30 years ago......

[mass]

I'm curious to know how the bar has been raised over the last few decades. Do you consider grade 7 or 8 repertoire less advanced than today? If so, by how much. I'm thinking that grade 7 from say....30 years ago is equal to about grade 5 today???

I guess it's like athletics. As students progress, the bar is continuously raised?  Aaahh!! Where will we be in another 30 years??

[cora]

Well, I don't know if it's always true that the bar gets set higher. For instance, Fur Elise used to be gr.6, and now it's gr.7. I think no matter what grade you are in today, it's equally difficult to get your ARCT.

In regular education, I sometimes think that we did some more useful things, like memorize speeches, and some dumber things like dissect mice and keep the skins, or answer values clarification-type questions without research.

We didn't run around as much like turkeys with our heads cut off, so maybe the education stuck better. Kids today seem to have no transition time between things.

When you read a lot of history, you cannot conclude that people are getting smarter. For sure, they are not getting wiser.

[bernhard]

Standards have progressively deteriorated inthe past 30 years. A piece that nowadays is considered grade 5 -6 repertory on the ABRSM used to be grade 3 - 4, 30 - 40 years ago. Basically, if they had kept up the standards of 30 years ago, most students would be failed nowadays. And this is bad for business. This has been a general trend in education: to cater for mediocrity. Never fail a student seems to be the moto, so exams have become easier and easier (and still people fail...). It seems not to occur to modern educators/pedagogues in power to provide better teaching, so they take the easy road and provide easier exams instead.

But then, since the purpose of schools seems to be largely to provide slaves for corporate business, it does not really matter.

Once upon a time Satie´s Gymnopedie used to be grade 3. Now it is grade 6.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[zheer]

  The standards in the Uk i similar to the standards that Hitler demanded from his athletes in the olympics, if you know what i mean.

[thalbergmad]

If I remember correctly, I did Brahms Rhapsody in G for my Grade 8 and that was nearly 30 years ago.

When I mentioned that to a teacher friend of mine, she did not believe me.

Bernhard is right (as always).

Thal

[Bob]

Randomly... in the band world publishers will grade a piece of band music lower than it actually is because more of the easier music sells.  If they want more money, they drop the grade level down.

I've heard the same thing about piano music.  The easier music (method books) sells and that's where the publishing company makes their money.