical elements the examiner will be looking out for as you perform. In this section you will need to play an unseen piece of music, with just 30 seconds to look through it prior to performing it. The examiner will assess how well you recognise keys, tones, and common rhythm patterns. The sight-reading portion of the exam is concerned with your ability to read music. Practise playing them at different speeds too, so you know them inside and out. The more you get your hands and fingers into the correct positions, the easier it will be to get them there in an instant. To do well in this section you should focus on cementing your muscle memory when playing the various scales and arpeggios. The catch is that you’ll need to know them off by heart, so it’s worth spending a good portion of your time committing them all to memory before you set foot in the exam room. This section is very straightforward, and simply requires that you accurately reproduce scales and arpeggios in exam conditions. The scales & arpeggios section is all about how well you can master the basics. That is to say, choose the ones you enjoy listening to or feel like you’d have the easiest time reproducing under exam conditions. You will be presented with 3 lists (A, B, and C), and you’ll have to select a piece from each list to perform in front of an examiner.Įach list requires different skills necessary to play the violin well, ranging from technical agility to musical expression.ĭuring this section you will have an accompanist alongside you, who you can choose beforehand.Ī good strategy to do well in this section is to pick out the pieces which most resonate with you. This section of the exam is arguably the most challenging. You don’t need to pass every section to pass overall, but if you have any aspirations of earning a Merit or Distinction then follow our tips and try to master each of the 4 areas. To get a clear idea of what it takes to pass a violin grade exam, it’s worth knowing what exactly is in the exam.Įach grade exam follows the same format, and is divided up into 4 different sections, which can be completed in any order on the day. What’s in the Exam? You will perform several pieces as part of your exam. That makes it worthwhile to stick with the violin grades even if you feel like you don’t want to pursue playing in the long term. When you get to grade 8, you can earn almost 3 times as many points as in grade 6. While a pass at grade 6 is worth 8 points for the practícal element, and 4 for the theoretical, a Distinction at the same grade level is worth 12 points for the practical and 6 for the theoretical. You are also encouraged to score highly in the grade exam since the higher your mark the more UCAS points you could end up with. If you already play at a high level, but have only recently become aware or interested in taking the grade exams, you can even skip grades to assess yourself at the right level. As a result, you have extra incentive to master the violin to a high level, since only then will you be able to reap the rewards. There are quite a few UCAS points up for grabs with grades, however it’s only grade 6-8 which count. If you have aspirations of going to university in the future, then taking and passing the different violin grades can bolster your application to the university of your choice. The main reason you should consider taking the violin grade exams, other than as a concrete measure of improvement over time, is to earn UCAS points which can help with university admission. If you know how well you can play, then what’s the point? You may well wonder if it’s even worth being assessed for your ability to play the violin. Though of course the contents of the exam will be specifically geared towards the violin. How well you can play the violin is evaluated in much the same way as any other instrument. A grade, simply put, is a formal music exam which is designed to assess your ability with a specific instrument.
0 kommentar(er)
