I'm just wondering how long it takes to get to grade 8 on a string instrument.

I'm not bothered about exams but they're like something for to aim for. I feel like I'm never going to get to the more 'advanced' levels (above grade 7). There's a lot of technique to learn, it's never ending! And when I do get to grade 8, I'm sure there's a lot more to learn! I guess being an adult learner and being a naturally competitive person, I just want to do well and master the violin. Am I being over ambitious? It'll be interesting to know what other adult learners are aiming for. The people I've met are just playing their instruments as a hobby, taking it easy and just enjoying it. I enjoy it too but I want to see results as well.

(It would help if I practice more )

Hi

Most people tend to answer this question in terms of years, but I think it is useful to first think in terms of hours of constructive playing/practice under the guidance of good teaching - and I would estimate at least 2000 hours from starting the instrument to achieve a grade 8 merit or distinction (though I think it's possible to scrape a pass with much less than this.)
Most adults would find it hard to devote more than 10 hours a week to their instrument, so that means you should allow yourself 4 years from when you started. I am also an adult learner, and this is roughly how long it's taken me.

Hi Violin 111
I am an adult learner, started from scratch with no prior knowledge of any instrument.

I think we are similar in a way, I am also very enthusiastic about my violin playing and love the darling little thing each day more and more and am so looking forward to the day when I will be an expert player. I have always been eager since I was a little girl, always craving to get to the end result, but I am also a person who likes to do everything well to a 'T', I don't like cutting corners and everything has to be done and done well, so will not just learn 3 pieces for the exam and that's that, when I reach grade 8 I will be a real good violinist, not someone who just plays 3 pieces to a pass standard (I am sure you are like me also).

I don't know how long it takes to become 'good enough', it is such a relative thing and personal too, some consider themselves good violinists when they are at grade 8 level, some even after their diploma may think they are still 'mediocre', it is all down to how you view it and how you perceive things I guess. To me Maxim Vengerov is perfect to others or to himself, he 'may not be perfect'!

Anyway, I think it will be another 3 years for me to start feeling really good about my violin playing, so far I have reached grade 3 standard (have not sat grade 3 exam yet, hoping to do this in March 08) so maybe in 3 years time I will be good enough to join an amateur orchestra in my area? that will make me really happy.

I am aiming high, but that's because I always aim high with everything I do in my life, I want to do it properly and I want to become good in all things I do! so I am going (one day) to sit for my diploma in violin ( one day I will) and in piano too, be it when I am 40/50 or 60! (am about to become 38 next month).

so...you have met people that are not thinking about when and how will they reach those heights, and now you know me that I DO think and dream of those heights and I will reach them (I am talking about reaching diploma here not becoming a virtuoso ), but I am doing so having as much fun as those who don't think about taking a diploma, so far have had plenty of fun with my Figaro (that is my violin's name!) and am planning to have a lot more

I think you will find other adult learners like us on this forum, if I am not mistaken Lottie is one of us (she loves her violin, has lots of fun with it and aims high), am I right Lottie???

Learning an instrument is like learning to speak another language, you speak everyday so you should play everyday. Be aware that it does not and cannot happen overnight just like learning a language.
I suggest at least half an hour of focussed practising per day. Don't get hung up on technique at a too early stage (although it is important and will develop with the correct guidance) without acquiring a good ear and perfect tuning and knowing when you're playing out of tune and able to correct it instantly (very important!).
Listen to as much recorded string music as you possibly can and have a favourite soloist who inspires you. After all learning music is about copying and mimicking so a good teacher who demonstrates and plays to you is very important also.

Yes I'm just a bit on the driven side... or more inclined to get carried away with a passion for something.

I was powering away after my Grade 2 distinction thinking I'll take Grade 3 straight away, then up to 5 next summer and work and work and work... then I realised I was totally missing the point of why I'm playing (I'm an adult starting from being a player of another instrument (woodwind)).

So I took a deep breath and calmed down and am now going to concentrate on enjoying myself and the music as I go along; I'm playing some traditional pieces along with my exam pieces, scales and studies. I'm going to gently work towards an exam but only enter it when I'm truly competent at that grade in every aspect so I've pushed my Grade 3 back to next March. I want all my scales, position changing etc. totally under my belt before I actually sit the examination. Also, from past experience on other instruments, I don't just learn three pieces I try to master the whole book and then choose which I will play nearer the exam. So it will take me a vverrrrry long time to be ready for Grade 8 ... but I'm in no hurry after all. (But I fully intend to get there and my ultimate aim is a diploma of course.)

My teacher chuckled at my ambition recently as I was rather cross at not immediately being proficient at shifting position and she said that once I reach Grade 5 I'll really start to enjoy looking at some wider repertoire and it will feel much more like I can 'play' properly. She said I may not even want to take further exams after Grade 5. So I guess Grade 8 has faded a little in priority for me. It's funny though because my Dad also mentioned me borrowing his fiddle for my "diploma" and I had no idea he thought I was going to stick at playing. Having taught music I don't ever intend to teach again but I would like to take a performing diploma simply for my own pleasure.... eventually

However, my practice regime is a bit scant due to work etc so I know I'll only be able to take higher grades if I can make more time to play.


OH and it's my BIRTHDAY on Saturday and I'm going to be (forty shhhhh) and I'm TERRIFIED because I'm going to BE REALLY OLD and BORING and have lots of GREY HAIR and TAKE UP KNITTING and call all my friends "DEAR" and moan about my BONES ACHING.... but I'm sending off my thirties with a Girly party of champagne cocktails on Sunday afternoon and have kept the rest of the week free to recover from the hangover... cheeeeeerrrrrssssss (hic!)

I'm kinda like Lottie in that at first I wanted to get to a high standard as fast as poss, but now I just want to take my time enjoying all the stops along the way. It's just for fun anyway, so no need to get myself stressed about it.

Re knitting Lottie, it's very trendy these days and I know teenagers who love it!

apparently groups of girls in their 20s are now beginning to meet at the pub for a pint and a knitting session in ONE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOTTIE (I will follow you soon with my 38th b.day on 4th of November)

Well said Lottie - I feel the same as you do now about my playing. There's no rush to get to x grade - it's more about enjoying yourself. I speak from experience as I really pushed myself over summer to get grade 5 piano which in retrospect was bad timing as I had loads on my plate at the time.

I'm much more tempered about the violin and am surprisingly making faster progress I think because I am relaxed - any tension and playing goes completely to pot! I even have a vibrato of sorts......

Enjoy your 40th! And try vibrato after you get sloshed - it might work.......

....but it's terribly bad for the hands, especially those of a musician. I have an aunt who used to knit a lot and eventually developed 'carpel tunnel' in her wrists. She had to have them operated on.

Thanks for cheering up all us over-fifties, Lottie. I don't feel a day over 80 now! And my hair's only a little bit grey - honest!!

Happy birthday for Saturday !

[/quote] OH and it's my BIRTHDAY on Saturday and I'm going to be (forty shhhhh) and I'm TERRIFIED because I'm going to BE REALLY OLD and BORING and have lots of GREY HAIR and TAKE UP KNITTING and call all my friends "DEAR" and moan about my BONES ACHING.... but I'm sending off my thirties with a Girly party of champagne cocktails on Sunday afternoon and have kept the rest of the week free to recover from the hangover... cheeeeeerrrrrssssss (hic!) [/quote]


Some of us have been knitting all through our twenties, thirties, and a bit of our forties!
N

Forty isn't old. Trust me on this

Yep let's think - half an hour a week, 40 weeks a year, on average, for eight years. To be fair I did attend orchestra as well.

Liz

It's taking me forever.

Doing Grade 5 next month, and I have been learnng for 9 years. I should practise more I know, but life is busy.

The key thing is that now I have enough expertise (can you call it that?) to enjoy playing my violin with others, in orechestras and chamber groups, and this is what it is about really, enjoying playing.

But I do want to be able to play better,a ndI will, but this is not a race to the finish line, its a journey of making music.

Jojo said




(and nice to see someone else who thinks Maxim is perfect )

I have done with my violin grade 8 exam 1 month ago.
As an adult learner, it took me about 6 yrs + to reach the goal....

22 years and counting

well I started playing when I was 4 and a half and got my grade 8 distinction the day after my thirteenth birthday, which makes it... eight and a half years.

it took me a lot less time to get my singing grade 8, and a lot longer to get my piano grade 8!!

It very much depends on natural talent and ability as well as how much you practice. I started learning at ten and took grade 8 when I was 13 and a half. My daughter took five years. I have had a few pupils over the years who have done it in five years, but there are so many variables in circumstance. Best to enjoy the playing and practice hard. Don't get sucked into it being any kind of race. Taking into account natural ability and lots of practice it will take as long as is is right for YOU!

Today I made the decision - I'd like to pass Grade 8 before I'm fifty But at the moment it feels a million miles away and soooo difficult in the scales and aural etc

Given the big four oh is this weekend that gives me ten years to do six grades... but I am only a Part-time-Practice-Person so it may take even longer! I think it's fantastic that some people can do it in four or five years. I took four years to reach Grade 8 with the clarinet but it's a much simpler instrument to play, don't get me wrong it's not an easy instrument to play well and it took a further 3 years before I was properly ready for my diploma. Gosh I keep forgetting about those exams but it was a very long time ago. Despite my diploma exams, Grade 8 to me now feels like a huge mountain!

(Yes I've heard knitting is the new Gameboy and I love some of the beautiful colours and contemporary designers but I'm hopeless at it and I'm sure hopelessness increases with age. I'm 'currently' knitting a blanket of squares but the bag of knitting is now almost as old as I am and it's still not finished )

I've set myself a similar goal, to take my Grade 8 (or at least to be passed grade 7 and working toward grade 8) before I hit 41. I'm 35 so I have just under 6 years. I then intend to work on to diploma level.
I'm taking my first practical exam in the second session next year, either grade 3 or 4, depending on how I do between now and then. I've only been playing properly for 6 weeks having played a little at school and then other instruments in between leaving school and now.
Obviously I've a great deal of hard work ahead of me.
I realize I might have taken on a lot but I'm such a stubborn so and so that I'll most likely manage it.

Piano, had first lesson when I was 6. Skipped Grade 8 but got ALCM at 16, so 10 years
Organ, had first lesson at 11 (couldnt reache pedals until then) got to Grade 8 at 17, so 6 years

I don't think I have any real goals. I guess I'd like to take my G1 in June, but I shan't break my heart if I don't do it.

It took me about 15 years, but I enjoyed the journey. To get to grade 5 standard (and fail it with nerves) was pretty easy, but the gaps got bigger with successive grades and the amount of time I needed to practice got longer. By the time I got to G8 I was practicing 1-2 hours a day, but that's a rate of practice I can't keep up in normal life. The most important thing is develop yourself musically rather than get hung up on grades.

My classmates and I might be ready to take grade 1 next term, which will be 18 months or so after we started. At this rate it will take forever to get to grade 5, and grade 8 is pure fantasy. I wonder how long it takes before practising becomes enjoyable rather than discouraging? Haven't got there yet.

Oh, how I wish I didn't know what you meant!!!!!!!!

I know just what you mean and it did happen for me! It was in the run up to my grade 5, which was odd because for various reasons I'd been playing the pieces for FAR too long and was really sick of them.

However, between about grade two to after grade 4 I was very lazy about practice (my fault not the violin's or the teacher's), so you might fine yours gets better earlier!

i have been playing seriusly for 5 years and got a merit in my grade 8 recently
125, but i only really took it for a dry run

people all seem to do loads of practice, but i only really started on about an hour a day in the build up to grade 8.
hopefully i can keep the momentum going into diploma

On Piano it took me 4.5 years starting from scratch at age 12 going on 13. Total practice hours? Somewhere in the region of 2500. Other school friends took about the same time to reach grade 8 on various other instruments (Violin, Oboe, French Horn).

I think that is a realistic length of time to take for anyone that is:

in their 'teens
generally well co-ordinated
fairly smart - but not a genius
hard working - but not fanatically dedicated

Cheers
Tom

started at 8, did grade 8 violin at 16 and got distinction.
love playing so much more now that ive finished my exams

It took me nearly 2 years
Well
i tell a lie cause i haven't done it yet buuut
i've been playing for 6 months now and im working on grade 6 (just got grade 4 distinction :D) and i'm doing that in november and then, if my teacher's plan goes to plan, i'll be doing grade 8 in the summer after that
But it's only cause i have lots of previous music knowledge, and also cause i practise LOOAADS

We wouldn't usually rush it like that but as violin isn't reaally my main instrument, we (me + my teacher) wanna get my grade 8 done before i go to uni.

Absolutely. Grades are only a way of structuring your development so that you can play music with other people. Which is what it's all about, surely? As the virtuoso rock guitarist Robert Fripp put it: 'discipline is not an end in itself; discipline is a means to an end'.

nick

I started aged seven or eight (can't remember ) I'm now fifteen and I'm about grade 8 standard, but I'm not taking the exam until next spring probably, due to GCSEs and changing from school to college and suchlike. Also, I want to take my grade 8 and get a really good result, because I didn't do as well as I wanted to with my grade 8 piano.
I changed teachers about a year ago, but I'd already started working on grade 8 pieces. My new teacher put a stop to all that and had to correct alot of my technique and we've been working on getting 'my' sound and widening my repetoire, which I've really enjoyed, even though I've worked really hard. Also I've joined my county youth orchestra and worked on my fiddle playing, and it's all been much more enjoyable than rushing through grade 8 and not really knowing where to go next

Started violin at the age of 10 and took Grade 8 just before my 14th birthday. If I'd taken it with the current marking system I would have achieved a high merit, but they didn't have that in my day. It was simply a 'Pass' or 'Distinction'.

However, the AB were very keen to remind us that gaining a Distinction at Grade 8 didn't automatically make someone suitable for entry to music college, or indeed a career in music. Same applies today, probably even more so.

I'm about to sound old and curmudgeonly.

No-one ever masters an instrument. They just learn to serve it better.

Now I can go back to being in my early thirties and enjoying every moment I get with my beloved instruments.

As to my Violin.

If I get to Grade 3 I'll be happy.

If I get to Grade 5 I'll be ecstatic!

If I get to Grade 8 I'll be the biggest egomaniac going (Who's the man?!)

However....

I'm aware that when I started guitar I said, "If I learn to play "Phantom of the Opera" by Iron Maiden then I'll be happy." and I learned how to play it but I didn't think I was a "real player".

Then I said, "If I learn how to play a Joe Satriani piece I'll be happy." and I learned the pieces but didn't think I was a "real player."

Then when my Classical Guitar Tutor took me under his wing I said, "If I learn to do what he's doing, I'll be happy."

Still not there. Every time I think I see the top of the mountain, I realise that there's more there.

As to the original question... Grades 1-7 done in two years back in 1990-92 (I'd been playing guitar for 13 years at that point). Finally did Grade 8 last year. No idea why I left it so long.

Dream: That if I ever get to Grade 8 Violin, Bach's Gavotte en Rondeau from BWV 1006 will still be on the list as I think it would be rather cool to play the same piece for the Grade 8 Violin as I played for Grade 8 Guitar.

Cheers,

Matt.

This is a tricky one to answer for me - I'm delighted to say that I stopped doing grades when I was preparing my grade 6 violin. That took me about three and half years to get to. That was also two years ago - have I progressed since then? Undoubtedly. Am I 'at' grade 8 - don't care. Doesn't mean anything to me. I can play the g8 pieces well enough if I work on them, but I'm constantly aware that there's so much more to learn, so I reckon I'll just keep plodding along for the rest of my days never truly being 100% happy with my fiddle playing!

The rate I am going, I won't be taking Grade 8 until the next millenium. I'm currently working towards Grade 4 for the end of this year and am working really hard on trying to develop my technique and sound. At the end of the day though, however long it takes, I'm loving the journey

Oh gosh, listen: I'll be delighted to be able to get a firm grip on all the stuff needed for grade 2-ish so that I'll be able to play in most keys OK and will be au fait with first position. What comes after that comes after. I'm not aiming too high at the mo......

I was just thinking... I feel like I've 'achieved' something because I grew out of my 'beginners' violin and bow

Ok I don't have the world's most expensive set up now but I was able to 'hear' the difference between my first fiddle and bow, and the ones I use now.

When I first started 18months ago ALL violins sounded alike

... of course that's go nothing to do with playing at Grade 8 but if feels like a huge leap towards the unattainable goal of perfection

Lottie, I remember:

* the first time I was actually able to tune my cello to pitch pipes. I'd had both as a child, and never worked it out. My cello teachers were geniuses for being able to hear the tuning was wrong AND know how to correct it!
* the first time that I heard a note was out of tune on my tenor recorder - and being able to work out what note it was, in which direction it was wrong (and realising it was the end of an era when it was effectively non-correctable).
* similarly on the bass recorder, being able to hear why I had to use a non-conventional fingering for one particular note.

All of these things happened in 2007 And I regard them as the monumental stepping stones that they are

You mustn't have had a first instrument like mine. Mine was so bad that I could tell it wasn't me making that awful row!! As soon as I got my current viola (which I got after only 3 months of lessons and which my teacher says makes a great sound for the price etc) I could tell straight away this was a way better quality baby.

I got a G8 piece out of the music library yesteday and, although it's in Bb major, which I technically can't play in yet, I've been able to work out the fingerings and play the first 2.5 lines! Hurrah! I think it's only G8 as it goes so very high at one point, but you couldn't play it on violin as it goes down to bottom D. Well, you could if you were to transpose it up, of course.... but it would lose its character then. It's dead nice to be able to play part of a G8 piece and know that, with a bit more prac, I could make those few lines sound passable. Huzzah! Pre-G1-er celebrates!

I've been learning for 1yr and 3 months now and I am somewhere between grade 3 and 4 'I think' and also learning grade 5 scales/arps/etc and pieces.
All I want for next year is a grade 5 certificate from ABRSM so that I can join my local amateur orchestra for 'rehearsals only' then I will stop thinking of exams forever LOL I am already 'uninterested' in them since 3 months ago, I enjoy learning 'whatever' and I can see/hear my progress