I've just been asked to accompany a G4 violin exam next week and want to write some new sight-reading examples using the syllabus criteria. I haven't got a violin scale book, and would be grateful if someone could tell me where it's most usual to shift up and back in C and D major and minor scales and arpeggios. I'll be surprised if the exam test doesn't include any shifts as the sight-reading can cover the whole range of the scales for the grade. I play the viola at a mediocre level and understand the principles, but want to use the most conventional options and don't know them!

I gather the last minute request results from the teacher's usual accompanist not being available, but have no idea why it's taken so long to find out. I may well have a first rehearsal with the candidate tomorrow evening, so any help gratefully received. If necessary I'll just guess, based on what I think I would find easiest.

If anyone has the published violin tests I would also be interested to know if there's a consistent number of bars. I'm planning to write 12, but could adjust. I always write my own, so that there's absolutely no possibility of duplicating what they have already seen.

Most of the grade 4 specimen sight-reading tests are 12 bars long but there are a few that are longer (up to about 20 bars).

Not all of the grade 4 specimen tests include shifts, but where they do, they are mostly restricted just to changing between first and third position. There are a few exceptions though.

The D major scale (as shown in the AB book) gives a choice of shifting to up to third position on the D one octave above the starting note and then going back down to first position on the E string, or just starting in third position on the G string and staying in third position.

C major can start in second position and stay there, or start in first position and shift up to third position on the A string and then back down to first position on the A string.

Hope that helps

I would have thought grade 4 2 octave scales would be done without shifts. C and D both in 3rd position with C starting on the 1st finger and D starting on the 2nd finger but I guess it's personal preference.

How will you know how difficult to make the sight reading tests?

Why do you want to practice sight reading with the candidates? That's the teacher's job. Yours is to accompany.

Liz

My memory of shifting at that level is that it is largely confined to 3rd position and back again.

I was quite startled by that question! My job as you see it it simply to accompany. My job as I see it is to do everything I can to enable the candidate to have a positive experience in the exam. I often help with the aural tests too, and it's not unusual for me to spend time during the initial contact explaining to parents of young first-time candidates what will happen during the exam etc.

I meet a great many exam candidates who have rather short shared lessons and whose understanding of music notation is rudimentary, to put it politely. They often have no plan for how they will spend the thirty seconds they are allowed in the exam to prepare the sight-reading. I usually have at least two rehearsals with each candidate, and I aim to help them to plan what they will do, with two or three priorities, as well as giving them a chance to prepare and play a sample test at each rehearsal that includes examples of the elements mentioned in the syllabus. If there's time I will then work through it in detail with them. I love helping people to improve their music reading. I see it as the musical equivalent of going to the library, borrowing an interesting book and immediately being able to read and understand it.

As some people on the Forums know, I run an adult learners' orchestra, with no minimum standard. In that context I put a lot of effort into helping people to improve their music-reading and to keep their place and keep going even when sight-reading. I've been doing it for almost twelve years, and it's definitely one of the most rewarding things I've ever done.

I describe myself as, among other things, a teaching accompanist (see my sig.).

Thank you to the people who have given me information to work with in response to the original request.

I think it is great that you put in so much effort to help candidates. If you do a lot of this teaching/accompanist role I think it be worth investing in a violin specimen sight reading tests book (if memory serves there is one book for grades 1-5 together). It would be best to work on tests of the right level of difficulty and there isn't much of an indication in the syllabus of what that would be.

Yes indeed, that is what you are being paid for, unless of course you have some arrangement with teachers that you will do aurals and sight reading and general explaining and so on as well. Perhaps you have such an arrangement, I don't know, but if it's a last minute arrangement I doubt it. I would certainly have been rather surprised (to put it politely) if someone I had sent my pupils to for accompaniment actually started trying to give them a lesson on an instrument she did not play!

Liz

When I'm asked to accompany candidates that's all I do. It's all I have time to do! Occasionally I am asked to take some instrumentalists for aural lessons as their teacher isn't a pianist, but that's different. I wouldn't like it if the accompanist gave my students sight reading or aural. As a teacher I believe it is my responsibility to prepare students for exams and as an accompanist my job is to accompany candidates.

I'm a freelance accompanist, so I don't know from one term to the next what exam accompanying I shall be asked to do (i.e. any instrument or singing). Anyway, as I think I mentioned, the point of writing my own material is that the various instrumental teachers are quite likely to be using the published tests and I want to be sure that I have material to offer that the candidates can't possibly have seen before.

There's a clear indication in the syllabus, certainly up to grade 5, of the range of notes that can be included at each grade, the range of possible keys and three other elements which may be included: accidentals, dotted notes and tied notes. From reading mark sheets I sometimes get further information that isn't in the syllabus. It's years now since I saw a mention on a grade 3 mark sheet that a candidate hadn't observed the change of time (not mentioned as a possibility), and on several occasions I've seen mention of rests being ignored. I constantly see comments such as "...but it kept going" or "you kept it moving but...", so I stress the need to play something for each note and go on, etc. Some candidates, especially the perfectionists, find that exceptionally difficult to do.

You're quite right, you don't know, so I have no idea why you seem so determined to interpret what I do in a negative way.

Where did you get the idea that I was proposing to give a violin lesson? Improving sight-reading skills isn't strongly instrument-related, but I assume that changes of position in string sight-reading tests will be fingered (if someone knows they aren't I'll be interested to know that) so I wanted to include the most appropriate fingering.

(shrugs) it's between you and the teacher and the parent of course. Just don't be surprised if one day you find you have lost yourself a lot of business by your unorthodox methods.

Liz

It is possible that dacapo is paid to do what she's doing & would lose business for stopping...

Yes of course, if she's paid to do that then that is what she has to do. It would be rather unusual though.

Liz

Seems to me like there's some un-necessary touchiness on this thread.

Given that there is no accompaniment to sight reading or scales etc, why take exception to someone finding it odd that the accompanist should get very actively involved in these parts. I found that a little unusual too and wouldn't expect it from anyone but my teacher. Anyone doing the accompanying wouldn't even be in the room at this point in the exam, so surely that's some reason for folk to find it surprising. There's no need to snap and get so irked about it!

Chill out, man!

I'm sure you're a very well meaning accompanist , but, as a violin teacher with a long history of entering pupils for exams I have to say that I find this situation unusual.

My pupils are taught to sight sing before they sightread, indeed they sight sing from the start when learning to read music, using do-re- mi to help pitch and recognise notes from the start. Even before thet move onto fingered notes they will (hopefully !) have established a strong foundation of pulse and easy rhythms using open string bowing.

It is then simply a matter of devising and working to a structured curriculum, using pulse and rhythm as the skeleton and keys/notes as the 'dressing'. I find that so long as pupils are comfortable with this framework, sight reading usually flows fairly naturally. From the earliest stages I find that pupils who have had positive experiences of reading through new material - either alone, in a duet/small group or as part of a larger class - continue to grow as reasonable, confident, functional sightreaders.

I have to say that if I encountered an acompanist who, however well meaning, took my pupils' time and put them in the situation where they might start to question their sightreading skills, I would be extremely unhappy. All pupils progress differently at different times and each pupils's level at any time is simply the sum of their experiences and perceptions.

Likewise, if someone asked me to step in and accompany their pupil at the last minute I would not expect to take over that pupil's exam prep totally from the teacher - it's the journey of preparing for an exam and all the learning that takes place which is important, and in the vast majority of cases, far more important than what happens in 10-15 minutes in the exam itself. I would offer helpful advice on ensemble playing and any specific points to polish the performance - certainly not to undermine the work that has already been done by the pupil's teacher.

Same for aural - I would only do a quick practice if specifically requested and paid. I struggle to keep my waiting list down and my children fed on time as it is.

I'm sure you're a very dedicated accompanist, however I hope you can also see the other side of the coin, from a teacher's perspective

I rather hope it is.

Sadly since my favourite local violin teacher (and a good friend) retired I've accompanied rather few exam candidates whose musical background bore any resemblance to what you are describing. I occasionally accompany candidates who are having individual lessons. Much more often they are learning in school in groups of two of three, with a lesson lasting no more than half an hour. They will probably have been learning the exam pieces for months, but even now when recordings are available some will arrive for their first rehearsal without having heard the accompaniments. They don't always even know what the titles mean, or how to count their introductory bars' rest.

I absolutely agree with all that.


If you were to ask a child whose exam you were about to accompany in perhaps two weeks' time "How about sight-reading?" and get the answer "we're going to do that next week", as I've done on various occasions, you might want to do as I do and be prepared to improve their chances of doing it well in the exam, if time allowed. Those children probably haven't played any unfamiliar music for many weeks if not months.


I'm in a very different situation as I no longer do any regular instrumental teaching and my children are grown up. I have a flexible timetable organised round running an orchestra and being a "cottage industry" music publisher. That's why I can pick up accompanying at short notice if necessary.


Indeed I can. I think it's fair to assume from what you have written that it's the perspective of a an experienced private teacher working one-to-one with pupils, and I appreciate your taking the time to write about it. What I do, in what is often the first one-to-one music teaching the children have ever had, is normally discussed beforehand at least in outline with the instrumental teacher I'm supporting. In the semi-rural area where I live and work, with some children bussed in many miles to school from small surrounding villages and very few local instrumental teachers, group instrumental lessons in school are often the only option. The teachers do the best they can with a situation that is far from ideal, and in this area woodwind teachers are expected to teach all the woodwind instruments. The teachers I accompany for regularly welcome the sort of support I can offer. The actual accompanying always has top priority. The amount of time I spend with the children is negotiated direct with whoever pays the bills.

Thanks for taking the trouble over such a detailed reply. I'm sorry if I might have misunderstood where you were coming from, however, I can now see that you are in a rather unusual situation.

I can't help wondering though, why these pupils are being entered for AB exams and still be so unprepared in some areas of the syllabus so close to the exam.

A large proportion of my work is group teaching in primaries and it is perfectly possible to cover scales (as warmups), aural (disguised as listening exercises and as preparation for new pieces) and sightreading (now have a go!) right from the start.

I can understand school and parental pressures to show results by achievement in music exams but that shoud really just be the icing on the cake.

I wonder if your collegue has come across AB's Music Medals material? This has been devised with group lessons in mind - I'm sure there's a link somewhere on this site.

I often wonder the same. Thanks for mentioning the Music Medals. Because I'm not doing any regular instrumental teaching myself these days (and apart from one term as a "supply" peri have only ever taught absolute beginners on the flute in groups, otherwise one to one) I haven't actually come into contact with the medals or the teaching material. Now - i.e. between exams and results! - might be a good time to ask the two peri teachers I've worked for this term whether they have considered them.


Your pupils are very lucky. I do know that with careful planning it's possible to cover the ground, and the best teachers do wonders however difficult the teaching conditions. It's a real treat when I get to accompany their pupils. The friend who retired had been teaching in what sounds like a very similar way to you, and her pupils were always really well prepared, so I didn't really have good reason for assuming you must be teaching one to one.


I taught flute in a primary school for about ten years when my children were young, alongside private teaching, and for the last five years also ran a flute and clarinet group and an orchestra in the school. I found that with the ensembles performing in school concerts and usually all my pupils and the groups playing in local music festivals there was no particular pressure for exams. I normally entered each of the school pupils for whatever grade seemed appropriate just before they moved to secondary school, so that they had an objective assessment when many would be going to new teachers.