Are music exams weaker when taken online?
NewsWe are hearing concerns from examiners that the growing trend for students to take the tests online has left them unexamined in essential skills and areas.
The MTB (music teachers’ board) has recently joined ABRSM & Trinity in offering digital exams.
One examiner tells slippedisc.com: My concern is that they have dispensed with those concommitant elements of traditional music examinations, namely:
Sight Reading
Aural Tests
Scales & Arpeggios on request
This cannot be good for the education of the next generation of musicians?
Your views, please.
Perhaps on-line exams are being conflated with pre-recorded exams. The former can involve all these exam elements, whereas the latter not.
If there is a way to have interactive on-line exams, as an alternative to in person, these might be a reasonable option. It would remove travel, logistical and venue problems, but would replace them with technology, wifi and perhaps cheating problems.
And the format would need to be worked out.
Overall i think the experience would not be as good, but perhaps a reasonable alternative to offer to students in far-flung places, or with travel difficulties.
ABRSM don’t care about anything except money and profit.
If it were possible, they’d just charge £5000 and you can buy a grade 8 distinction certificate straight off.
Where I am nothing has changed, you do the exam live, having slipped an envelope with 100 Euros to the examiner and you know what? You get a pass. Simples.
As part of this worrying trend even the Royal College of Organists now examines its keyboard tests for ARCO and FRCO online – you get 24 hours to practise and record skills like sight reading, score reading, transposition, continuo and improvisation that you would previously have had just a few minutes to study in the waiting room before performing live. These were prestigious qualifications!
If I remember rightly, the FRCO was the only Fellowship for which you actually had to sit a practical exam, those of other institutions – FRCM, FRAM etc – all being conferred. What a shame they’ve chosen to dilute this prestigious qualification.
A serious educational downstep. I agree with the examiner’s comments. During Covid it seemed a fair alternative, when face-to-face exams were not possible. I now always recommend that pupils go for the face-to-face exams, though I find it difficult to stop them choosing the other if that is what they want. There is also a degree of artifice with the online exams. With the ABRSM exams, once an exam date has been booked, the candidate can re-record up to that date, until satisfied with the offering, before submitting.
This is not the place to comment further on the ABRSM’s newer choices of keys for scales etc, at any rate those for the piano. I’ve not checked those for other instruments. The newer syllabus does little to help the learner to build up the natural hierarchy of the tonal system. But there we are, I can’t resist it.
On the whole, I agree with Hillman’s comments, although I do get the impression that the option to re-record has led to examiners being slightly less forgiving of mistakes (albeit probably not to an extent that compensates adequately for the fact that candidates can record multiple attempts before submitting the best one, with the proviso that the recording must be one continuous take of the whole examination).
I agree that the “pieces only” format of ABRSM online examinations (and why did the ABRSM invent the “performance as a whole” category in the marking allocations rather than demanding 5 pieces?) is a big problem, since it does allow candidates to “limp over the finish line” and nonetheless get good marks, thus storing-up technical deficiencies that will need to be addressed later.
Of course, the ABRSM argues that teachers can and should still cover scales, sight-reading, &c., but the failure to mandate these facets in the online-examination syllabus makes it harder for a teacher to get pupils to take these facets seriously, and makes it easier for bad teachers to get away with neglecting these important skills. In other words, the ABRSM’s approach is facilitating poor teaching. It has always been possible for a pupil to “limp over the finish line” and pass an examination despite significant deficiencies of technique and fluency, but the ABRSM’s approach to online examinations has exacerbated this problem enormously. Pupils are given a false sense of security, and struggle to learn new pieces to a decent standard without understanding why they find the process so difficult and tedious… unless and until they switch to a good teacher (who then has to find a way of helping the pupil to ‘catch-up’ without making the lengthy and necessary work so tedious as to result in the pupil losing the motivation to continue).
Then, of course, there is the dumbing-down of the grades 1-5 Music Theory syllabus (which started in 2018 with the loss of the ‘writing a melody’ exercise), which has become so egregious that I try and get my pupils to enter for the Practical Musicianship examinations instead (grade 5 Practical Musicianship remains a rigorous qualification for now, and is one of the alternatives to grade 5 Theory when it comes to meeting the prerequisite for entering grades 6-8 practical/performance examinations).
I fear that the ABRSM is not finished in destroying its reputation. They are in the process of reforming the diploma syllabus (which will include the complete removal of the DipABRSM), and I fear it is only a matter of time before they cease to require a real accompanist for in-person examinations (they have already permitted ‘backing tracks’ for online examinations and the ‘Singing for Musical Theatre’ syllabus). A good accompanist can make a huge difference, since he/she will adapt to the candidate’s performance in real time (and cover-up the candidate’s mistakes to some extent!), and offer constructive feedback at a crucial juncture in the run-up to an examination (or even in the brief warm-up just before the examination!), yet many pupils and some teachers do not take the importance and value of the accompanist’s role seriously (unless and until they stumble across a good accompanist and discover what they have missed in the past).
Very well expressed – I agree on all points.
“ There is also a degree of artifice with the online exams. With the ABRSM exams, once an exam date has been booked, the candidate can re-record up to that date, until satisfied with the offering, before submitting.”
The vast majority of students are not going to be professional players or teachers. They just want to be able to play (or their parents want them to learn). So what’s wrong with them doing as well as they can for their exam performance?
For those going to the conservatories there are auditions, so they will need more than grade 8 even with distinction.
I encourage as many people as possible to play — you don’t have to try and be Yuma Wang or Daniel Barenboim (obviously you will fail at that).
“what’s wrong with them doing as well as they can for their exam performance?”
First, music examinations are ‘regulated qualifications’ in the UK, which implies that they ought to be rigorous and exacting, since they do serve as a validated measure of achievement that could potentially be cited in support of a university, funding, or job application (admittedly, a serious professional music job would never place reliance solely on a grade examination, but many serious amateur ensembles rely on these qualifications as a means of communicating what kind of standard they expect).
Secondly, these qualifications are just as important to serious amateurs as to professionals, maybe more so (since amateurs have fewer alternative means of demonstrating their musical achivement). Undermining the legitimacy and rigour of music examinations hurts amateurs, since it diminishes their sense of achivement if they attain them.
Thirdly, a lack of rigour in examinations is damaging to the candidate inasmuch as it fails to help him/her identify and understand his/her shortcomings. If the candidate has a good teacher, this may not be too disastrous (although I would argue that the examiner’s comments are still very important in that context), but if the candidate does not have a good teacher, the examiner’s feedback may serve as a vital ‘wake-up call’. Part of the function of a music examination is to enable the candidate to get professional feedback on his/her playing from someone unfamiliar with his/her playing (I ensure that my pupils read and understand the examiner’s comments, and I wish the ABRSM would provide a hard copy of these alongside the certificate, as they used to do). Even a good teacher can become so accustomed to the habits of a given pupil that he/she may become desensitised to certain shortcomings, or have his/her priorities distorted by his/her experience of hearing the pupil many times.
Finally, lax standards in examinations can give the candidate a false sense of security. As a teacher and accompanist, I have often encoutered people who *think* they are ready for a given examination or to perform a given piece (or worse, people who appear to have been advised erroneously by their teacher that they are ready), and who are convinced that their ‘Distinction’ mark at a previous examination means that their technique is commensurate. If that is not the case, depending on the exact circumstances (e.g.: if involved solely as an accompanist turning up on the day of the examination only, then a very brief warm-up session is clearly *not* the time and place to try and re-build someone’s technique from the ground up), I may try and explain patiently and sensitively to them what aspects of their technique and musicianship still require a lot of work to reach an adequate level. If you do not think this is a serious problem, you should try teaching a lesson to a new pupil (child or adult) who comes to you having struggled for months to learn a piece he/she is determined to play but for which he/she just does not have the technique.
Mtb have something called reading skills. These test the students ability to clap rhythms. The tests get progressively harder and each is done to a different speed. They are excellent and really help students recognise difficult rhythmic patterns.
Scales and arpeggios are tested
At later grades on the piano they are also played 2 against 3 and with one hand staccato and other legato. Personally I am thrilled with MTB. Their comments are also useful and well written. I have been teaching over 30 years and have used most exam boards over that time.
As a teacher/performer and former examiner with 40 years experience I have observed a continual de-skilling of music in the educational curriculum over the last ten years. Covid brought about a financial opportunity that exam boards seemed to have jumped on at the expense of those learning. Music was never intended to be played at bedroom walls or into mobile phones. It’s the same exorbitant fee for less input from the boards. Those on minimum wage trying their best for their children don’t stand a chance. I’ve refused online options, worked to the appropriate levels and skipped exams, waiting until a face to face option become available, but I become less and less satisfied with what’s on offer. The world has changed, and none of it has been for the better as far as I can see.
Totally agree. And the bigger problem are the parents that want “quick and easy” However while it is good for financial aspect it is absolutely exhausting to keep on recording until a better one comes along. Ex: from 3 to 9 hours of recordings for one exam!!! I have an excellent solution with regard to scales and arpeggios and technique, and it is a second part of the exam that has to present studies by Carl Czerny in the lower grades and in the higher grades other studies like Brahms Chopin Liszt … May be 2x studies per exam. As it is 4 pieces DO NOT reflect the correct ability of the pianist. And also sends the wrong message about music as a subject.
I have to completely disagree with commenters so far. As a teacher who went through the old ABRSM exams twice a on two different instruments, I am fully aware of the rigours of this type of exam. The ‘on the day’ nature of these exams can impact the performance for some students quite significantly – in a way these exams should be the Performance exams, and the new video exams the Practical ones!
I thought the new exams that dispense with scales, sight reading and aural tests, would be much easier. If you’ve taught them, you will fully understand they are not. The new exams require FOUR full pieces at the level and that fourth piece makes a huge difference to the time and effort it takes to learn and the difficultly of performing four pieces in a row as expertly as possible is certainly not an easy experience.
Because there is no appointment made for the exam, I am able to work with the student to get much more musical performances from them than presenting them for the old exams before they are really ready. It is this extra work that is producing good results and demonstrating the musicality of the students in the best light.
I live in the US now and the emphasis over here is on performance. The videos my students submit for evaluation, they are justly proud of. Far better that than being disappointed with themselves for the occasional on the day mishap. These exams are much more modern in their outlook, if taught properly will not avoid the classic elements of scales within the learning and provide a stern test of musical communication. I wholeheartedly support them.
The “if taught properly” is a big caveat. The ABRSM’s online examination format makes it too easy for bad teachers to get away with neglecting important technical skills without pupils realising what is missing in their technique (unless and until they switch to a better teacher). Moreover, even a good teacher will struggle to get a pupil to take seriously such technical skills if they are never assessed (a common question posed by a pupil in almost any subject and almost any learning context is “is this part of the exam?”).
And the ability to perform effectively under pressure ‘on the day’ is a vital skill in music and in many other fields (if you think an in-person music examination is unforgiving in that regard, try sitting a UK driving test, where one ‘serious’ or ‘dangerous’ error results in failure, no matter how well one drives the rest of the time… but we accept that a candidate for a driving licence needs to demonstrate that he/she can drive competently despite the pressure), and preparing for performance under such conditions is an excellent exercise in ensuring that one is *really* fluent and conversant in the material being assessed.
I live in an isolated rural area of Australia. No examination body sends examiners here anymore. Video and online exams are the only option for students wanting to do exams. Travel to the nearest capital city is a 2.5-3 hour car journey.
The biggest issue facing ABRSM and local bodies like the AMEB is that they haven’t thought about how to modify their exam structure to new formats like online or video. The AMEB only examines pieces in video exams, where other bodies like ANZCA send an email with required technical work half an hour prior to the scheduled exam recording time. Other newer bodies do include the whole content of an old style exam, for example Universal Music Exams.
It’s also worth recognising that in person exams still have problems. I had a student go forward to an in person exam, only to discover they were only offered an acoustic piano. Their home instrument is a digital piano. The frankly unkind remarks from the examiner might have been nuanced if the student had said something; as it was, the experience of the exam was a net negative.
This assumes that exams have any value at all in producing musicians, as opposed to people who simply have a “qualification” on their c.v.’s that has little to no meaning in practical terms.
I just started teaching a new student who had previously done all their exams online and was pretty stunned at how poorly equipped they were to tackle the next set of grade pieces. My students who learn sight reading, scales and aural are much better placed to learn new pieces quickly, which makes for a much more rewarding experience all round.
Music examinations are used to excess. They have little influence on producing good musicians. A few might need to prove their ability but most don’t.
It’s time that teachers learned not to use music exams as a justification for their jobs. They have the effect of severely limiting the student’s repertoire. They act as a powerful inhibitor to the enjoyment of the instrument.
Let technological developments kill off this form of testing.
When I enter pupils for online exams I explain to students that I will only let them restart or re record once. I also set the date with them in advance and dont move it except for illness. With regard to scales, sight-reading etc whether they are tested or not I always include them in lessons. The exam is not a teaching syllabus. As I see it teachers have a responsibility to teach whatever they feel is necessary. Exams are not necessary but helpimg a pupil to love their instrument and play with heart and understanding is really my aim.
I completely agree about technical exercises and sight reading being vital in a lesson. I’m too old in the tooth to dispense with them – the aural training is likely to come off worst with the limited time available in lessons.
I wonder about the next generation of students with the teachers instructing them; the desire to cut corners and ignore these skills will be very great.
Norman Lebrecht [redacted] has not researched his subject matter. MTB have not dispensed with aural tests and scales & arpeggios on request. Far from it. Scales are compulsory but they have offered 2 choices – scales from memory (on request) or ‘alternative to scales from memory’, which can be played from the music but have harder key signatures, different articulation patterns, different rhythms and dynamics. And unlike other exam boards, all listed scales must be played for both scale options rather than the frustration of learning 10 scales only to be asked 5 in the exam.
Leaving aside the point that MTB were offering digital exams years before ABRSM and Trinity started to, I think this post conflates two issues:
1. Live vs. Recorded
2. Are support tests important?
In terms of 1, the answer should be obvious to any musician. A live performance is clearly preferable to staying at home and playing to your iPhone. The nuance to add is that recorded exams do have the obvious benefit of being more widely available. So I think there’s a place for both, but it needs to be well-devised to ensure parity.
The answer to 2 is more complex. The ‘elephant in the room’ here is that ABRSM’s supporting tests in their latest form could IN THEMSELVES be described as deleterious to music education. As Jennifer Hillman pointed out in her comment, the piano scales requirements no longer cumulatively build up the natural hierarchy of the tonal system, and any competent teacher should easily be able to devise a better scales scheme than the daft ABRSM one. Who on earth came up with that? And I understand that other instrument syllabi suffer from an equally poor grasp of basic pedagogy.
Turning to the aural tests, Sean Hutchins, Isabelle Peretz et al demonstrate scientifically a decade ago that singing is not an indication of pitch audiation, rendering ABRSM’s approach not only redundant but very misleading, with questionable results. And that’s before we start on issues around inclusion, situational anxiety, changing voices, etc.
We need to ask WHY we teach these skills. Ultimately, if scales are useful they help develop technique. If aural is useful, it helps us play with more engaged musicality. If sight reading is useful, it enables us to understand notation with speed and musical accuracy…
And ALL of those skills should surely be evident in the performance of music. If not, why teach them?
I generally think the idea of exams are pointless. Competitive music is an anachronism. My pupils do Trinity exams which, for brass, has a far better range of music. I encourage my pupils to learn a lot of the music at a particular grade level plus scales and technical exercises. If the pupil and parents wish it, we take the exam as a face to face. Otherwise, we just learn repertoire and skills and encourage ensemble playing and recital opportunities.
As for grades 6-8 offering UCAS points in the UK, the Universities take zero notice of this and parents are fooled into thinking it is essential for their little darlings.
Most exam boards are trying too hard to be accessible when they should perhaps focus on musicianship and technique. Recorded recitals might be the way to go?
As a parent who wants their children to have fun learning to play instruments, performance exam option is ideal. However they are not as easy as it looks! To record 4 consecutive songs in an hour with an accompanist that they have not seen or played before is quite stressful. Some noted that children can re-record, however that is very costly and you wouldn’t want to stress your kids again. Within the hour, in my experience, children manage to have 2/3 goes and usually the first take is the one we send (usually with mistakes despite knowing the songs we’ll!). The exam is hard as the examinors study every detail and are often very harsh (we’ve had some interesting comments;-)
If it wouldn’t be for the society requiring some sort of prove kids achieved a certain level, we wouldn’t bother with the exams at all. So the performance option is ideal when needed without learning scales etc. But don’t get me wrong my daughter passed music theory grade 5 at the age of 9 – that’s when she was ready to understand the complexity of scales and when she needed it to progress to improvisation- until then it was just fun playing songs we liked.
So performance exams are an option that suits certain musicians/situations and I would almost say are sometimes harder than face to face exams that have the element of a personal approach and assurance children need.
Even if my pupils are taking digital exams, I still make sure they practice their scales, sight reading and do some sort of aural training. It’s up to the teacher to provide a well rounded education, even if it’s not being tested.
I think that the face to face exams are souch better. It gives a real sense of occasion and is a performance opportunity. It also allows for the communication element which is essential for any performance. The aural tests, sight reading and scales are also vital elements for the developing musician which cannot be replicated only if ne.
MTB were doing recorded exams before the others! I wonder who contradicts recorded exams? Stuffy old fashioned teachers maybe? I rarely enter pupils for exams but love the recorded exams. Most of my pupils are adults and they love the recorded exams. Most would say NO to a F2F exam……
Teachers can still teach all the other elements that make a well rounded pupil; scales, arpeggios, broken chords, listening skills, theory etc so they can learn new music with ease.
I think there is a place for on-line exams, but best used for pupils who want to play for pleasure rather than as an act of study. My biggest grouse is the inconsistency of ABRSM marking on line. As a teacher if 30 years I can accurately mark and rank pupils I enter for face to face exams. No such luck with on-line exams. All students have passed, but marks appear random and don’t follow any predictable pattern
This is a very complex topic. And, as an examiner myself, I thoroughly disagree. There have always been good and bad teachers, those who taught the supporting areas well, and those who crammed them in the week before the exam. Recorded exams haven’t changed that. But recorded exams are quite different to face to face, and they examine different skills. But the best thing about recorded exams, is how they fit so well into a child centred education. I have spoken at conferences on this topic, and here is a recorded version of that talk. And for the record, my students have been doing recorded exams in one form or another, since the year 2000. I generally only use face to face exams for grade 8 plus.
https://youtu.be/c_MecTAJUrA
Hang on…
Both Trinity and ABRSM still offer live exams with a variety of supporting tests including aural, sight reading and scales. At higher levels there are live recital-style exams which reflect the reality of public performance. Recorded exams are a continuation of the emergency response to the pandemic which has been useful to allow diverse access to assessment in the UK and abroad but there is still a majority interest in live exams, with supporting tests, in the UK now it has become possible to administer these again.
What can’t be good for music education overall is an attempt to create controversy by sowing seeds of doubt in headlines like this. Especially at the moment music and music education are in a fragile place. Some support for those that care would be gratefully received rather than an attempt to create a storm in this rather small teacup.
I teach scales, aural and sight reading alongside the performance exams. Students cannot proceed to the next grade until they can perform these elements satisfactorily.
I think there are several issues here which need to be dealt with separately.
With respect to F2F vs. Online exams, a serious music examination, which considers all functional aspects of a student’s musical prowess, SHOULD include prepared pieces, suitable scales and arpeggios, sight-reading, and aural skills.
COVID-19 forced a shift in approach due to travel bans and proximity issues, but in general, for students in remote locations (we are in Africa) getting ABRSM examiners from the UK to students across the world has always been an issue. I think it is high time that these examining bodies either put serious resources into setting up international satellite centres, which can double up as teaching centres, and getting trained, competent examiners permanently installed, OR, that they found some reasonable means of doing online examinations that replicates as far as possible the previous mode of examination, with all components included.
The debate as to whether the performance should be live or pre-recorded if done remotely, is a tricky one, because electricity supply and internet availability are often severely compromised in some parts of the world. I know that performance under the pressure of a live or F2F situation often causes students anxiety, leading to mistakes that they would not have made if the pressure was off and they could choose to record while playing alone… but one has to ask whether such a student – who is clearly learning music either for their own enjoyment (or possibly under parental duress), rather than with a view to performance at any level – where stage fright MUST be overcome – derives any real benefit from participating in such examinations at all?
Since COVID-19, my own children and students have not participated in any ABRSM examinations. We booked twice for theory examinatuons, but these were cancelled.
I do not believe that the online format for music theory examinations can possibly provide a true reflection of ability, compared with the previous, written examinations (which were already watered down since the format changed in 2018). Similarly, they have also not entered practical examinations, but have learned pieces from the relevant current selections, and have moved up in grades with time.
The whole shift in format has been disappointing, and, as others have mentioned, the current online practical format has basically encouraged lazy teaching and learning from teachers and students alike – you can be VERY sure that if scales, arpeggios,sight-reading and aural skills are non-examinable, the majority of teachers and their students would focus on what IS to be examined – especially when students have so many other academic pressures on them at this time.
As for the issues related to financial extortion that some have alluded to, I really do think that most examination bodies (and this is not limited to music) have fallen into the trap of mercenary goals, which have driven quantity of throughput over quality of the examinations concerned. This in turn will inevitably lead to a loss of quality, and therefore of credence such qualifications might hold – and the entire system then becomes devalued.
This would be a great pity for estimable institutions such as ABRSM, and I think they should concentrate all their efforts into slowing down and reversing this decline in quality.
I’ve taught pupils for ABRSM Exams most of the past 20 years years. The music exam treadmill is not for all kids & can actually hamper an enjoyment of playing. But the standard format- now forfeited in the online trend- of scales & aural tests is at least a good discipline in terms of overall musicianship. I concur with some commentators that, as an organisation, the ABRSM has become more about big business & making a fast buck- than nurturing the musical future of this country.
Most children find the recording of the exam so much more difficult than standing in front of an examiner. Music is not just about performing in front of an audience but we have many ways of recording ourselves for publishing on Youtube etc so new skills are learnt.
For thise budding students who hold potential Aural and Sight reading should always be practised in relation to pieces in the lesson .
99Z% of candidates though will not end up at music college so these exams , without Aural are ideal.