Blog – Page 23 – SE22 Piano School ~ East Dulwich

Brentwood Ursuline Convent High School: Music Aptitude Test

Music Scholarship Preparation at the SE22 Piano School

You can prepare for the Music Aptitude Tests at Brentwood Ursuline Convent High School by using the following specimen tests that are indicative of the style of test used: http://musicaptitudetest.co.uk/

From the School’s Admissions document: In view of the school’s tradition of excellence in music the governors will admit girls with musical aptitude, up to a maximum of 17 places without undermining the Catholic ethos of the school. Musical aptitude will be determined on the basis of a music aptitude assessment. Priority will be given to those who show the most aptitude on assessment. Additional music training and activities will be provided by the school and these students will be expected to participate in these activities. Music aptitude assessment tests will take place in the Autumn term and you will be informed, before the school application deadline whether your daughter has passed. Please note that a pass does not equate to a guarantee of a place at the school.

The auditions will take place this Autumn when term resumes. Please note we have good availability in August for 1-to-1 lessons to help you prepare. However when term starts we will be busy with our weekly teaching commitments so we will be offering a much reduced service for Zoom lessons so do book soon rather than leaving it until the last minute.

Music Aptitude Tests for State School admissions

The Music Aptitude Test (MAT) specimen test materials have been created by the SE22 Piano School and music technology experts to help familiarise you with the MAT. The MAT is a test used by state Secondary Schools to select around 10% of their intake of students on a music scholarship program. We have been successfully preparing our students for entry to many London schools on music scholarship programmes for the last 4 years. Schools that have used the MAT in recent years include (please check via the links below whether the school are offering the MAT for entry):

What is the Music Aptitude Test?

The MAT is a series of listening tests that uses electronically generated sounds to provide a level playing field for candidates by not using real instrument sounds. Students that are familiar with the Aural part of ABRSM and Trinity exams may not necessarily be at an advantage as these tests are all conducted at the piano in the examination. The MAT tests uses microtones – intervals smaller than a semitone that do not exist on a piano. This means that pianists are not familiar with these small intervals.

The MAT uses a wide variety of instruments and electronic ‘beeps’ so that instrumentalists do not have any advantage over students that may not have studied music formally. For this reason, we decided to commission a set of sample tests that we can use with our students to prepare them as fully as possible for the MAT.

Here is one of our students taking the test. The questions are all clearly announced and there are 4 sections to each test with either 10 or 20 questions. The video has the first ten questions of Section 1. This clip is taken from Test 3 – Texture.

Using the sample questions from the MAT criteria, we have produced a series of 4 complete tests. We also provide the blank answer sheets and, of course, the answers! For the convenience of a smaller file size for download, we have made the MAT a bit quicker than the actual test. We recommend that you pause the MP3 after each question and take your time to answer it. Once you are more familiar with the exercises, you can try them at full speed.

4 complete training tests of 60 questions each are available to download instantly from our web site here:
https://musicaptitudetest.wordpress.com/buy-the-tests/

Summer Recital & Awards Ceremony Photos

If your child’s photo is missing please let your teacher know as we had a lot of photos to sort through but have done our best to ensure there is at least one photo of each performer. Right click on the gallery to save the photos. Please note these photos may appear on our social media or printed adverts unless you have emailed us in advance of the concert to specify otherwise.