I've been taking clarinet lessons for around nine months now and my teacher hasn't mentioned anything about exams. Should I have takon any exams by now? I saw a message on another forum saying that somebody had takon 0-4 grades in one term! Can anyone answer my problem??

Simple - it all depends!!

No, really it does. Some teachers go through all the grades 1by 1, some like to start you on a higher grade to save the money of the lower ones.

Some people progress in leaps and spurts as it were, and some people progress steadily. You have nothing to worry about - I have a lot of people I teach that have been playing for as long as you - and I have not etered them yet. Millions of different reasons - but they are all very decent players.

Don't become obsessed with exams, just enjoy.

Thanks it really made me un-confused!

this is prob a bit late but I just discovered this site!

I personally have been playing the clarinet for four years and I only took my grade one last year. I could have taken it a lot earlier but chose not to, the only reason I took the grade one was because it was the first grade exam I had taken even though I have been a musician for about eight years now, the only thing that was holding me back was a fear a failure.

I am now skipping grades two and three and taking grade four at xmas. I would take my grade five but I'm really bad because I never practise my scales so I settled for grade four.

most people take their grades for a sense of achievement but I don't feel I need them to tell me how good I am. I also play the piano, have done for four years, and have never taken a grade and don't intend to. But it's different for different people, do what you want, don't let anyone force you into it, or put you off it, but one thing I will say is that don't ever let it interfere with your love of the instrument, that is when you know you shouldn't be doing something, when it kills your love for something. Hope that helps.

i dont get any of this that you people are talking about.. ive been playing clarinet for 8 years and the only tests/exams ive ever had are scales in class..

ditto for me, i've been playing for 6 years and the only exams i've ever taken are for band class and those are simply major/minor scales and arpeggios blah blah...

im assuming you don't do grade exams in the US, i'm from england and over here we have exams known as grades, the lowest being grade 1 the highest being grade 8, for each grade you have to have three pieces prepared (one from each of the three lists A, B and C), you have to be able to play certain scales and arpeggios over a certain amount of octaves, (specific to the grade you're taking, obviously the number of scales and difficulty increases as you go through the grades), in addition you have to do an aural exam which is stuff like the examiner playing an extract of a piece and you tapping the pulse and stating the time signature of the piece, singing back a phrase, describing rhytmic changes etc. and lastly sight reading a piece. Exam is out of 150 marks you need 100 to pass, 110 (or 120 i can't remember) to pass with a merit, and 130 to pass with distinction. Does that clear up any confusion anyone had?

its the same sort of thing in Australia, only we get A,B,C marks, not scores.

i dont get what any of you are talikijng about anymore!:0

how did we confuse you, i thought you started the thread, what did anyone say to confuse you? maybe we can clarify and clear the confusion

I believe it is called ABRSM exams, correct? These are really done in the UK. Not many people in the US tend to take these exams. All it does is progress you along a certain path to get you ready for a certain test. These tests happen to be in playing, theory, that sort. You learn things from your teacher (note fingerings, scales, intervals, and pieces of music). Each test has certain things you have to accomplish satisfactorily to pass that level. They go from grade 1-8, and then have a couple letters after that (which I believe is for University). We in the US tend to do Solo and Ensemble as our "test". Our private teachers help us choose the right piece based on difficulty, and where your skill level is. Dependent upon your state, the skill level changes. Some states are numbered 1-X where 1 is low and X is their highest number (most of the time it's 6 or 7), or sometimes it's reversed where X is the lowest and 1 is the highest. Then some states have letters! We only do solos and ensembles for our "tests", though. I don't know of any state giving a testat Solo and Ensemble competitions.

-Dennis