Music Exams: What Do You Need for Your Practical Music Exams

Hi everyone,

I will be talking about what you need to help you to plan and prepare your practical music exams. This will vary depending on the exam board you are taking your music exams with.

Exam Pieces

This is usually from a graded exam pieces book that has been compiled together for all relevant grades, but another option is choosing your exam pieces from an 'extended repertoire' list which can usually be found on the exam boards website. You can choose three pieces for a face to face exam, or four pieces for a digital exam. These pieces can be either all from the core pieces of music from the graded exam book, all pieces from the 'extended repertoire' or a combination of pieces from both the core and extended repertoire. You have a quite a range of pieces to also choose from, and you can also tailor the exam pieces to your liking due to the fact that there's now a lot more variety for practical music exams.

 The four exam pieces form part of the 'Repertoire only' exam option for Trinity College. If you wanted to do the 'Technical' exam option with Trinity College, then its three pieces of music. 

Scales, Arpeggios and Exercises

You will need to learn all of your scales and arpeggios from memory for your exams, if you are doing as part of your exam. For the exercises; you can take the pieces into the exam with you.

Scales, Arpeggios and Exercises form part of the 'Technical' exam option for the Trinity College exams; and this option can be done either face to face, or digital.

Aural

Familiarising and developing your aural skills should be done with your music teacher, and this can take time for you to develop your ear. But, you can buy books to help you to improve on your aural skills. Aural forms part of the face to face exams from both ABRSM and Trinity College. Even if you don't do aural as part of your exam; it's still a very good skill within your musical journey for you to develop.

What You Need for Your Practical Music Exams

- Exam Pieces (either from your graded pieces book, from the 'extended repertoire' list; or combination from each

- Scales, Arpeggios & Exercises; or just Scales and Arpeggios for your relevant grade

- Developing your aural music skills with your teacher

Also, once you have got all of your pieces, scales and arpeggios up to standard before you take the practical exam; another thing you can do is get yourself into a routine for how you would like to play the pieces for the exam. By doing this before the exam, it will make it easier for you on the day of the exam as you will already have the routine practiced and you will be more familiar in what you are doing on the day.