Rondino Grade 3

[Bernice Ebesugawa]

Iwas thinking the other day, well more like daydreaming; that I only seem to be playing exam pieces, scales and listening to pieces on the radio. I don't actually seem to challenge myself when playing the violin at all by picking hard and well known repertoire.

Is the ASTA list posted anywhere on the web where I could look at it? I have noticed that ASTA, RCM, Delay's concerto sequence and now the violinmasterclass.com all have different ratings for some of the pieces. ASTA only has 6 levels so it's hard to tell within level 5 which is harder or easier, for example.

October 30, 2004 at 12:06 AM Not sure about the Bach Am, Telemann Fantasies or Czardas - personally I know them as Grade 8 repertoire. The other suggestions are good, though... also have you played the Massenet Meditation? Vivaldi Am Double's good, especially if you can find someone to play it with. Slow movement of Bach Double. I like John Ireland's Bagatelle, but not everyone does. Kreisler's Rondino. Bartok's Evening At The Village. There's a lovely Romance by de Beriot. Sarasate's Playera for something fiery...

At the moment I'm playing my exam pieces and one of the harder ones is this serenade by Beriot. But I just have that feeling of wanting to play something more techniqually (is that how you spell it?) challenging.

Sue, I know what you mean. I think classifying and recommending pieces is basically a waste of time after a certain point because it depends on the individual player and their needs, plus whether the teahce rwnats them to make a large jump and then scale back or feels it is necessary to spend time at one level and conolidate things.

For example, I played Mon tiCzardas many times in public when I was ten and had no trouble with it. It just clicked with my kind of technique and personality. But there was no wya I could play most grade 8 pieces well at thta time,

October 31, 2004 at 01:09 AM maybe the bach concerti would be a good decision? it can be taken on many different levels. just the technique part of it is hard enough, but the musicality in the end will be very demaning as well.

October 31, 2004 at 02:44 AM Yes, I agree it's a bit of a minefield; I have students who play Vivaldi Am with ease, yet are stumped by Liebeslied. One-Sim, have you played Salut d'Amour (*not* the transposed Grade 5 version)?

October 31, 2004 at 04:08 AM Buri, thanks for the suggestion. I found this web site. It has 10 asta levels, but is interesting, because some pieces are listed at three different levels. The asta levels I was familiar with are the numbers in the Shar catalog but those only have 6 levels.

October 31, 2004 at 08:20 PM Does someone know the equivalence of all these grades across the world? There are the Suzuki books 1, 2 etc., the British system grades, the Canadian RCM grades and there are probably many others. This is something that would interest me in order to follow discussions better.

November 1, 2004 at 01:28 AM I understand from another member that the Canadian system is similar to the UK one, except that they also have grades 9 and 10 whereas UK goes straight into diplomas. Australia has the AMEB grade system, which I gather is a little more challenging than the UK one (Ben, are you available for comment?).

November 1, 2004 at 01:34 AM The RCM syllabus I have lists Suzuki books as it goes along. The ASTA listing does the same. The Indiana University repetoire list lines up repetoire by Suzuki levels. Also, violinmasterclass.com lists repertoire and I think has Suzuki levels along with it.

November 1, 2004 at 01:41 AM So: UK gr. 5 might be RCM gr. 5 but Australian gr. 4 if their standards are higher as a general rule of thumb? I don't have the syllabus and didn't realize that Suzuki pieces were listed there. I remember recognizing some of the RCM pieces on a Suzuki site: Enfant Paganini in particular. Up to now I've found it difficult to picture what difficulty level is being talked about when a different system is being referred to.

November 1, 2004 at 03:37 AM Sue, I am an AMEB student and I'm not sure that our syllabus is more challenging than the RCM or ASTA ones, from what I've seen. However, I've been really surprised at some of the pieces listed for certain grades, and I really think that there is no direct equivalent for the different systems around the world--it's just a question of what different examiners expect from a piece. The violinmasterclass.com list really shows this up--it lists, for example, Vitali's Chaconne as a level 4 piece, the expectations of this level being 'Playing in higher positions, double stops, vibrato'. It is only in higher levels that 'reliable sound production' and 'solid intonation' are expected. However, in AMEB exams, this is a diploma piece...it's a bit of a mystery how pieces are rated, I don't think any of the systems are equivalent. AMEB and ASTA are pretty much the same, give or take 1 level either way. Hmm...wonder if we could rate a universal syllabus here on v.com...

November 1, 2004 at 04:28 AM Fiona, I noticed that about the Vitali on violinmasterclas.com. The Vitali is grade 10 with RCM. There were some other things that surprised me on violinmasterclass.com's list. I see some similar differences between RCM and ASTA. I don't know the uk system. It would be interesting to try to put a syllabus together here on violinist.com where we would list all the pieces with comments when the different systems list them differently.

On RCM at certain grades they include pieces from Suzuki books. I'm giving the RCM grade levels with some of the pieces (but not everything because I can't type all night, have to get back to practicing), and showing when they have suzuki pieces:

Grade 8 lists the Haydn G major concerto, the Accolay a minor, Bach a minor, Monti, Csardas, Ten Have Allegro brilliante, Kreisler, Liebesfreud, Schon Rosmarin, Bach Partita no. 2 in D minor, Giga, and Partita no. 3 in E major, Bourree or Minuets I and II or Gigue. I put all these down because there is no Susuzki book piece at grade 8.

Grade 9 has the Veracini e minor sonata and I think that might be the same as the one in Suzuki book 8, but I'm not sure. Grade 9 also has the Haydn C Major concerto, Mozart G Major concerto, some Beethoven sonatas (including "spring"), some Mozart Sonatas and pieces like Dvorak "slavonic dance no. 2" Bruch, "Kol Nidre", Beethoven Romance in F major, de Beriot, Scene de ballet, Debussy, la plus que lent and for Bach, the G minor adagio, E major govotte, c major sonata allegro assai.

Grade 10: This has the Mozart D major which is Suzuki book 10, but for some reason Suzuki has the a major in book 9, and RCM has the a major at Performer's ARCT. So also at grade 10 are the Spohr, Viotti, Kabalevsky concertos, Bruch G minor. Lots of sonatas including the Tartini "Devil's Trill", pieces like Copland's Hoe-down, Wieniawski "Legende" Bartok's Roumanian Folk dances, Brahms Hungarian dances, kreisler Praeludium and Allegro, Vitali Ciaccona. Unaccompanied bach, e major, preludio and loure, G minor siciliana and presto.

Performer's ARCT: the only Suzuki piece here is the Mozart a major, then all the major concertos, Tchaikovsky, Prokkofief. Bruch, Elgar, Khachaturian, Mendelsohn, Paganini, Sibelius Vieuxtemps, Wieniawsky and all those.

November 1, 2004 at 07:59 PM I'm wondering if the pieces attributed to different grade levels by different systems are arranged in the same way or have the same expectations. Someone familiar with both Suzuki and RCM was critical of RCM by saying that some of the arrangements were made needlessly difficult, for example by insisting that a piece be played in a particular position for no other reason than to make it more challenging. I have no idea whether this is true. It would be interesting to see how a same piece is presented by the various schools. I once had a chance to see a piece in a Suzuki piece and was impressed by the fact that in certain passages particular difficulties were highlighted with separate suggestions on practising them. In the RCM system this would be entirely left up to the teacher and student, I suppose.

November 1, 2004 at 11:55 PM Inge, I don't really have any experience with RCM exams, but in the syllabus, only standard editions are recommended for the pieces. It's true that Suzuki has practicing points but that is because Suzuki is a method not a syllabus.

So based on my knowledge I would disagree with idea that RCM pieces are made more difficult. Unless that's something that the examiners require. The list in the syllabus I have is just the regular publishers of the music.

November 2, 2004 at 02:48 AM Diplomas (in performance, teaching or direction) depend on which exam system you are following. In the UK you do Grades 1-8, which will take you up to pieces like Mozart G major, some Bach S&P movements or Copland Hoe Down, then there are three diploma levels: DipABRSM, LRSM and FRSM. Dip qualifies you to teach to Grade 6, LRSM to Grade 8 (degree equivalent) and FRSM to diploma level (college profs etc.). However, it's worth mentioning that although most music grads have LRSM or similar, these diplomas are not recognised by the state as they should be, and holders are still paid on the unqualified scale. So One-Sim, no; one is not paid more for being qualified, and actually no qualifications are legally necessary to teach an instrument.

Would you say that the 'jump' from grade 6 to 7 very high? In opinion, I think grade 6 stuff is nowhere near grade 8 pieces I hear. Sometimes I feel that when you get up to Grade 8 on a violin there is still a long journey to be a really good proffessional player.

That gives a list of all the syllabluses for all the instruments. Grades are seen as increasingly less important in Britain, I think. A lot of people who do not play particularly well seem to be able to get grade 8 - go figure.

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