Grading system

[chopinguy]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the grading system that everyone's talking about here.  Actually, I haven't even heard of it until I came to this forum.     There are people who say stuff like, "I'm grade 5-6" or something like that.  I'm just wondering where I would place.  I'm playing: Beethoven Moonlight, Chopin Polonaise-Fantasie, Cramer etudes (soon to start Chopin etudes), and the Mendelssohn Trio in c minor.

I've been playing for about eight years.

Thanks in advance!

[Vanillawafer]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the grading system that everyone's talking about here.  Actually, I haven't even heard of it until I came to this forum.     There are people who say stuff like, "I'm grade 5-6" or something like that.  I'm just wondering where I would place.  I'm playing: Beethoven Moonlight, Chopin Polonaise-Fantasie, Cramer etudes (soon to start Chopin etudes), and the Mendelssohn Trio in c minor.

I've been playing for about eight years.

Thanks in advance!

Sorry to bring this thread back to life, but I couldn't find the answer to this question while searching.  I too am confused about this whole grade thing.  Durring my lessons growing up no one ever mentioned "grades".  Can someone explain, and is this something I should be talking with my current piano teacher about?  She too has never mentioned such a thing???

[bernhard]

Sorry to bring this thread back to life, but I couldn't find the answer to this question while searching.  I too am confused about this whole grade thing.  Durring my lessons growing up no one ever mentioned "grades".  Can someone explain, and is this something I should be talking with my current piano teacher about?  She too has never mentioned such a thing???

You are forgiven.

Grades are the equivalent of coloured belts in the Japanese martial arts.

In the beginning there were no belts. You just went to a master and learned the stuff. You knew your worth if you could defend yourself when attacked. In those days they had the correct understanding: Skill is far more important than credentials.

As people got more civilised and the chances of one being attacked diminished, chances to prove one’s skill rarefied. So the masters started to give away scrolls (=diplomas) once the student had reached a level the masters considered workable.

In 1949, with the American occupation, many Americans started to learn martial arts. They became increasingly nervous that there was no outer sign of their newly acquired prowess. So they imposed the belt system. White belts were beginners, then yellow belts, then orange, green, purple, brown and finally black. A black belt meant to the Americans that they had mastered the martial art. The Japanese smiled. To them a black belt meant that they were ready to start learning.

The colour sequence had a practical purpose. In those days, belts were coloured with pigments, so the lowest colours had to be light and get dark at each successive colouring.

In the early days, the way to get promoted to a higher belt was by just practising hard. The master would observe you, and when he thought you were ready he would give you a new belt.

Soon people began to cry out loud that the system was too subjective. Soon syllabus were introduced, and you had to perform certain tasks in certain ways in order to get your belt. Exams had been born.

But exams provide an ideal opportunity for a master to make some extra money. Soon some schools decided that it was a good idea to have some extra colours so that more exams could be imposed on the students, and more revenue could be generate from it. So it is not unusual today to find that certain martial arts school will have 15 different coloured belts before you get a black belt. And since the black belt was really the stage where you were ready to start learning, different degrees of black belt were introduced. In most systems there are ten degrees. The founder of the system is traditionally awarded (usually posthumously) a 12th degree black belt just to show what a badass he was.

At the same time, the original purpose of the martial arts (to defend oneself efficiently against an aggressor) was slowly forgotten, and instead some sort of game with explicit rules took its place.

I once met a guy who refused to enter this system and just kept coming to train and never took any exams. He always wore a white belt. After some years of this, he was an awesome fighter. People who came to visit the dojo and were not aware of this, were in for the surprise of their lives. The guys thought he was an inexperienced white belt and he washed the floor with them. After one particular embarrassing situation (he beat up some high degree black belt who had come from Japan to give a seminar in front of the public), the master told him in no uncertain terms that he must grade, so he went straight from white to black belt. But he truly could not care less about it. So, be very careful of skill, and don’t pay too much attention to credentials.

I also met a guy once, who was a 8th degree black belt in several martial arts, he was an European champion of kickboxing, and despite the fact that he was in his early twenties, demanded that his students refer to him as “grand-master”. Then he run into trouble. Some skinhead bumped into him, and after some verbal abuse, he throw a round kick at the skinhead. The skinhead – an old had at street fighting – easily took the kick, grabbed his leg, and next thing he knew he was awakening in hospital for a long time in physiotherapy. So, be wary of credentials without the necessary skills to back it up.

Now the same apply to piano grades.

In the old days there were no grades. What was Liszt’s grade? Or Chopin? These guys relied on their skills, not on credentials.

But soon someone came up with the idea that to have a measure of one’s progress was useful. So grades were brought into the scene.

Just like different martial art schools have different belts and different ways to test for them, so different music boards and associations have different grades and different tests to award them.

I am most familiar with the ABRSM, which has 8 grades. Grade 1 is beginner, grade 8 is black belt. But just like the martial arts, when you get your black belt this does not mean that you have mastered the art, but rather that you have mastered the basics, and so you now ready to truly start learning. Likewise, grade 8 does not even start to touch the advanced piano repertory. But at grade 8 you are ready to start learning about it, having (hopefully) mastered the basics.

Unfortunately – as it is usually the case – very rarely the skills match the credentials. So it is pretty common to find people boasting of their grade 8 status who can barely play and understand little of music. They passed a test, that is all.

Some Associations (mostly in the US and Canada) have 10 grades instead of 8.

If you would like to have an idea of the syllabus requirements for different grades, have a look here:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,3472.msg30727.html#msg30727
(grade requirements for different institutions around the world)

Personally, I do not attach any importance whatsoever to any of this. I have a high regard for skills and a healthy disregard of credentials.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Vanillawafer]

WOW, Bernhard you amaze the hell out of me!  I wish you lived in Dallas, TX so I could take lessons from you :p  The thing that makes this grading system difficult is when books have a grade attached to them... I have no idea what grade level I am, so I have no idea if a book is to advanced or to easy for me.  In fact I having a lot of trouble figuring out what level of music I should be working on.  My sight reading is HORRIBLE due to the fact that as a kid I took lessons from the Yamaha School of Music and they focused 100% on ear training, so as I moved on in life my ear became a crutch.  Now I'm trying desperately to improve my sight reading, but I'm having trouble because I don't know what "level" I should be reading.  I can learn a fairly hard piece with no trouble if I spend lots and lots of time at it, and eventually memorise it, but I DON'T want to memorise right now, I want to learn to read   Anyway, sorry for the rant, and thanks so much for all the knowledge you share with this community!!!

[Cecin_Koot]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the grading system that everyone's talking about here.  Actually, I haven't even heard of it until I came to this forum.     There are people who say stuff like, "I'm grade 5-6" or something like that.  I'm just wondering where I would place.  I'm playing: Beethoven Moonlight, Chopin Polonaise-Fantasie, Cramer etudes (soon to start Chopin etudes), and the Mendelssohn Trio in c minor.

I've been playing for about eight years.

Thanks in advance!

well i have been playing over 7 years and i have just had my AMEB grade 5 exam, so i am moving into grade 6

[nanabush]

I think it's easier to start with grade 1 or 2 when you FIRST BEGIN, and just progress, don't just play random stuff then say o I don't know what level I am, you'll just get confused, and if you have no idea what level you are, then ask your teacher?

[Vanillawafer]

I think it's easier to start with grade 1 or 2 when you FIRST BEGIN, and just progress, don't just play random stuff then say o I don't know what level I am, you'll just get confused, and if you have no idea what level you are, then ask your teacher?

Yeah, I would like to have my teacher follow some structure like this... So what is the US Grading System Called?  Should I follow the US system since I live in the US, or does it not really matter?

[quantum]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the grading system that everyone's talking about here.  Actually, I haven't even heard of it until I came to this forum.     There are people who say stuff like, "I'm grade 5-6" or something like that.  I'm just wondering where I would place.  I'm playing: Beethoven Moonlight, Chopin Polonaise-Fantasie, Cramer etudes (soon to start Chopin etudes), and the Mendelssohn Trio in c minor.

I've been playing for about eight years.

Thanks in advance!

In Canada you probably would be RCM grade 10 or ARCT. 

[6ft 4]

the grades are a good way of learning the essentials to being a general all round good pianist, and learning the skills gradually.

[ako]

Yeah, I would like to have my teacher follow some structure like this... So what is the US Grading System Called?  Should I follow the US system since I live in the US, or does it not really matter?


In the US, it depends on which teacher's association your teacher belongs to. Normally, there are 10 levels and you could be in one level for more than one year, i.e. level 10 until you graduate from HS. If you're interested in being evaluated, talk to your teacher about annual evaluations in your area. I'm sure they have them.

[Vanillawafer]

Yeah, I would like to have my teacher follow some structure like this... So what is the US Grading System Called?  Should I follow the US system since I live in the US, or does it not really matter?


In the US, it depends on which teacher's association your teacher belongs to. Normally, there are 10 levels and you could be in one level for more than one year, i.e. level 10 until you graduate from HS. If you're interested in being evaluated, talk to your teacher about annual evaluations in your area. I'm sure they have them.

Thanks,
I will check with her at my next lesson.

[Glyptodont]

This is all quite fascinating to me.  I'm glad I don't have to swim in those currents.

Actually, the only audience I have for my piano playing is my wife Teresa - - - plus a stuffed bear named "Ursula" who perches on the corner of the piano.  Oh, and let's not forget the cats.

I know some of the music books have grades, but they are not all well coordinated, so one publisher's grade 3 book may be harder than another publisher's grade 4.

Sometimes the printed piano literature refers to beginner, intermediate, and advanced.  Intermediate can mean a lot of things.

For me it means that, if I select carefully, I can find quite a few classical pieces in their original score that I can play.

That is good, because at my age I probably won't get dramatically better.

Best luck to all young piano warriors out there, battling through the belts . . . er, grades.