Trinity Grade 6 Piano Scales
Jonathon Burnside
ABRSM demands a pass at Grade 5 Theory* ** to progress to higher grades. Good for them! Knowledge of music theory is essential to a practising musician. But there are some students I have had who would not have been able to pass Grade 5 Theory. Mostly they are singers, who sing well, sometimes very well, but they don't play another instrument, and their knowledge of music notation is sketchy, to say the least!
** don't forget that a pass at Trinity Grade 5 Theory Exam is accepted by the ABRSM as satisfying the theory requirement. Far and away, the Trinity Theory course is better - better presented, better thought out and more rounded in its curriculum than ABRSM, imho.
The newest of the offerings. I have only looked at Grade 2 and Grade 4 piano, and it struck me (and my students) that they were dated: there wasn't much that was current, and most of it was soooo last century. It worries me that the examiners for these exams are not rock and pop specialists, but rather the main (classical) examiners. I am sure they are all excellent musicians, but it is quite a big ask to examine grade 3 classical flute and grade 8 rock and pop drumming. Quite a wide spread of skills needed, I would say.
ABRSM is a good choice for many students, but for some performers, Trinity might be a better choice: those who find theory difficult, find that ancillary tests drag their marks down, are "performers", dislike scales (pianists), or are singers!
DS will be starting towards piano grade 3 and I have to decide between ABRSM and Trinity. I've also seen ABRSM do jazz piano.
DS likes playing pop music. He likes composing his own pieces. He's joined a band at secondary school. If he does the classical music syllabus with ABRSM I'm worried he'll lose interest.
Does anyone have any recommendations?
Thanks x
He won't lose interested in performing and writing pop music or composing generally by taking either ABRSM or Trinity exams! What you get out of studying for graded music exams, especially in classical music, is an excellent grasp of the technique required to play your chosen instrument, which is totally transferrable, especially with a versatile instrument like the piano/keyboard, to any type of music.
Conversely if you just do pop, or even jazz grades, you run the risk of ending up with a technique that will damage your body in the long run.
ABRSM is regarded as being slightly more demanding than Trinity, that's all.
Thank you Pirate, that's exactly what I wanted to hear! I have told him it's the process of learning so he can apply it to whichever style he chooses. I think I got myself confused about what would be best. His teacher doesn't mind either Trinity or ABRSM so I felt a bit lost! Thank you for the guidance xx
I am a professional musician - don't teach but play full time in an orchestra. Both my kids learn instruments ,though. I actually think the Trinity syllabus is far more enlightened and up to date in approach, and that the ABRSM syllabus is more 'old school!'. Your son can present one of his own compositions for his exam! He can choose to improvise as part of the exam! I so wish that I was encouraged to do all these things when I was learning my instrument years ago! I disagree that ABRSM is more highly regarded!
With Marv. Trinity have a more appealing selection of pieces including jazz and modern, as Marv said they can play their own composition. They can choose from various tests, one of which is improvisation. No singing is required, which might appeal to self-conscious teens.
They also do a rock and pop keyboard exam option.
DS does Trinity Jazz syllabus for clarinet and saxophone - because his route into music was via jazz.
However both the county senior jazz band, and, perhaps more surprisingly given Pirate's comments, the county senior youth orchestra, are equally happy to accept his qualifications as showing he is of a high standard.
It seems to me that the technique you acquire is down to your teacher - a good teacher will teach correct technique whatever pieces it is applied to.
Where the two differ - noting that DS has chosen the jazz route for Trinity, not the classical one - is the range of skills he is required to / has the choice to show on top of the pieces. Studies based on scales / arpeggios rather than scales / arpeggios themselves. Musical knowledge and improvisation as options rather than aural tests. The style of the sight reading.
It seems to me that, as long as the teacher teaches sound technique, the choice of board is down to the preference / target of the child concerned. I also have a dancing daughter, who does ISTD Imperial Classical Ballet (the 'Trinity' option of the dance world) rather that RAD (the ABRSM option). The grades are equivalent, on average - harder at some points, slightly easier at others - but one depends critically on the knowledge and skills to be able to dance unknown dances set on the day by the examiner, the other on absolutely perfect execution of standard set exercises. They are not 'greater' or 'lesser' skills, just different, and will give the examinee a slightly different skill set in their future life.
My understanding of Trinity / ABRSM is similar - a jazz musician doing Trinity will have the skills needed for jazz playing - improvisation etc - to a greater degree than a musician doing ABRSM. However the latter will have greater experience of strictly 'classical' aspects of music such as aural tests. Which a child does should be dictated, to an extend, by their musical ambitions.
I wouldn't worry regarding the board, both boards have a classical and a jazz route and you get the same amount of UCAS points in higher grades for both boards.
My understanding is that it is a matter of teacher preference, each board has its advantages and disadvantages such as a huge amount of scales and aural singing for Abrsm compared to a staggered approach by Trinity (to scales) and no singing in aural but they do have technical exercises and own composition which Abrsm doesn't. You also need to pass grade 5 theory to do grade 6 practical with Abrsm which isn't the case with Trinity.
Personally I couldn't care less which board Dd is doing her exams with (between these two) and I would go with the teacher's preference.
I say this as a parent of a dd who's doing the Abrsm exams. If her teacher would switch to Trinity for any reason I wouldn't worry.
I think they are just different. Ds has recently sat trinity grade 7 and chose not to do the scales but the orchestral excerpts option. He will still learn his scales and will need to know them all for grade 8 anyway but we feltthat trinity suited his current needs well and the orchestral excerpts have really helped with his prep for his NCO course
Music teacher here.
My mums a music teacher. ABRSM is much more highly regarded especially as you get higher in the grades. Between her and her colleagues they talk about Trinity as more of a recreational option
This is about 20 years out of date! ABRSM and Trinity are now regarded as largely equally prestigious by most music teachers and - perhaps more tellingly - Music colleges / conservatoires.
LCM, however, is far less demanding. Now that really is a recreational option! The differences in the standard required (more than in the difficulty of music) is especially noticable in higher grades. LCM diplomas are easier to gain than ABRSM / Trinity Grade 8s!
Many differences between ABRSM and Trinity are well described above. I use both ABRSM and Trinity. Increasingly I slightly favour Trinity, but am still a fan of ABRSM. I often recommend a particular board for a particular pupil, but am happy to go along with parental preferences, and there are still some parents who assume that anything other than ABRSM is inferior.
The biggest difference is pre Grade 1: Trinity's Initial grade is much harder than the ABRSM prep test. Not only is the music a fair bit trickier, but it is also graded (i.e. you can fail), as opposed to the Prep Test which is an ungraded certificate with feedback.
Trinity for us offers a more accessible option for my young daughter. I disagree that the theory requirement of Abrsm is a swaying factor because trinity include it in their exams. They have a musical knowledge section as one of the options which my daughter has done in all her exams and means she keeps up her theory but in a more accessible way than a sat down written paper not aimed at a young child. She learns every grades scales but often chooses the exercise option for woodwind exams- scales are compulsory in trinity piano grades though. Trinity exams are well regarded by the junior department she's just got into and are equally rated by UCAS. Her teacher is a trinity examiner after being a staunch ABRSM teacher for a long time. She is says the sight reading for trinity is slightly easier in the earlier grades but this swings the opposite way in the higher grades. She is of the mind also that the boards suit different children. Trinity suits my daughter well and we will be sticking with them for the time being indeed.
Worth noting (without entirely outing myself ;-) that theory grades can be very useful in and of themselves -- several top universities now take students onto Music degree programmes without having A Level Music at all if they have Grade 8 ABRSM or Trinity theory.
FWIW we treat ABRSM and Trinity as essentially equivalent, while recognising their differences in terms of content.
We did ABRSM piano all the way till g7 then changed to Trintiy for g8 because of the choice of pieces. Trinity g8 was not easier. Scales requirements include playing them with lots of different dynamics. You have to play three orchestral excerpts on top of pieces. Aural was tricky even if there's no singing. DS liked the experience and his examiner was nice and wrote very nice comments. I liked that they break the points for a piece in three sections so you can see how you did musicality wise as opposed to technicality. His result was the best he's ever got, with full marks in two of the pieces. Probably because he prepared for more than a year! So our change to Trinity was very positive.
For Orchestral Percussion there was no question, as when it comes to percussion Trinity are more respected in the profession. ABRSM has not changed their percussion syllabus in centuries.
He could combine classical with Rockschool keyboard? Same UCAS points.