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Hi,

I am doing some work for one of the UK top exam board in connection with re-doing the keyboard exam from Initial grade to Grade 8. I would really like to get some feedback about :-

1- have anyody taken keyboard exams?They are mainly taken by children but have any older members taken them?

2- what do you they think of keyboard exams?

3- what sort of tunes would like to see included that would inspire you to take the exams?

Obviously there is a large amount of older people take piano exams and with so many people now having the digital pianos and keyboards there should be quite a large demand for exams if we can get the content right.

It would be interesting to see peoples opinions on exams.

Thank-you.

Nigel

Such exams are almost unknown in the US. They
exist in theory, but you'd have to search hard
to find someone to administer them. The
whole idea of graded exams goes against the grain
of the American style of piano teaching, which
is a freewheeling style where every teacher
teaches in his or her own way. Such exams
would hold absolute zero weight on an application
for college or conservatory admission in the US.

I have only the vaguest idea of what such
exams are like, as they are essentially
non-existent in the US. Are you saying
that there is a separate set of exams
for digital piano players and acoustic
piano players? If this is so, that would
be very surprising to me, because I regard
weighted-key digital pianos as equivalent
to acoustic pianos.

According to there site over 8,000 pupils take there exams every year in the USA:-


http://www.abrsm.org/?page=regions/us/eng/

Also Trinity has quite a few centres aswell:-

http://www.trinitycollege.co.uk/locator/flash.php?action=search&repOrCentre=rep&location[0]=north_america&location[1]=usa&location[2]=usa&buttons[btnSearch]=Search


In the UK without them you would not get in most Music college , and they are now worth a lot of points when you apply for colleges,etc



Yes there are different exams for keyboards and pianos. The keyboard uses chords and styles. But you can do a piano exam on a digital piano if it meets the right standard.

Nigel

I think they're the same - in Canada, some colleges teach on digitals. Anyway, as far as exams go, I took them (Royal Conservatory) as a child and they always stressed me out! Not to the point where I couldn't passed them, but just performance anxiety. There was also a bit of an adrenaline rush. It's worth experiencing.

In Canada, you can get high school music credits for reaching certain RCM grades.