UKH

I've been seeing this woman for a while now (older posters may recall me saying I went on a date years ago)....anyway, I spent a bit of time at hers over Christmas and with her grown up kids she was playing some music etc....all impressive stuff. She has grade 8 in piano and flute....I know nothing of this world at all....is this a high level...it sounded it to me!?

(Beer induced post)

Grade 8 is the top of normal grades. There are further exams, called diplomas I think, but ultimately, grade 8 is seen as the top to most people. Certainly feels like a logical conclusion to grades, and most will choose to go their own way after that.

You should certainly be impressed!

Grade 8 is the highest grade possible for the Associated Board of the Royal School of Music exams; so hats off to them, it’s taken them years of practice or they’re prodigy’s!

Doing Grade 8 in two instruments is doubly impressive! 

Grade 8 is the highest. I got as far as grade 2 and decided grades weren't for me (I still play now). 

Grade 8 is very proficient. Not only do you have to learn very hard pieces, but you also have to do really boring technical stuff like scales and arpeggios, and you have to sight read something at a high standard. A lot of work goes into it. 

i started flute lessons when I was 11. Associated Board flute grades start at grade 4, and I got grade 8 when I was 16/17. By then you can play a big chunk of the classical repertoire for solo concerts, sight read difficult pieces, and get past auditions into orchestras. Weekly lessons and daily practice gets you there. Generally takes thousands of hours to get there, so a really big deal on two instruments. 

I took A level music which meant playing 2 instruments to at least Grade 5. So yes!!

It's very very good. It's also the starting point or base level for starting to turn "professional". There's always more to learn! 

From https://www.whatuni.com/advice/clearing/entry-requirements-to-study-a-music... "If you are taking a performance-based music course, you will often be expected to have achieved a minimum grade of 7 ABRSM (or equivalent) in your main instrument"

From https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/course/music-ba

"Applicants without an A-level in Music will be considered on a case-by-case basis to determine appropriate levels of music performance and theory skills (such as Grade 6/7 Music Theory)."

So it looks like 6-7 is the absolute bare minimum to access an undergrad degree in music. 

Me, I plinky-plonk my way around a piano murdering just a very few pieces in the Grade 3-6 range, with no knowledge of theory, to the dismay of anyone within earshot...

To have passed Grade 8 in two instruments is, as others have said, excellent. 

Associated Board flute grades start at grade 4

No they don't, same for all instruments....1-8 with a few 'pre' grades available these days too. Grade 8 in two instruments is a good effort.

it was either different in 1972 or my flute teacher started me at grade 4. I don’t remember 1-3 being on the agenda, but it was a long time ago.

It’s not uncommon for teachers to not submit students for every exam.  My three kids all started violin at about 6 years old.  Pretty sure they didn’t do grade one - their teacher thought they were a bit young for that level of formality.

Middle daughter decided to take piano semi-seriously in mid teens, having plonked about at it for years, her first exam was grade 5 I think.

Grade 8 is a big chunk of commitment over many years, especially as I think you also need grade 5 theory before you do it.   So lots of tedious theoretical stuff as well as technical playing skills.

As Blue Straggler mentions above, it’s a minimum requirement for performance degree entry, although, in practice the entry standard is often far higher.  Aforesaid daughter has just accepted a place to study violin and viola at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.  She also auditioned for Royal Northern in Manchester and RCM and RAM in London and didn’t get an offer of a place at those.  One of the London colleges (can’t recall which), publishes its acceptance rate of 0.9% of those who apply, so massively competitive.  Probably helps if you play a more obscure instrument, there are lots of violinists!

She got her grade 8 at distinction about two years ago and has been studying at a specialist music school for the past 18 months, living and breathing music in what is pretty much a hot-house atmosphere.  It’s all completely outwith my sphere of knowledge but as she is extremely committed and loves it, I support her and am very proud of what she has achieved.

My younger daughter had a love/hate relationship with her violin and her (very demanding) teacher but passed grade 8 in sixth form. Apparently she could then have set herself up as a qualified violin teacher, but she hasn’t picked up her violin again since then!

So E0?

Has she done owt on grit?

I think the highest grade you could start at was grade 5, so you could definitely skip any before that. I went in at 3 (clarinet). I scraped through all of them, including just passing grade 8 by 1 mark

That’s such a shame that she’s been put off.

Really appreciate all the replies....

We joked over Christmas that as she was practicing flute and piano as a teenager I was hanging out on street corners and playing football in the street.

I'm impressed by people who have the perseverance, diligence and motivation to keep at something which seems so difficult ....I have never been able to do this!

It's a really great thing to play an instrument and for me as the listener I always feel appreciative of what I'm listening to but also the graft and effort underpinning it all.

I've introduced her to grit!! Not sure it's going to be her thing but she's pretty good on the hill....head stays up even when it's grim so a pleasure to be with!

Better than most then! You gonna give the old piana a go?

It takes a lot of work for most people to achieve Grade 8. However, music exams have a quite narrow scope when put into the wider context of musicianship.

To have Grade 8 on two almost unrelated instruments is good going. I think those with Grade 8 on say flute, alto and tenor sax and clarinet are somewhat flattering themselves if they state they have four Grade 8s, but the overlap between flute and piano is much less.

I got a diploma when I was 18 after having played for ten years and with weekly lessons, but in reality I probably practiced only three hours a week for that time, plus playing in bands which is obviously great but not necessarily helpful for exams. As ever, supportive parents is perhaps the biggest helpful factor.

There are plenty of people with Grade 8 who are poorly rounded musicians and if you asked them to perform on a big rowdy stage, or improvise, or swing, even just perform with other musicians, they’d struggle. And there are plenty of others with no Grades who are truly outstanding musicians. If she’s playing music you like then that’s as good a recommendation as any.

Yes, but I’ve got over it. While she enjoyed being in youth orchestras and going On Tour with them she was adamant (no pressure) she didn’t want a career in music, which I quite understood. She wanted a settled life, a regular job, house, husband and children. I think also, having reached that standard, she didn’t just want to play casually and she knew she wouldn’t have time to practise alongside a degree at uni and so on. I’m glad I can say she’s very happy with her life and the choices she made. She’s a bit like me in one way. I came of a cycling, not a musical family and before I went off to uni I was doing well in time trial racing. By Christmas, though, I had left all that behind. My father, who had been an outstanding TT rider in the 1930s, and was thrilled when I looked like following in his wheel tracks, to his great credit never showed his disappointment, and neither did I in respect of my daughter’s violin decision. 

I always think it's shame that music is only taught in this very formal way. I now rarely use music, I mostly play folk music and often learn by ear during sessions. I think there is a value in knowing both skills, but formal music education seems to only focus on the notation and formal style of playing. I often say that we don't teach musicality, we just teach people to follow instructions. Much like the rest of our education system. 

As an aside, I once heard an older Irish lady saying that women weren't meant to play the fiddle in Ireland as it is a fretless instrument, and that would encourage freedom of expression and free thinking!

No idea why you got the dislikes, I'd agree. I played in a swing/dance band and could happily read music because of the formal training. But I was never good enough to take it further and lost interest. Now I've retired, I've started learning bass and I'm learning to play using tabs and chords, rather than reading notes written in bass clef. It's fun. My tutor tours with Russ Ballard and doesn't really read music. Clearly he's done alright. 

The younger musicians I know seems to have much broader access to music education than I did; they get taught classical, sure, but also jazz fundamentals, and are encouraged to understand how to make and licence music content on the internet, which is a whole other black art!

While it's certainly difficult to make money as a musician nowadays, if you learn the online skills as well as the music fundamentals, it's by no means impossible, and a lot of fun.

Some people just make down voting everything a bit of a hobby 🤷 I don't worry about it!

I'm glad you are enjoying music again now. 😊

Music isn’t only taught in a very formal way any more.  

Yes, some students do chose to go down the classical, formal route but there is masses of music instruction available in all forms - from trad workshops, youtube play along tutorials etc.

School music is much more accessible than it was when I was at school - certainly in Scotland there is no requirement to actually read music and have undertaken graded exams to study music to Nat 5 or Higher (although you do need to be able to play to a reasonable standard and have some intellectual understanding of music to sit the exam).  Music technology also a taught option as well.

I'm glad to hear things are broadening out. There is a whole world of varied music out there. 

Last night we watched a band who's music was sort of a mix between folk and techno!! A bit loud for my liking, but very skillful and completely unique. They played a fiddle, concertina and classical guitar with serious drum beats. I felt the drums through my body! I doubt many school music teachers would have approved, certainly not in my day. However, they have won many awards and travelled the world etc. 

Absolutely the best reason to dust down that old fiddle and get a tune going

Was it Yoko Pwno?  If not, do check them out

No, this was Talisk. They were a double header with Blazin Fiddles, who I always very much enjoy 😊

When I was still at school/sixth form, I got lucky and got two paid weekly gigs which couldn’t have been more different. One was in a theatre pit orchestra, so you had to at least read and often sight read. The other was in the house band in a well established jazz/folk club. We would play our own stuff in the first half, then back the touring musicians in the second half, no rehearsal, no charts, just watching guitarists hands and diving in for solos. That was definitely seat of the pants but the best fun.

I know what you meam amd it's very special. Honestly in my next incarnation I am going to play drums.

I learnt music very formally and not very well. I'm now a baroque nerd and play the harpsichord but would so love to be able to improvise!

Whilst I am not sure its flattering as such it does help. My sisters both have several grade 8s for similar instruments but dont fool themselves about being amazing considering lower grades in dissimilar instruments.

Neither play a lot now although one has recently taken up the harp!

Whereas I failed my grade 1 triangle.

Professional freelance musician here: I´d regard Grade 8 as being a possible threshold to becoming a professional instrumentalist, but you´d actually have to be quite a bit better to be accepted at one of the major colleges, and that´s just the start. I left school with Grade 8´s in piano, organ, double bass and theory, went to Oxford to study music (big mistake, way too academic; I spent my whole 3rd year rowing, climbing, partying and playing bass in a jazz band, and scratched through with a 2nd for my MA). I´d started piano lessons aged 10, and there was no way I could have caught up with those who had started aged 4, 5 or 6. I came to Berlin and started working in the theatre; learning by doing: forgetting my classical training and learning to improvise, to play from chord sheets and to play jazz, rock, chanson, to mix the styles. Never looked back since.

Grade 8 will give you the ability to play a lot of the classical repertoire reasonably well, will give you a  good technique as a basis, will give you a great deal of pleasure in your life through enabling you to always being able to play a lot of beautiful and fairly difficult music very well. However: at school we always thought that Grade 8 was the best possible; for those of my contemporaries however who went on to become soloists with major orchestras, it was definitely grade E0!

Brilliant, that´s the life!