Category: ABRSM Exams
On Your Marks: Your turn to be the ABRSM examiner!
Thanks to my colleague David Barton for flagging up this great resource from ABRSM where you can listen to a full Grade 5 piano exam, guess the mark and then see the actual score received along with an explanation of the score from the Chief Examiner. The sight-reading test is the most revealing of all, I think!
With many SE22 Piano School students sitting exams this Autumn, this will be great to see what is expected for the various categories of marks: Distinction, Merit and Pass. Also see our guide with various comment sheets from Examiners covering the three mark categories: Pass, Merit or Distinction? How examiners mark your ABRSM music exam.
See some of our students’ recent exam successes:
Now available for our students: ABRSM Scale Practice Charts
ABRSM Scale Practice Charts for Piano Grades 1 to 4
ABRSM Piano Scale practice charts are available for Grades 1 to 4. Please email your teacher for your copy. Aim to practice as many scales per day as you can. We find a ‘pot luck’ system really good so that you’re not always practising in the order of the book. Write out all the names of your scales, arpeggios, chromatic and contrary-motion (including permutations of Hands Together and Hands Separately) on a piece of A4 paper. Cut this up and put into a pot or cup and keep it near the piano. Pull the pieces of paper out one at a time so that you are practising in a random order. You can also ask your friends or family to test you in any order on your scales. Aim to play the scale correctly the first time without hesitating, fumbling, stumbling or using wrong fingers. Play as slowly as you need to until you can play reliably, smoothly and steadily. Once you are feeling confident with the scales, think about shaping the sound to start around ‘mf’ (moderately loud) and reach a ‘f’ (loud) dynamic level at the top. Return to ‘mf’ when descending.
Here is a sample scale practice chart. The versions we supply for our students do not have the watermarks. Copies of these charts are available for a donation of 1 lesson’s fee to our Justgiving charity page. We can customise these with your own teaching practice details. We can also produce practice charts for other instruments.
