Anyone done guitar exams? Is it beneficial?

mikew · August 2021

Hi all
I’ve spent a lot of money on guitars in the last few months. My playing has got better and better to a point where I can now tackle pieces which are in the grade 8 syllabus and with practice play then relatively well. I have a decent list of tunes I can pull out and play from memory , sing along etc. But, my actual knowledge of the fretboard, scales etc is crap. I am entirely self taught originally from the Russ Shipton guitar method back in the 80s. I can play a pentatonic scale, major and minor if I think about it hard enough. Never had a proper lesson. Pretty much exclusively acoustic.

I learn by tab. Obviously over the years you pick stuff up and by osmosis learn patterns of chord progressions and fingers just do what they need to. YouTube has been very beneficial. But in reality I feel out of depth when playing with people who seem intrinsically to know the instrument more deeply than me. I’ve learnt through TrueFire, individual online lessons, Patreon subscriptions, a year of Tony’s acoustic challenge and books like Stuart Ryan’s.

Any experience in taking lessons later in life (I’m 45) with a view to getting these exam skills? Appreciate I could stay where I am as it’s still great fun, but when you see other players doing it like it’s second nature I never feel that.

Cheers Mike

ArchtopDave · August 2021

Yes. I only took up electric guitar in my mid 50's. I learnt classical guitar for a couple of years at school, and played a bit of bass guitar at Uni. Then there was a long hiatus before I looked at a guitar again. I went to a guitar teacher, who was an RGT Tutor, and did the Electric Exams up to passing Grade 5, and also did Grade 3 Acoustic. I thought the system was useful to me because I rather like trying to understand how things work, and so I like Music Theory.

TheMadMick · August 2021

Depends what you want to achieve. Some folks just like the learning and there's nothing wrong with that. I prefer something that has an outcome and fulfills a purpose. If the exams do that for you, then go for it. Otherwise, save your money for lessons that get you where you want to be.

Superstag · August 2021

Apologies as it’s not exam related, but in terms of a grounding in music theory, I really enjoyed Jeff Scheetz’s ‘Street Theory’ course on Truefire.

I found it an excellent refresher and/or introduction to stuff like the major scale, intervals, chord construction, harmonisation etc, and Scheetz is a top notch educator.

tanihhiavlt · August 2021

As MadMick says - what are your goals? if it's to play on stage maybe not, if it's to have a focus for practice - might be good

the exams will indicate progress.

Lestratcaster · August 2021

If you only want to play songs and not really interested in the theory side you don’t really need to do grades. Most of my learners prefer to learn to play by just playing their favourite artists songs. Grades give you good structure and what you need to know to play to a certain level. E.g someone at a grade 5 is going to be more technically proficient than a grade 1 player.

I actually see many learners do grades at a later stage of their playing, so not from the start but more after a few years when they can already play a few things. Their appreciation of theory and why it’s a certain way makes more sense.

DavidR · August 2021

I took exams to grade 5 when I retired and wanted to learn to sight read and 'conquer' classical technique (I never did!).

Initially I was really pleased to have some lessons because I was self-taught and we never were well off enough for the teenager to have 'waste-of-time' guitar lessons back in the 70's. Shame, because they're not a waste of time at all. They teach good technique, especially hand positioning, as well as much music theory that a non-musician might take years to discover - if ever - like phrasing and dynamics - simple concepts which you might not even notice.

Eventually I felt I had derived from lessons all I was going to derive and was actually learning more from playing with other players, many of whom were much better then me. So I stopped. In fact they had become a little formulaic. This after about 2 years.

Warnings! - 1. Exams are damned stressful. So not fun, which music should be. 2. They're mainly aimed at younger players. This is fine and means they will try very hard not to fail everyone which is nice. 3. Examiners are often not guitar players. Also fine since it's the lessons which improve you and the exams are just a goal to aim for.

Hope that helps. Overall I would say go for it and jack it in if no progress or no fun.

mikew · August 2021

Thanks for all the feedback. I’ll have a think and no doubt procrastinate before doing something……

viz · August 2021

This is largely irrelevant but it’s an amazing story. We have a friend whose daughter just did her grade 8 classical guitar, and scored 150. 150. That’s the highest distinction you can get. She got full marks in her three pieces. She got full marks in her sightreading. She got full marks in her scales. She got full marks in the aural. I mean she is a phenomenal musician and she got distinctions in her grade 8 voice and piano too, so it was expected that she’d do well, but to get 150/150, well it’s almost never heard of. Obviously she has a scholarship to a conservatoire to study classical guitar.

She also did music A level. She scored a B. It turned out that she got full marks in all her written work. Full marks. So how come she got a B? Well, for the practical part she played one of her grade 8 pieces, and when she came out, she was beaming. It was the best she’d ever played it - better even than in her exam the week before. And the school, check this out, they failed her. For the piece. She scored like 10% for the piece that she’d, literally the week before, scored 100% with ABRSM. And there’s no recording of the exam performance. How shocking is that. Of course everyone agrees it’s pretty obvious they had a quota, they couldn’t give her an A and the only thing they could mark her down on was the piece because there’s no evidence. Gutting eh?

fretmeister · August 2021

Professional teachers use a system to teach music that has been developed over several hundred years.
It works. Opposition to formal music education exists in guitarland only - no other instrument suffers from it.

Music lessons are academic. What you do with the knowledge is art. They are not the same.

You will develop more in 1 year of proper lessons than you will in 5 years of undirected sporadic and disjointed home playing.

VimFuego · August 2021

fretmeister said:

Professional teachers use a system to teach music that has been developed over several hundred years.
It works. Opposition to formal music education exists in guitarland only - no other instrument suffers from it.

Music lessons are academic. What you do with the knowledge is art. They are not the same.

You will develop more in 1 year of proper lessons than you will in 5 years of undirected sporadic and disjointed home playing.

almost, some folk instrument players have this attitude as well (melodeon, concertina etc). You still hear it said in some circles that formal training stifles creativity.

DavidR · August 2021

Interesting post Fretmeister. I hadn't realised that.

Formal training doesn't stifle creativity but it can stifle guitar fun.

Sometimes.

In guitar, one notable example was Segovia who influenced teaching of the classical instrument hugely from the time he became famous. Some of his students found that his teaching was very rigid. You had to absolutely do it his way as regards everything - playing, practicing, technique. This was not always easy. Segovia had very strong hands. He could do things on the instrument that many students just couldn't do. This made it disheartening for some who studied under him.

Of course teachers will justify lessons, and they fulfil a vital purpose. But there's something a little random about the guitar. We all play different instruments, there's no fixed design for the instrument, we all have different hands and techniques, we all have different desires for sound. Sometimes it seems more of a lifestyle than an instrument. Perhaps that explains your observation.

Try playing the 6th string with your thumb in a classical lesson and see what happens! But for a Blues player it's 110% important!

Drink Beer, Play Guitar.

Teetonetal · August 2021

The exam structure ensures that you keep moving forward, learning theory and technique.

Just make sure that you keep up the creative side too and you'll be golden )

Hurling_Fruitmig · August 2021

viz said:

This is largely irrelevant but it’s an amazing story. We have a friend whose daughter just did her grade 8 classical guitar, and scored 150. 150. That’s the highest distinction you can get. She got full marks in her three pieces. She got full marks in her sightreading. She got full marks in her scales. She got full marks in the aural. I mean she is a phenomenal musician and she got distinctions in her grade 8 voice and piano too, so it was expected that she’d do well, but to get 150/150, well it’s almost never heard of. Obviously she has a scholarship to a conservatoire to study classical guitar.

She also did music A level. She scored a B. It turned out that she got full marks in all her written work. Full marks. So how come she got a B? Well, for the practical part she played one of her grade 8 pieces, and when she came out, she was beaming. It was the best she’d ever played it - better even than in her exam the week before. And the school, check this out, they failed her. For the piece. She scored like 10% for the piece that she’d, literally the week before, scored 100% with ABRSM. And there’s no recording of the exam performance. How shocking is that. Of course everyone agrees it’s pretty obvious they had a quota, they couldn’t give her an A and the only thing they could mark her down on was the piece because there’s no evidence. Gutting eh?

Sounds like good grounds for an appeal to me.

fretmeister · August 2021

DavidR said:

Interesting post Fretmeister. I hadn't realised that.

Formal training doesn't stifle creativity but it can stifle guitar fun.

Sometimes.

In guitar, one notable example was Segovia who influenced teaching of the classical instrument hugely from the time he became famous. Some of his students found that his teaching was very rigid. You had to absolutely do it his way as regards everything - playing, practicing, technique. This was not always easy. Segovia had very strong hands. He could do things on the instrument that many students just couldn't do. This made it disheartening for some who studied under him.

Of course teachers will justify lessons, and they fulfil a vital purpose. But there's something a little random about the guitar. We all play different instruments, there's no fixed design for the instrument, we all have different hands and techniques, we all have different desires for sound. Sometimes it seems more of a lifestyle than an instrument. Perhaps that explains your observation.

Try playing the 6th string with your thumb in a classical lesson and see what happens! But for a Blues player it's 110% important!

Drink Beer, Play Guitar.

If you can properly get your thumb over the 6th string on a 52 to 54mm classical fretboard you have far bigger hands than I have.

Stifling fun is a mindset. If I properly separate the academics from the art then I compartmentalise it and it's just a difference between work and play.

At the moment I am doing hand therapy for a ruptured tendon that has massively affected my ability - I'm a finger playing bassist - and aside from the exercises and strapping and all the rest of it, the action of plucking a string is very similar to one of the exercises.

So I'm spending a lot of time with my bass just plucking with 1 finger, and also reprogramming 35 years worth of finger pattern muscle memory into a system that I can manage. It could really ruin my fun - as you might expect it's very frustrating. But in my head I'm not playing at all - I'm just doing hand therapy.

After a 30 mins session of that therapy I can then move onto a bit of playing.

I compartmentalise other parts too, like sight reading practice (work) and jamming along to a CD (play).

DavidR · September 2021

Hope your hand is recovering fretmeister. Take massive inspiration from Django Reinhardt who lost quite major function in his left hand in a fire. As he recovered he stubbornly altered his technique despite never regaining the function of some fingers. He discovered Jazz about the same time. Best wishes for a speedy recovery and hope you have a good result.

fretmeister · September 2021

It's slow progress, but also a lot better than it was. I did in early December last year and for 4 months I couldn't even hold a pen properly.

The last 3 months or so have seen a lot of progress. The hand therapists have been amazing, and they have really wanted to understand how the fingers need to move to play bass and come up with a treatment plan for that.

Definitely going to send them a bottle for christmas.

viz · September 2021

Hurling_Fruitmig said:

viz said:

This is largely irrelevant but it’s an amazing story. We have a friend whose daughter just did her grade 8 classical guitar, and scored 150. 150. That’s the highest distinction you can get. She got full marks in her three pieces. She got full marks in her sightreading. She got full marks in her scales. She got full marks in the aural. I mean she is a phenomenal musician and she got distinctions in her grade 8 voice and piano too, so it was expected that she’d do well, but to get 150/150, well it’s almost never heard of. Obviously she has a scholarship to a conservatoire to study classical guitar.

She also did music A level. She scored a B. It turned out that she got full marks in all her written work. Full marks. So how come she got a B? Well, for the practical part she played one of her grade 8 pieces, and when she came out, she was beaming. It was the best she’d ever played it - better even than in her exam the week before. And the school, check this out, they failed her. For the piece. She scored like 10% for the piece that she’d, literally the week before, scored 100% with ABRSM. And there’s no recording of the exam performance. How shocking is that. Of course everyone agrees it’s pretty obvious they had a quota, they couldn’t give her an A and the only thing they could mark her down on was the piece because there’s no evidence. Gutting eh?

Sounds like good grounds for an appeal to me.

They’re in the middle of it, yup

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Anyone done guitar exams? Is it beneficial?

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