Hi, I'm thinking of doing grade 5 in the next run of exams and i'm just going through my "Take Five" book and have been understanding things quite well. Anyway i've got some papers for grade 3 that I am getting through really well and I have just started the grade 5 papers. I'm not sure whether i've just got an awful book or i've missed loads out but i'm sure half the things in the exam paper aren't in my book? The exam papers i've got are from 2003 and 2001, is it possible they have changed the content of the exam at somepoint or should I be looking at 2006/07 papers?
I've just bought the ABRSM book for grade 5 with exercises in to have a go at now as well but I am panicing slightly!!

No, it's not changed.
It may be that you need to get used to the format of the questions.
Read them carefully, underline key words if it helps and try to work out exactly what they are asking.
The more papers you do the more variations you will come across and so will be less likely to find one you've not seen before in the exam.

Maybe if you let us know which questions you are unsure of someone can help you out... not giving the answers but helping to understand the questions.

What are you struggling with?

I'm not really struggling with anything specifically but just getting used to the questions I suppose. I haven't done any of the previous grades so it may be that i've missed things out. I know some of the latin terms weren't in my book especially but I don't know if they were in previous grades. Should I maybe do a lower grade first?
I've just bought the red book "First steps in music theory" which i'm hoping will fill in the gaps. Will be really useful for your help when I start doing the exam papers properly!! Thanks

I have just ordered the same book. How do you find it? Have you ever used the AB pink book? If so how does it compare in your oppinion?

Hi Laura

You'll find the theory terms for all the grades in the Test Yourself - Theory Terms thread, and as it says on the tin, you can test yourself on them

In the same thread, there's a link to a thread which gives ideas for learning them.

Good luck!

If you look at the theory syllabus each grade from 2 up starts by saying "As in preceding grades, with the addition of:" so if you've not done any other grades it's worth starting from the beginning even if you are well versed in theory.
I think that 'Take 5' is meant to cover everything from the beginning up to grade 5? I've not used it so don't know how well it does that.

I haven't really looked at the red book yet but i'm planning on doing some over the weekend so I will let you know. I don't have the pink book either but if you would recommend it i'll try and get hold of it. Take five has been pretty good although i'm sure its not starting from the beginning? I did GCSE music so I know most of it, although its the tenor, alto and bass clef stuff I am finding hard, although I have mastered the middle C positions so i'm hoping I will be able to get these right. Its more the intervals and scales i'm trying to get my head round at the moment, I've not really given much thought to the terms yet, maybe I should look at these first.

I don't recommend it at all, I find it completely indigestible- in my opinion there are better options (see below!)


The First Steps book covers most of what you need to know, apart from composition (I think ) Another book which covers everything from G1-G5 is Dorothy Dingle's "Pass G5 Theory" - it also has lots of exercises in. It's not cheap - around £15 - but it has a lot more in it than the other books.

Otherwise there are series of books for each grade, including the ABRSM Music Theory in Practice which I quite like. And you might think about getting a set of past papers for say G3, G4 and G5. In the G5 exam they could test you on any of the elements which are covered in previous exams, so it might pay to see the sort of questions they ask at previous levels.


If you're planning to take G5 in November, I would start learning the terms now. I think there are around 300 terms in total, that's maybe around 30 a week to learn, say 5 a day (you could try and associate a new term with every piece of 5-a-day fruit you eat ) You will know many of the terms already, so don't be daunted by this number. Start with the G1 terms and you'll probably know them all already - that's around a fifth of the total that you'll already know

In some of the exams the theory terms have been worth up to 10 marks, so it's worthwhile spending some time trying to learn them. There are all sorts of tricks you can use to learn them - have a look at the link in the thread I mentioned earlier

Oh my gosh, scared now, I thought the grade 1 terms were the difficult ones, agghhh!! So i've put them into an excel spreadsheet to start looking at, are these definitely all of them? Thanks for the help and suggestions.

For what it's worth, I'd suggest you spend your time learning all the other requirements for grade 5 instead of learning pages and pages of words. If you know all your key signatures, rules for grouping notes in simple and compound time, intervals etc, then you should get a reasonable mark whether you know all the words or not. On the other hand, if you spend hours learning the terms you won't have enough time to spend on everything else. There are rarely more than 10 marks available so it isn't worth learning pages and pages of words unless you want to get 100% in the exam! I have never made my students learn all the theory terms and signs other than the ones which crop up in their music.

Laura, just to clarify what I meant, I didn't mean to learn theory terms *at the expense* of all the other elements of the exam - obviously not! It's up to you of course as to whether you choose to try to learn theory terms or risk sacrificing up to 10% of the marks, but to help you on your way to learning them if you and others want to, I've started a new thread - Five-a-day Theory Terms

One of the most important elements of the Grade 5 exam is the composition. That is something which gets easier with practice, and it is worth 15% of the marks. So it might be worthwhile you starting to look at that aspect as soon as possible

What you've said assumes that students get maximum marks for every other section, including composition, which wouldn't be typical. I feel that it's one thing recommending *your own* students not to learn theory terms if you as their teacher are confident that their papers show that they are likely to get maximum marks in every other section, and if they themselves are also prepared to take the risk, but many students on this public forum don't have a teacher and might (wrongly, in my opinion) get blase about the idea that they can sacrifice up to 10% of the marks without undue risk of failure in the exam. When *one-fifth* of entrants fail the G5 exam, I believe that it's taking too much risk to write off a whole element of it - which could be nearly a third of the safety net* - - but that's just my opinion.

Anyway, readers have got one person who recommends strongly in favour and another person who recommends strongly against - they pays their money and they takes their choice!



* The pass rate is 66%, ie you can lose 34 marks before failing. If up to 10 marks out of those 34 are lost on unlearnt theory terms, the safety net is instantly reduced to only 24 marks. One-fifth of G5 entrants fall through that safety net and fail.

Skylark, with the greatest possible respect, what exactly do you know about teaching theory? Just because you have passed grade 5 yourself doesn't make you an expert. I have been teaching theory since I was 16 and I have a theory diploma. I'm not quite sure why you have an obsession with learning terms but surely the small number of people who have read your threads on terms for each grade should tell you something. I'm quite sure anyone who wants to learn the theory terms is quite capable of taking a pencil and marking 5 on the list in alphabetical order to learn each day.


Statistics are all very well, but the real reason people fail theory exams is because they are taught by someone who doesn't know what they are doing. They are also taught to do grade 5 as quickly as possible so short cuts are taken, many of them start with the grade 5 book. If they spend time practising and learning how to do everything else then the few words they might not know won't make much difference. I have taught a considerable number of theory students over the years, most of them were only doing theory to be able to do grade 6 practical and covering 5 grades of theory in 6 -8 months. Most of them get at least merit, the lowest grade 5 mark any of my students has ever got was 78. When someone is doing 5 grades of theory in a very short time there is no time to learn endless pages of words. The time spent learning them could be better employed learing other things on the syllabus and it's an awful lot of learning for up to 10% of the marks. If a student is competent with the other parts of the syllabus then the few marks they may lose for the words won't make much difference. I have never known any theory teacher to make students learn endless lists of foreign words and my teacher certainly didn't make me learn them. I don't think not knowing pages of foreign words did me any harm.

You are clearly not on very strong ground, noodle, if you can think of no better response than personal rudeness.

I do not profess to be an expert. But I am every bit as entitled to offer an opinion on this forum as you are. I enjoy theory, I enjoy talking about it, I enjoy doing what I can to help others with it, and a number of people have found it helpful. If you have a problem with that, it is your problem not mine.

If the boot had been on the other foot, and it was a teacher recommending that candidates study the whole syllabus and a student recommending on a public forum that candidates didn't bother learning a whole section of it, then the student would probably have been condemned as irresponsible.


I'm not sure what point you are trying to make - it's been said many times on here that qualifications are not the "be all and end all". In any event, your theory diploma was not with the ABRSM because the AB doesn't offer a theory diploma. If you did your graded theory exams with another board as well, then perhaps theory terms weren't tested so you had no need to learn them. Did you take G5 theory with AB when you were a student?


That is not necessarily the most effective way of learning theory terms, but seeing as you've never learnt them for an exam and never taught them, you've never had to think about other ways. Many people have found their own alternative ways of learning the terms and have posted about them. Anybody who takes the trouble to read the threads on learning theory terms will find that there are lots of ways of learning them to make the task less daunting.


Really? How do you know "the real reason" why people fail theory exams? I had wondered about a different reason - in line with the failure rate increasing is the fact that the number of people taking earlier grades, particularly G3/G4, has decreased. That is a fact, evidenced by the statistics. So candidates appear not to have the same thorough grounding in the earlier grades as they used to have prior to taking G5. Whether that is the reason for the doubling of the failure rate in the last six years, I don't know, and I doubt if anybody does know the "real reason". But it has more basis in fact as a potential reason than your conjecture that it is because they have been taught "by someone who doesn't know what they are doing". That may be your perception in your experience, but that doesn't make it the "real reason" on a nationwide basis.



As I said before, with your own students you can check their progress and papers and make an informed judgement as to the risk they are taking in not learning the theory terms. On a public forum, in my opinion it is not doing students any favours to lead them to believe that failing to learn a whole section of the syllabus - up to 10% of the marks - will not affect their likelihood of passing when they may not be at the level of your students in other aspects of the exam. You may try to discredit my opinion with your attitude "I'm a teacher and you're just a student therefore you should keep quiet" , but you will not alter my opinion or my entitlement to express it.


If this student had learnt the German terms, he would have passed...






Your choice of word not mine, but since you've used it, then I'd rather have an obsession with learning the whole syllabus and encouraging/helping others to do so, than have an obsession with telling others NOT to learn the syllabus and let them run a higher risk of failing by throwing away up to 10% of the marks. But as I said earlier, we've both got different opinions on the matter and others can decide for themselves.

Where do you find that number? The syllabus doesn't specify any particularly terms.

I put them on a database when I was learning them. The figure of "around 300" includes variations of words (eg rit, ritard and ritardando are counted as three words) and composite phrases which could usually be worked out from knowing the individual words, eg mezzo piano. If you remove all the variations and composites, you could say the list is only around a couple of hundred words.


The AB is very precise in specifying which terms it wants students to learn at each grade, with each grade's terms being carried forward to the next.

Am I missing something... I always thought you were a music teacher (amongst the other things you list in your signature), hence my surprise at what you've said. I'm not sure where I've got that idea from... are you not a music teacher then?

Kenm is right - the syllabus doesn't specify any particular terms.
But Skylark is also right - there are very specific terms to learn that are listed in the MTiP books for each grade.

You both win

The terms are listed in all the ABRSM theory books for the grades up to G5 - MTiP, First Steps and the AB Guide. I was/am very taken aback that kenm didn't know this.


Sorry Maizie but I don't think so - one of us knew the terms were specified, the other didn't. The one who knew is a student who another member has tried to discredit and discourage from contributing to the theory forum for being "only a student", so please forgive me if I feel inclined to labour the point.

It happens to be true that I didn't know the contents of MTiP, First Steps and the AB Guide, but it was quite a leap of the imagination for you to deduce that from my brief question. Neither am I a music teacher, though I taught horn twice, once in 1969, again in 1986. I can't see how you got that idea from my sig: it doesn't make any such claim. My last involvement directly with the ABRSM examination system was in 1951, when I took Grade 8 piano. My wife accompanies instrumentalists in their grade exams, mostly ABRSM but also Trinity/Guildhall, and in festivals and auditions. She keeps the syllabuses to help her prepare sight-reading material that matches the written requirements (which not all the published material does), and in coaching for aural tests; some peripatetics teach wind and strings in circumstances that make this preparation very difficult and some teachers neglect it. Since she doesn't prepare anyone for Theory exams, we don't need these other ABRSM publications. She does, however, provide a list of essential musical signs and terms to any member of her late starters' orchestra that needs it, and discusses them as necessary in rehearsals.

I have been a performer, at amateur level but occasionally earning fees, for 60 years, on piano, cornet, tenor horn, orchestral horn, guitar (briefly), percussion, 'cello (briefly), recorder, double bass and as a singer. I have conducted an amateur string orchestra for six years, two choirs for brief periods as a stand-in between experienced choral conductors, a beginners' wind band, a brass band (both for brief periods), and my friends in large wind ensemble music (including some of my own compositions) regularly over many years. I took a BA (1st Class honours) in music from Reading University in 1998. Since then, my main musical activity has been composition.

My slant on music exams is inevitably influenced by a strong belief that their main function is to help people to become better musicians, with the function of proving the point to organisations that demand such proof a subsidiary one. In the present context, I am disappointed, though not particularly surprised, that anyone should have to do a great deal of extra work to prepare for the Theory exam at the level of their best instrumental playing I learnt all the ones I know when I came across them in rehearsal or practice, by looking them up, by asking another member of the ensemble, or by being told by the conductor). In particular, the terms should ideally be taught alongside the learning of pieces. For some students this does not work adequately, and I am aware of two patterns of teaching that contribute to this failure; there may be others, but again I have no direct experience of current teaching practice:

1) Teachers play a piece to the student before the student is asked to try it, so the student does not need to think for him/herself about speed and character instructions;

2) Only pieces are taught which are to be played in the exam, so the range of the student's experience can remain narrow.

Sorry to persist noodle, but since you are recommending students not to learn part of the ABRSM syllabus, I think it's important to establish your reference point. If you didn't take G5 theory with AB when you were a student, then maybe you had no need to learn theory terms because TG, for instance, doesn't test them. It's a bit like declaring an interest, except that if you didn't take G5 with AB when you were a student, it would be a negative interest. Please tell us which board you took G5 theory with when you were a student - it's only fair that students should know, in view of your recommendations not to learn the theory terms for the AB exams.




I don't understand how you can say which book it would be better to work from when you have never even looked at one of them. I would have thought that someone who has been teaching theory for several decades since the age of 16 would be fully conversant with the books published and recommended by whichever examining board they use for their students.

If you had seen the First Steps book, you would know that it is a little pocket book split into grades. So you don't get "endless lists" and "pages and pages" of foreign words as you said earlier. You get them in manageable chunks, grade by grade, and because it's a pocket book, it can easily be carried around and dipped into at spare moments to learn a few terms at a time.

Have you not looked at the AB First Steps book because you put your students in for TG theory exams where they don't need to learn theory terms? Again, if you are telling students on a public forum not to learn part of the ABRSM syllabus, worth up to 10% of the marks, I think it's important to know your reference point.

I'll answer this now and reply to your previous post later.

Yes, all the theory exams I did were ABRSM, all 8 of them. I know I lost marks for not knowing the odd word but I'm sure most teachers would agree that when preparing for a theory exam you are better to know all the requirements of the exam that are certain to come up instead of learning around 300 words of which up to 5, (sometimes 3) will turn up. If it takes one minute to learn a word, then that's minutes which could be better spent learning/preparing for all the other questions and if that is done, a few foreign words here and there won't make any real difference. What is more important to someone's musical knowledge - knowing the rudiments of music theory or learning lots of words?


Since I posted that, I have looked at The first steps book. I still don't see it as being much use. All my students use the MTiP books which the AB have designed as preparation for their graded theory exams. It is more than enough for the average student without inflicting extra work on them. With the information provided in MTip and further explantion from me follwed by past papers students are well enough equipped without having to spend extra time and money on book which aren't necessary.

I reckon a list of about 300 words would be rather endless. Then again, I don't have unlimited time to spend gathering useless information. No, I hadn't looked at the First steps book because I don't feel that any extra information is needed in addition to MTiP and Past papers so I didn't have the need to search for additional material. I have never taught TG theory and unless I acquire a student who has started it with a previous teacher, I probably won't. If I didn't teach ABRSM theory, I wouldn't have made a comment in this thread. Your patronising attempt to prove I don't teach AB theory and don't know what I'm talking about didn't work.

Finally, I'd like to thank everyone who has sent me pm messages in support of my stance in this thread. I'll reply to them all in due course. I'm not going to be here quite as much over the next fortnight.

The student would have needed to spend hours learning all 300 words to get 4 marks. Instead they would be better advised to spend the time learning basic rudiments and maybe gain an extra 15 marks.

As I said before noodle, I did not recommend learning theory terms *at the expense* of the rest of the syllabus. Please don't misinterpret my posts.

As I also said above, the 300 includes the variations and composite terms which are on my database. Arguably these could be discounted, which would make the count around 200. At one minute per word (your estimate not mine), those terms could be learnt in a couple of weeks' bus journeys, for example.

And let's not forget that the reason for learning terms, which the AB do in fact call "Performance Directions", is to aid performance, without having to look every performance term up in a book every time. It is not just a theoretical exercise.


Well you are hardly likely to admit to having missed out on using a very good book for several decades are you!

MTIP is essentially an exercise book - there is a vast amount of knowledge which it doesn't cover. In every section, the AB make it clear that they expect students to refer to the AB Guide. The First Steps book covers the information in the AB Guide but in a different format.


Useless information? You don't seem to have a very high opinion of the ABRSM's syllabus.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't I seen on threads that it's part of being a good teacher to keep up to date with what's on offer - Continuing Professional Development - and to recommend to pupils what each individual finds most suitable *for them*, and yet you didn't even take a look at a book published by the examining board, for several decades. Some people learn better from written information rather than verbal information, but you appear to have denied that opportunity to your students.


Your perception noodle. I didn't intend it to sound patronising - I have a huge amount of respect for most of the teachers on this forum, because they have respect for us students. They're not rude to us, they welcome our contributions and many of them even think they might learn something from students. You on the other hand, tried to discredit me and discourage me from contributing to the theory forum, and it was you who was patronising and rude. I have seen plenty of other posts where you have been rude to students and parents (and even teachers) - in fact I came across one yesterday where a newbie parent was so taken aback by the tone of your response to her post that she said she wouldn't post again, and nor did she Sorry but you won't have that effect on me, although I see you've beaten me to it in answering in a beginners thread - I wasn't expecting that, you don't often contribute to the beginners threads!


No hard feelings noodle, hope you have a good concert

My advice on learning terms is that, apart from the most commonly used ones which become familiar through use, I wouldn't push it too hard. Yes, I would test them during the course of studying for a theory exam but it's not near the top of the list of priorities.
In real life these are things that you look up if you come across one that you don't know and this is what I tell my students. Also most of the time it's the commonly used ones which appear on exam papers.

As for the First Steps book, yes, it's a useful little quick reference book IF people want to have something like that in addition to a workbook and a teacher to explain things but it's hardly essential.

You seem to be the expert at misinterpreting posts! I did not not say anything about learning theory terms at the expense of the rest of the syllabus. Let me spell it out to you. What I said was that the time spent learning terms could be better spent improving one's competence on other parts of the syllabus. Yes, they are performance directions which students learn from their music or past theory papers as they go along. Do you seriously think students under 18 are really going to sit in the bus on the way to school and read/learn terms from music theory books?

I don't seem to be getting through to you. The First steps book is in your opinion a very good book. In my opinion it isn't necessary. My students do very well in theory exams by working through MTiP which, as you point out is an exercise book and by doing past papers. Whether or not the AB expect students to use the AB guide and/or first steps book is irrelevant. If my students can do really well in their exams without either of the two books there's no point in them buying them. Of course the AB are going to recommend AB Guide and First steps for further reading - they are trying to sell the books they have published!!

Actually I do have a high opinion of the ABRSM syllabus. Every one of the 40+ exams I have done over the years were ABRSM and most of my students have done ABRSM exams too. I do keep up to date with what's on offer for my students and let them choose what they want to do from a variety of old/new books for repertoire. If I had a student who needed additional help with theory I would source a book to help them. As it stands, my students are able to pass their theory grades with high marks using just MTiP, past papers and explanations from yours truly. No further material is required, so why waste time looking for it. I work in a music centre where there are quite a lot of theory teachers. None of them use any other material for their students either. I'm not sure what your problem is or is it simply that you don't understand why some students can do well at theory with just an exercise book and past papers while you have accumulated several reference books to do the same thing. How dare you imply that my students have been denied something they need. There isn't a teacher I know who wouldn't move mountains to help their students when they need it. As far as I am concerned theydon't need help in the form of First Steps and AB Guide.

Excuse me? The words pot, kettle and black spring to mind. You tried to discredit me by implying my stance on terms was based on the fact that I had no experience of AB theory. In fact, you asked the question twice. The reason I didn't reply was because I had blocked you and didn't know about it until a friend pointed it out to me. You have upset as many people here as I have. I'm not sure what post you are referring to, but when one contributes to a forum such as this, one needs a relatively thick skin. There is the 'ignore user' facility. You seem to think you know a lot about theory, about teaching, and how good teachers should keep up with what's on offer. Why don't you give teaching a go? I think you'll realise it isn't as easy as you think. I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell me how to teach and what a good teacher is expected to do. Unlike you, I don't think I know everything and will take advice from someone capable of giving it. I am perfectly capable of teaching theory to anyone who wants to learn it without using two little theory books.


Oh, I do apologise! I didn't realise you had the monopoly of answering beginners threads/posts. The reason I don't often answer beginners threads is that the question has been correctly answered by the time I read it and there is no point in duplicating someone elses post.

Thank you. I'm sure the concert will go well. We have a lot of experienced competent musicians participating and a varied programme.

CONCERT! Suddenly the penny drops! You seem to have had some sort of personal attack on organisers of Forum concerts. Do you think we'll be better at organising them than you?

I'm now going to block you like other forummers have. I have better things to do than engage in trivial arguments.

That's a very nasty and vindictive attack, noodle. I could take issue with many of your points but the mods advise against responding to personal attacks.