So, who will be taking a theory exam on the 6th November? I'll be doing Grade 5, and I'm hoping to make it five distinctions in a row...

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Grade 1: Lemontree
Grade 2: hello_cello
Grade 3:
Grade 4: altoclef3 | newnote | Skintchick
Grade 5: amber_piano | Car Expert | flutec | fluterocks | Halka | Halka's daughter | i_love_stripey_things
Grade 6: cambiata
Grade 7: elizabeth21 | mellow cello | rdu11
Grade 8: katyjay | ricole
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Car Expert

My son will be takng Grade 3, I'm not ready for Grade 6 yet. Good Luck with the distinction, I was one mark off with my Grade 5 but I was happy with a high merit.

ET

I was going to take grade 5 but got too much scheduled around the exams dates, so I think i'm going to wait until the new year and see how I go from there.

Well, I put an entry in for grade 8. So I guess I'd better get on with it....

I'm doing grade 7 - but finding it quite hard!

Daughter and I will both take Grade 5.

It feels like there's a lot to learn and not much time to do it in....

We are also straight distinction students to date, but I'm not holding out much hope this time. I expect poor marks in the composition question - I can't "hear" what I've written at all. Daughter is better at that but refuses to do any rote learning - eg of performance directions....

We're probably doomed...

Grade two.
shall be dead easy, im already a grade 4-5ish standard

So why are you doing grade 2?

When I was studying for G5 composition, I found that using Sibelius really helped me to learn to match what I heard in my head with what to write. You can use a free demo version of Sibelius to input your compositions and play them back, you just can't print them out.

I started by writing out manually what I heard in my head and then put it into Sibelus to see what it sounded like. At first there was a big discrepancy So using Sibelius I worked out what the notation *should* have been to reflect what I wanted the melody to be. After a few weeks of doing this, I got much better and in the end I could write down what I heard in my head pretty accurately. There's plenty of time to start doing this for your G5 exam!

You don't NEED to. What you do need to know is what works and some strategies for writing something that is going to make musical sense.
I wouldn't say that I hear all that accurately when I'm doing this sort of exercise but knowing how things work got me good marks for the composition question all the way up to grade 8.
Careful... what you expect might be what you get.
Give yourself the option to do well by learning some strategies.
There's time yet especially if you have a teacher who is able to guide you with this.

A useful strategy I found for the melody writing is to do a plan e.g sketch in cadence points such as imperfect at half-way point and then then a perfect cadence at the end. I only used this method for my grade 8 and got my personal best for that part

I was thinking about taking grade 5 in November but decided against it as i'm pregnant and i'll be quite big by then and I can only imagine, more tired. I've decided to carry on learning the syllabus, though, just not very quickly... ready for next summer (i'm due early Jan, so that time of the year would definitely be pushing it ) . I'm hoping also to potter away at learning some basics of harmony and composition so that i'll be prepared to move on to grade 6 after that.

I am doing the Grade 1 Flute exam in November, although I probably am around Grade 5. But I want to fill in some theory gaps and actually was surprised how demanding these simple pieces already are when played correctly. Additionally, I have to learn all the English music terms since my native language is German. So it's quite an adventure.

So i have nice certificate wall in my studio
that and mum wants me to do them all

All the best Lemontree! I can imagine that taking Grade 4 and 5 theory should be slightly easier for you, since you already know the German terms. Probably you have to take note of the instructions in English. I have learnt some German before, and was so glad to see the German list. I am sure those who know Italian would be finding the lists a breeze!

Good luck, everyone

Yep, i've managed to persuade my school to put me in for grade 7
(:
if i get a pass i will actully be over the moon, as my teaching for its been complecated!

I've entered 4 of my littlies for grade 1 and my first 'grade 5 in one go' candidate.

The result of the grade 5 student will be quite interesting - I will be able to say that I can get someone through grade 5 from scratch in x hours of work, because the student in question has done zero, and I do mean zero, homework. Expensive way to pass an exam... (for those who are interested in these things, I estimate 18 hours) Watch this space!

Good luck everyone.

Hi

I am doing Grade 7 on 1 Nov (Trinity). I think I am all set to go except for the two part counterpoint which is driving me mad - I just haven't "clicked" with it yet. However, I still have 4 weeks .... !

Elizabeth

Unfortunately my son is now unable to take his Grade 3 this November due to the fact that he has a school trip for 2 days that week and the school were unable to let me know which dates he would be going in time for the entry deadline. He wll have to do it in Febrary now instead.

ET

I have got 5 theory entries this time. Some I am confident with, others not so!

Grade 2 - 3 students
Grade 5 - 2 students, one of which is my daughter. It seemed a good idea at the time.......

I am taking Grade 4 Theory in November and hope to keep the momentum going and take Grade 5 in the Spring.

i'm taking Grade 8

p.s.
a friend of mine said "paper C is the hardest"
Is that true?

not necessarily paper B was quite hard particularly the trio sonata proved a challenge.

I'm doing grade four theory and am hoping to continue my run of distinctions. Writing a rhythm is my worst question - I find it so hard to translate what is in my head to the paper and usually end up writing something quite dull because I can;t work out how to write the rhythm in my head. Anyone got any tips for that?

i hope not!

i'm doing gr5 a week on thurs eeeeek

been doing mocks all week, averaged anything from 74-90...so anything could happen!

hi, i'm doing past papers at the moment for g7 and whats the actual relevance of papers A,B,C and S for each year? By looking through i'm prefering papers A and B.. but is there any way of prediciting what paper it will be for the november one?.. If its like in order during the year?thanks

that's it.
Spring is session A..... you can work out the rest.
Not totally sure about the S paper... might be an 'in case of emergencies' sort of back up one.

o ok.. so that means that the nov one is going to be C.. eurrggh that means that for the second question its likely to be a piano sonata thing instead of a bach chorale.. oh dear.

G7 for me.

YES!!!!



in 2 days!

*sinks in that it's 2 days*

ahhhh!!

grade 5 if you're wondering.

i swear, i don't know half of it - i'm looking over past papers thinking WHAT ON EARTH??!

S**T!
The exams tomorrow!!
I forgot!!1

Just going over theory terms as that's my only real weak spot I think. It'll be luck of the draw as to how many theory terms will be asked... in the 2007 C paper there were 9 marks worth of terms (two G3 terms worth four marks in total and a German phrase worth five marks). In the 2007 S paper, the only term that came up (excluding sf) was allegretto, which is grade 1...

Good luck everyone!

Car Expert

Looks like I'm first back!

It went well I think. I ended up being the last one to leave, and it also appeared that me plus two other adult learners were the last to leave as all the other children left before us (even the one who arrived 35 minutes late), which was quite predictable!

The only term which came up in the paper was adagio, so quite similar to the 2007 S paper luckily for me. I did change a mistake right at the last minute where I wrote a crotchet instead of a semiquaver in my eight-bar rhythm, which was quite fortunate. But otherwise no major problems.

Car Expert

It sounds as if you'll have done really well CE


That's happened to me too in a couple of exams!

I did grade four. Annoyed at the percussion question because my teacher didn;t really teach me instruments! I have definitely lost a couple of marks there, but pleased overall and don;t think I did anything stupid. Hoping for another distinction but as I got made redundant this week if I've slipped and got a merit I'll forgive myself

Well, I'm back from my grade 8 exam.

Q 4 & 5 were the nicest I've ever seen. Which makes up for q3 being a bit yuk and q2 being just plain horrible......


Not going to think about it now until Christmas (last time I took a paper, my centre's results took about three weeks longer than the average to arrive....)

Piece of cake.

Anyone do grade 1? Was the paper OK? Anything unexpected?

I did (1C). It was sooooooo simple. I couldn't believe it. No not really unexpected. Maybe the form of question they asked in copying a complete barline as acurate as possible. I didn't expect that. But it did not matter anyway. Copying is not difficult, is it? I think about asking if I can do Grade 2 and 3 on the same day, since they have to be there 3 hours for the 6 graders. I finished after 40 minutes, and I checked every question twice.

G7 was OK. Except I couldn't think what "div" meant until I was on my way home - not a Distinction then. It was bit hard being the only one sat there for an hour after all the G5s had left.

Thanks Lemontree - I'm waiting to hear from my pupils how they got on!

One daughter did Gr 5 and other one did Gr1. The Gr 1 daughter was positively buzzing afterwards..... she seemed to really enjoy it. Apparently, there was no beaming questions and she thinks she's done well.....

well, i think it went quite well!

paper c grade 5: got the 'what other instrument can play the basoon line at the same pitch' question wrong - i forgot a trombone can do bass AND tenor, and i wrote clarinet! silly me.
i also got the indefinite and definite percussion one wrong - i wasn't taught it
ah well.
apart from that though i think i done pretty much ok.

Good luck for the results everyone!

Try not to think of the answers you SHOULD have given - that way madness and anguish lies.

Wishing all those who have taken theory exams a successful outcome and a speedy result.

Mel

Well done everyone and SKINCHICK a fellow Grade 4 entrant. I did the Grade 4 paper yesterday as well. Thought it was quite a 'good' paper. I spent hours learning all those terms but was pleased we only needed lento, adagietto and espressivo if I recall correctly.

Had picked up the percussion question from one of my books but the 'Pink' AB Guide to Music Theory Part 1 doesn't seem to cover those sort of questions!!

Do you think we will get the results before Christmas?

Oh well, onwards and upwards - Grade 5 here I come, gulp!?!

for what it's worth, there was a rule that you can do only one grade of theory at a time.
I don't know whether that still holds, or whether it's different if you're outside the UK.

Here's hoping for a satisfactory outcome for everyone! and not too long a wait ...

Does anybody of you know of a book which covers those kind of questions?

There's a series called Theory of Music made Easy by Lina Ng. I've got the G5 book and she? lists all the percussion instruments which fall under the categories of "definite" or "indefinite" pitch. Also various other instruments which I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere, such as what constitutes a piano quartet, string quintet etc. Not that I've ever seen questions involving combinations though on any of the past papers. But then I've never seen questions about the pitch of percussion instruments either!