What happens in a Piano Exam?

The Royal Conservatory of Music in Canada has 10 grade levels for piano examinations. There are pre-grade 1 levels called Preparatory A and B (formerly Introductory) as well.  At the higher grades, Grade 4 and beyond, there are corequisites in theory, music history, harmony, counterpoint and composition.  High school students are able to include Grade 8 to 10 piano with their high school transcripts for credits.  After Grade 10, the students may work on a ARCT Performance diploma or an ARCT Teacher's diploma (former). Presently, the ARCT Teacher's Certificate Program is split into three levels (beginners, intermediate and advance) which has Grade 9, 10 and ARCT level as co-requisites respectively.

EXAM SCORE

• A total of 100 marks may be achieved by the student.
• First Class Honours with Distinction - 90 marks and above
• First Class Honours - 80 marks and above
• Honours - 70 marks and above
• Pass - 60 marks I believe.

MARK BREAKDOWN
For the Beginner - Intermediate Level Exams, 50 marks total are assigned to repertoire (playing pieces) and the other 50 marks are broken down for technical and music training skills.  The mark breakdown changes for the higher grades and I can explain those in another article.

REPERTOIRE 50 MARKS
List A - Baroque dances. These could be Minuets, Gigues, Bouree in Major and minor keys; composers such as Bach, Gurlitt etc. In higher grades, List A is Inventions, Sinfornias, Fugues, Partitas etc.
List B - Classical. These are usually Sonatinas, Variations in Major and minor keys; composers like Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Scarlatti etc.
List C - Romantic/ Modern ear. These are ballads, lyrical pieces with names that sound like a painting or a fall sunset. Keys tend to move around, exploring modes and atonality.
List D - In Grade 9 and up, this is modern twentienth century compositions (List C remains Romantic/ Impressionist)

The Repertoire categories are a little bit different in Grade 1; List A is Baroque/ Classical, List B is Twentienth Century pieces with descriptive titles, List C are Inventions (two or three part rounds).

THE OTHER 50 MARKS
Parents may wonder why we spend the first part of the lesson away from the piano doing singing, clapping and note reading exercises. They may be surprised to learn that only 50% of the marks go to repertoire (playing songs).  The other 50% is accounted for like this.

• 6 marks for memory
• 24 for technique (study pieces, and scales/ triads)
• 10 for ear tests (naming intervals, melody playback)
• 10 for sight reading (playing a song he's never seen before, clapping a rhythm correctly the first time!)

Therefore, in the first part of the lesson, I am training them to acheive 100% marks in this partof the exam, and the skills directly apply to memory training and even playing the pieces well because they understand how to read music better and more quickly; they will learn to play their songs and reach the performance level faster.

STUDIES
The Technical Study pieces are found in the Study book which features pieces that typically work on a specific technique such as chords, thumb crossing over, hand over hand, fast fingers, arpeggios etc.

Scales and Triads are learned in order of the circle of fifths by key signatures.

EAR TESTS

This includes naming intervales of a second (stepwise), third (major minor), perfect fourth, perfect fifth, sixth (major minor), seventh (major minor) and an octave. It's more useful to learn these from the experience of playing games and building them with magic notes. Another test is naming a solid triad as Major, minor or Dominant or diminished seventh.  Melody playback seems to be a very stressful one for some. However if we play enough Melodic Bingo or solfege singing or music dictation (by numbers or notes) this is easy to train.

In my early days of music teaching without much experience, I would just spend last two minutes of the lesson on playing these by rote, and say, "This is a perfect fifth. This is  perfect fourth." Then I would play an example and he would have to name it. BORING!  I believe that my new way of teaching it is more effective.

SIGHT READING

This can be very frightful if a student is required to read and play a new piece, never seen before. If he is already comfortable with note reading and rhythm reading, and the hand eye coordination is already in place, this is a piece of cake, an easy 10 marks. Rhythm clapping is easy too when you get to say, "Blue jello jello huckleberry, blue purple purple rest, pineapple pineapple pineapple rest." Students will also learn the Solfege hand signs (do re mi).  By teaching the solfege singing, a student can play this tune correctly in his mind, which makes it very easy to play live, even perfectly on the very first try.

FORMAT

There are three sessions of piano exams in most Canadian cities.
Winter sessions exams in January (register by Nov 1)
Spring session exams in June (register by March 1)
Summer sessions in August (register by June 1).
Registration is done online; the piano teacher should provide her Teacher Registration number or home phone number.

There are usually one or two piano examiners who are top level performers or pedagogues (a fancy word for a piano teacher with years of experience) from the US or Canada who will oversee the piano exam and ask the child to play the selected repertoire, studies, technique and carry out the music tests.  In the Royal Conservatory of Music, the child enters the piano exam room alone, to play on the Yamaha U1 or a Yamaha Grand Piano.  (In other piano associations such as the Conservatory of Canada, the exam session is more like a performance recital where the student invites her family and guests and prepares a printed program).

Other related articles to follow:
What are the benefits of Piano Exams?
Piano Exam Tips for the Night Before.