How to get a distinction in ABRSM exams.

The fact that you are reading this means that you are serious about getting a good mark in your next ABRSM exam.

By putting into practice the advice that I offer you, you can be confident of getting the mark you deserve in your next ABRSM exam. 

Getting a good mark, is not just a question of spending hours and hours of practising your instrument, but knowing how to practice and also knowing what the examiner is looking for. 

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As a teacher of the ABRSM syllabus for over 30 years, I can pass on to you, the benefit of my experience, which has enabled my own private students, to obtain results, well above the national average. Since 2009, the ABRSM has stopped publishing their statistics, but the last available ones, show that only 50% of students taking exams, got a merit or distinction. At the time of publishing this advice, I have entered over 200 students for ABRSM exams since 2005 of which, 78% got a merit or distinction in the last year. So you're in good hands.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

The above screenshot is the results of one of my recent students, as you can see, dropping no more than one or two marks in EVERY category.

As well as studying the official ABRSM marking criteria, I have done in depth analysis of the comment sheets that are given to the students with their results, which are very revealing in this regard.

Get a taste of what's on offer in This short series of videos

Within the pages of the book, How to get a distinction in ABRSM exams, (which are packed with useful hints and tips on how to get the best possible mark), I have broken down the four aspects of the exam; Scales, Pieces, Aural and Sight Reading and you need to give adequate attention to each of these aspects in order to get a distinction. So are you ready to start preparing for your next exam and get the mark you deserve? 

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ABRSM Grade 1 Piano - Mock Exam

I recently gave one of my students a mock exam just before their real exam and asked permission to video it so as to recreate some of the pressure of the real exam. 

What you will see is exactly as it was, no retakes, no editing out mistakes, for you to get an idea of what kind of mark can be expected from various performances and also so that the student could feel that pressure of doing one's best performance on just one attempt as one would in the exam. Below the video I have also given some comments and marks as would be expected in a real exam.

Scales

Apart from the slip on the initial G major these were well known and were played at a suitable tempo. Therefore I would expect them to get about 17 marks out of 21

First Piece - When The Saints Go Marching In - Trad American

A well chosen tempo with some good dynamic contrast conveyed the character of the piece. Only a few lapses in the articulation would probably result in a distinction of about 27 marks out of 30

Second Piece - Dans La Foret Lointaine - Trad French

For the most part very accurate notes and rhythm with generally good dynamic contrast between the hands immitating the echo of the cuckoo. There was a moment of confusion at the end and the tone wasn’t always 100% in control giving a merit mark of about 25 marks out of 30

Third Piece - La Donna e Mobile - Verdi

A well chosen tempo with some dynamic contrast conveyed the character well. There were a few slips and hesitations which spoiled the continuity a little but overall a merit of about 24 marks for this piece could be expected.

Sight Reading

The first half would have been perfect if it had been an octave higher in the OTHER hand. The second half struggled to represent either pitch or rhythm of what was printed and so unfortunately this would probably score only 8 marks, below the pass mark of 14.

Aural

Almost perfect responses which were both confident and musical giving a distinction mark of about 17 out of 18. The overall mark for this exam would be a pass of 118 marks out of 150

The Examiner's Marksheet - INVESTIGATED

By looking carefully at the comments of the examiner's mark sheet, we can get a good insight into the ABRSM marking criteria  thus helping you to get a better mark in future exams.

Here is one such mark sheet from an exam recently taken by one of my students

Let's analyze it section by section.

Pieces

For those of you who find it difficult to decipher the examiner's handwriting which can at times be like that of a doctor's prescription let me translate:

First piece - A bright and stylish tempo with a good sense of pulse and played with even tone and contrasted dynamics. Briefly "something" (even I cannot decipher this word so if anyone can help please let me know in the comments below) rhythm only.  

You will notice that there is nothing in this comment about playing the correct notes, but rather, how the tempo, tone and dynamics resulted in a bright and stylish performance.

For the second piece there were similar remarks made;

The character was well conveyed at a confident tempo with well controlled and contrasted tone. 

Notice here however he adds, that there was

Just an occasional small slip and stumble

Even so, this piece still got a very high merit mark. If any of you saw to my post from last week, you will remember that I  mentioned how many students come out of the exam remembering just the wrong note or two they may have played and then think that the whole thing was terrible.

For the third piece, which incidentally gained FULL MARKS, again notice what things apart from just getting the right notes gained this excellent mark. He writes

A flowing and well chosen speed for the style. Hands were consistently well balanced and it was fully accurate in notes, with well contrasted dynamics.

So in summary, with regard to pieces, try to NOT just focus on getting the notes correct, but try to learn the piece as a piece of music

Scales

Here again, it's not just getting the right notes, notice how the examiner mentions the speed, musicality and tone. He writes

One slip in the broken chords but otherwise all fluently played with even tone at a musical speed. 

If you want to check the speed for your grade you can do so here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pNhwGLQYnA

Sight Reading

What many students don't understand is that sight reading is not just a matter of getting all the notes correct, especially at the expense of losing the sense of pulse. Notice in the remark how much the examiner hints at keeping the momentum going

A slightly hesitant ending, but otherwise fully accurate at a musical speed with firm pulse.

May I say that this student used my Sight Reading Trainer to help with this habit of keeping the pulse going  and again, here is a link  for you to practice this yourself 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRhVgcglVQ9ldTP-U_jVH1P2yhH3Ilfoa

Aural Tests

For this section, notice again how the examiner doesn't just remark on the fact that the answers were correct, he says

All accurate and musical responses

...and may I add that in their marking criteria for Aural tests the ABRSM official guidelines mention that they are looking for confident rather than hesitant responses. You could lose marks, even with the correct answer if you answer hesitantly.

So I hope that was an interesting journey through an examiner's mark sheet. Maybe you would like to dig out  one of your recent ones and let us know in the comments below some of the things mentioned that might give other readers more of a clue what they are looking for and how to get a better mark in a future exam.

Feel free also to use our new FORUM to start any music education related discussion and you can even share with us your recent exam successes there.

How to choose your exam pieces.

Should a student choose for himself or let the teacher decide his music exam pieces?

This week's topic comes from yet another question from one of my subscribers.

Firstly, let me thank you Rohan for your question and by the way, if anyone else has a question they would like me to cover in a future post please leave a comment below.

Secondly, I want to thank those of you who took my poll this week where I asked whether you chose the pieces yourself or your teacher chose for you. Interestingly, the vast majority of you, 72% said that you chose yourself.

There were also some thought provoking comments below the poll.

One of you wrote,

"The teacher plays all the songs for me, and I choose."

...and this is exactly what I do with my students.

Another contributor adds

"I choose what I like, or sometimes, I choose what piece is easiest to play."

Now, this raises an interesting point. I totally agree that you should play the piece that you like, if the music inspires you, then you are much more likely to play it musically and far to often we forget that in exams, the examiner is not just marking you on your technical ability. If you enjoy playing a piece, the examiner will enjoy listening to it and no doubt you will get a better mark. As to the second point this contributor raised, I never advise my students to play the easiest piece, mainly because there is no such thing. All pieces have their own areas of difficulty, even though that might be,  for example speed for one piece and awkward stretches for another. That said, there will be some pieces which suit certain people better. As another subscriber "Nighthawks" wrote,

"I told him what pieces I liked and he told me what he thought I would be good at and we go from there. "

Maybe a student with smaller hands might avoid a piece with big stretches. With this in mind I do tend to point out to my students the areas of difficulty in EVERY piece, but still I like them to decide mainly on which one inspires them the most simply from listening to it. I have had students who see one piece is a page longer and immediately decide against it before they realize that very often this piece includes a lot of repeated sections and doesn't involve as much learning as it first appears. 

I will leave you with a question related to this picking your favourite piece idea. How many of you start learning your pieces with the, lets call them, more fun pieces, i.e. the C list pieces in ABRSM exams or do you have a different criteria for choosing which piece you start learning first. Please let me know in the comments below. 

Tricks to Remember Major Scale Fingerings.

Getting the right fingering is essential for executing scales proficiently and fluently - here are a few tricks to help.

Getting the right fingering is essential for executing scales proficiently and fluently, but I'm sure you, like many of my students, find remembering the fingerings a little daunting, especially considering the sheer number that you need to learn for the higher grades. In this post, I will be sharing a few tricks which might help and by the way, if you have any tricks that I don't mention, feel free to add them to the comments below to help other readers. 

Let's first consider the basic scales C, G, D, A and E majors. I'm sure you are all aware that these follow a basic "3 - 4 - 3" finger pattern and when you came across the first three in Grade 1, you probably had little problem learning these. One of the greatest challenges for students between Grades 1 and 2, is putting these scales hands together. I like to point out to them, that "3's are always together", so if you are using a third finger in one hand, you should be doing the same in the other hand at the same time. Then, I like to liken the hands together scales to a couple dancing, where the man leads. On the way up the right hand is the man, that is to say that it will do the changes of "3 - 4 - 3" just before the left hand and on the way down, the roles are reversed where the left hand leads  the 3 - 4 - 3 pattern. The mistake that many students make is to think that any fingering will do as long as they play the right notes. This is not true. OK, sometimes you get away with it, but invariably mistakes happen just after the fingering goes off course. Make sure you start slowly to ingrain the correct fingering into your muscle memory.

Next let's go onto the flat scales, that is, B flat, E flat, A flat and D flat majors. These all follow one pattern. In the right hand ascending and  the left hand descending for all these scales, the thumb always goes after the black note or group of black notes if there are more than one consecutively.
The right hand  descending always puts 4th on B flat, and the left hand ascending,  always uses 4th for the first cross over.

Finally that leaves F major, B major and F sharp major. To be honest, B major despite its many sharps, is one of the easiest scales, because there are only certain places where the thumb can go and that's where you put it. Interestingly, in all three of these scales thumbs are always together in both hands, except for the very first and last note in the case of F major. If you want to see these principles in action here is a video for all major scales clearly showing the correct fingering below. 

How many scales in an ABRSM exam?

A question often wondered by students going into an exam is "How many scales will I be asked?"

This post is basically in answer to a question I received on one of my videos on my YouTube channel.

In answer to this, I would say that the absolute minimum would be one of each type of scale, and this number increases with the higher grades. It seems from experience that there is usually an easy one at the beginning to settle the candidate down, followed by more difficult ones. If you make a complete mess of one, the examiner may give you a second chance by asking another similar one. The mark for the scales is based on an overall impression, not only of how well the candidate knows the various keys, but also fluency, evenness, how promptly the candidate responds and that the speed matches the grade. So the odd mistake or one disastrous scale won't necessarily lose that many marks. 

All the scales you'll ever need 

Complete playlist for every grade ABRSM and Trinity Scales

It is believed, that examiners are supposed to work their way through all the scales and arpeggios required for the grade over the course of various candidates - otherwise, it would quickly become known that a certain examiner  always asks for Bb minor etc. Experience suggest also, that they aim to ask a mix of easy and difficult scales for each person, so you would be pretty unlucky to get all the worst scales for a grade, but you are bound to get some of them.

Examiners are aware that nerves play a role in exams and may well give the candidate a second chance to repeat a scale. A  struggling candidate is usually given several chances to redeem themselves, but someone who is clearly floundering on every scale won't be asked every single one. There just isn't time, and the examiner will have made up their mind on the mark fairly early on in the process.

How to pass an ABRSM exam - Scales

Many students find learning scales rather tedious and as such may neglect preparing them well for an ABRSM exam. However, they are possibly one of the easiest parts of the exam to get full marks in.

FOR A COMPLETE LIST OF ABRSM SCALES CLICK HERE

In fact it was the ONLY in the scales section of the exam that I always got full marks, many years ago as a teenager. 

I would recommend starting your practice with scales, it not only gets them out of the way if they are not your favourite thing to practise, (a bit like eating your least favourite vegetable first on your dinner plate) but also it acts as a good warm-up for your pieces.

Added to this I would recommend that you take time to learn your fingerings accurately. In order to play scales securely you need to develop muscle memory, so that your fingers “automatically know where they are going”. Muscle memory is only developed by repeating the same action over and over again, and this in turn can only be achieved if you use the same finger pattern every time. By the time you get to the higher grades, the scales will be going so fast you need to be on autopilot, you won’t have time to think!! Check out this video  for the different speeds of scales at various speeds.


Next I would recommend that you think of the scales in groups of 4. This is how they are written out in the ABRSM scale books, and by doing so it will help you develop an even tone. By playing them in groups of four you will naturally stress a different note in each octave and so they will sound more even. On the other hand, many students with will play with "bumpy thumbs". Take for example the scale of B major. In this particular scale the thumbs in both hands are on the same note and also on the only white notes in the piece. If you try to play it now, without thinking of groups of four you may well notice a "bump" on every thumb note. Now try  it again, thinking in groups of four and you will be naturally stressing a different note in each octave, B, E, A#, D#, G#, C#, F# and then back to B.

Finally, mix up the order you play your scales. If you always play them in the same order, when the examiner asks you for a random scale on the day this might put you off. With this in mind I often suggest to my students, to make scale cards, that is, little pieces of card with the names of each of the required scales written on them. Then you place all these cards in a pot and pick one at random. If you play it well you can place it in a different pile of “correct” scales. If you play it wrong, don’t play it again now, put it back in the pot and try a different scale. It will come up again later and you want to practise getting it right first time, not 2nd 3rd or 4th time in the exam. This will also ensure, that the scales you have the most difficulty with, will get the most practice. Continue like this until the entire pot, has been transferred to the “correct” scales pile. And then the next day start again.

Also don’t forget to practice them hands separately, even if you are on a higher grade. You may be surprised to know, how many of my students can play very well a scale hands together, but if I ask them to do a single hand, it completely confuses them. Be prepared for this in the exam.

I hope you found this post useful and if so please share. By putting into practice the suggestions I have made, you too can get full marks in the scales section of an ABRSM exam.