Asever, I hope my review will explain the most important changes, give readers a first impression of the new publications, and offer some general thoughts on the repertoire selections and direction of travel.
I am going to start by stating that this is a radical update, a riot of invention, but of course that also makes it rather controversial. Questions about whether it offers a comparable and valid educational route are inevitable.
I have confirmed with the board that this means the entire contents of the 2021 Piano Standard and Extended Edition books (pieces and exercises) will remain valid for use in exams and available indefinitely alongside the new 2023 books, including the pieces carried over from the 2018 syllabus.
Trinity plan to continue extending the syllabus repertoire lists by publishing additional digital downloads, graded books, anthologies, and including recommended pieces from external publications. They suggest this will offer a more accessible approach for teachers and students who do not want to be forced to buy new books every couple of years.
For those that purchase the new 2023 syllabus publications however, they are immediately valid for use in assessment. And in common with other boards, Trinity allow candidates to take their exams in a variety of ways, in-person or digitally.
For the purposes of this review I am looking at the Extended Edition books, although in addition to physical copies of these, Trinity kindly provided digital copies of the Standard Editions for review purposes.
The presentation of the books can honestly be described as gorgeous. Not only so, but straight out the box, these are substantial books that will provide a lasting and superb resource for teachers and players. With brilliant cover artwork by Rod Steele, soft card covers, and with subtle colour coding that matches the 2021 syllabus publications, the books make an immediate and strikingly positive impression.
Within, they are printed on luxury cream paper, have a clean presentation, well-spaced and beautifully engraved notation. An appropriate level of fingering is included throughout all the books, and in the pieces I played during the initial review phase this all proved effective.
A significant concern is quickly apparent however. Across all eight grades, copious editorial dynamics and articulations have been added to the baroque and classical works. This is a very disappointing step backwards from the excellent 2021 syllabus books where, in the higher grades, Trinity rightly sought to reproduce the original scores as faithfully as possible.
These professional recordings, remember, are only available with the Extended Edition. They are generally excellent, well recorded, and add considerably to the value. Bearing in mind that a large proportion of the music in this syllabus will be unknown to teachers, I must recommend them as an essential resource.
Looking at the Extended Editions from Initial to Grade 8, we are confronted with 189 pieces, suitable for all levels, and with an unprecedented stylistic range. When the publications arrived I felt like a giddy child in a sweet shop; teachers may feel similarly overwhelmed.
A word about benchmarking. Given that so much of this material has never appeared in any exam board offering before, this must have been an even greater challenge than usual. My overall feeling is that, while benchmarking is a notoriously inexact science, Trinity have broadly got it right here, albeit with some variance and minor inconsistencies within most grades.
A substantial quantity of the included repertoire in these publications was not originally composed for the piano. We could certainly pause right here, and have a lengthy debate. Surely there is no shortage of stunning original music composed for the piano?
Questions about whether or not it is imperative to serve up a selection of such arrangements in order to enthuse our students will always be accompanied by concerns about whether those arrangements convey the essence of the original music, while still fulfilling their remit as benchmarked, assessable solo piano transcriptions.
One of my students was amused to see Ajeeb Dastan Hai Yeh from Bollywood classic Dil Anna Our Preet Para in the Grade 5 book, and explained how much it would mean for her parents if she were to learn it. When I sight-read it for her, she was enthusiastically impressed with the arrangement. High praise, and I equally enjoyed playing it.
Piano enthusiasts may well find this sidelining of core composers perplexing, and I suspect very few music lovers would sympathise with any suggestion that, having featured on the syllabus in 2021, such great names of the piano repertoire need not appear at all in the core 2023 publications that so many teachers and students will focus and rely on.
In recent years I have reviewed and considered hundreds of piano publications, and yet there are many, many composers in these selections whose names I have literally never come across before. Trinity have seemingly opted to commission and source as much fresh repertoire as possible, and from composers whose reputation has yet to be established.
In the final analysis, I must admit that as a musical adventurer and repertoire collector, I am excited by the multiplicity of new treasures in these publications. But as a teacher, I have concerns about a lack of balance here. I wonder how many (or perhaps how few) of these pieces will ultimately land well with teachers and learners, and earn a lasting place in our affections.
There is certainly much to commend in their 2023 piano syllabus, and their idea of a cumulative ongoing resource is a genuinely interesting one that holds much promise, particularly if the board can find a way to require a more balanced mix of music at the assessment stage.
However, it seems to me that in their next syllabus update, whenever that comes, Trinity will need to prioritise reintroducing the timeless masterpieces and essential pedagogic repertoire of the piano. Only then, in my view, will their ambitious learning resource develop into one which truly meets the needs of aspiring pianists. And I believe that their syllabus publications and assessment requirements simply must reflect that balance, too.
I hope that you have found this review helpful and informative. Please subscribe to Pianodao below, and consider joining the Music Club, where you can access significant discounts on these and other publications, and join others in exploring the wonders of the piano repertoire.
In general, adults and older teenagers will progress faster with piano than young children who put in an equivalent amount of effort. This is because adults and older teenagers can grasp the music theory concepts quicker, and they also have the ability to research and learn elements for themselves if they want to.
This means that, if all the other factors in the rest of this article are controlled for, up until adulthood the older a person is when they start learning the piano, the quicker they will be able to get to grade 8.
Everyone knows that the more practice you do, the quicker you progress. But what is arguably more important than the total amount of time spent practising is the frequency of your practice.
If person A and person B spend the same total time practising each week, and person A spreads their practice out so that they are practising a bit every day, but person B does a few longer practice sessions and then has a few days off, then if all other factors are controlled for, person A will progress quicker than person B.
This is because a good night of sleep consolidates all the learning of the previous day, as laid out in the book Why We Sleep by sleep scientist Matthew Walker. The more opportunities you have for a practice session followed by a night of sleep, the better, even if you can only fit in 5 minutes of practice.
Along with all the other benefits of making sure you get enough good quality sleep if you can, this means that sleeping for longer could actually get you to grade 8 quicker without you having to put any extra effort in!
In terms of how much you should practice in total, this will of course vary from person to person but the one thing that you can count on is progressing from one grade to another requires more and more total practice time each time you go up a grade, so at each grade you will either need to increase your total practice time compared to the previous grade, or be prepared for progress to take longer.
But if you are inclined to rush through the grades then you need to ask yourself whether the benefit of having that qualification (i.e. for UCAS points etc., or for your ego) is more important than the benefits that playing more repertoire have on developing your piano skills.
Those who really enjoy playing the piano will seek out their own music to play, independently from the music they are working on with their teacher in their piano lessons. The more music they have a go at playing, the better their overall playing, and in particular their sight reading, will become.
After years of this, and having ditched trying to actively improve my sight reading through the greater sight reading exercises, I realised that sight reading no longer scared me, and in fact I actually started to enjoy sight reading, even under pressure.
By the time I took the grade 8 exam, not only was I confident that I would do well in the sight reading part of it, but I was able to learn new music quickly as well. Those two skills set me up well for my future piano playing too.
Hi :-) I'm Ellie, a Pianist and Piano Teacher in the UK. Having been a Piano Teacher for nearly a decade now, I find a lot of my students have similar questions to ask about piano, so I figured that a lot more people were wondering the same things too! Hopefully I can answer some of your questions with this website.
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