My Teacher asked if I wanted to do RCM Level 1 or Level 2

Pallas · 2024-10-18T14:51:58+00:00

I started lessons about 3 months ago. I arrived having finished Alfred All-In-One Level 1 on my own. We did a few of the extra pieces at the end of the book,...

Pallas

It's here: https://www.rcmusic.com/learning/examinations/academic-resources-and-policies/syllabi-and-syllabi-errata

Nightowl

Pallas That's interesting, plenty of information on that site for anyone wanting to play in line with standard academic grades. It is strange though, that when you click on the "errata" button for 2024 there are 7 pages of corrections! Considering this information is produced by a leading academic body, their proof reading seems to be extremely poor.

TC3

Nightowl It is strange though, that when you click on the "errata" button for 2024 there are 7 pages of corrections! Considering this information is produced by a leading academic body, their proof reading seems to be extremely poor.

On the bright side, it looks like the errata have been incorporated into the syllabus PDF, so that's something.

TLH21

ShiroKuro I recommend you buy both books because I have a sheet music addiction

😆

I know that feeling.

TLH21

twocats So I'm sure you can find old RCM books at a lower price (try eBay?). It doesn't matter since you're not taking any exams!

I did the grades consecutively but there's always some pieces that are borderline a neighboring grade

Yep, if you are not doing exams you can probably find the older editions of the book on Craigslist for a lot less money, although you may have to erase some markings. Because the syllabus for each grade is bigger than what is included in the books, a lot of pieces are carried over in the syllabus just not in the books.

To the second point, the book for each level typically provide a range of difficulty, with some pieces more achievable for early 'Grade X' and some for later when you'd be ready to transition up to the next level. Your teacher will be able to identify the most appropriate pieces or your current skills, although with adult learners they will no doubt (hopefully) take your musical preferences into consideration.

Pallas

TLH21 Yep, if you are not doing exams you can probably find the older editions of the book on Craigslist for a lot less money, although you may have to erase some markings.

I do see 2015 versions for $5-$7 on used book sites. I got the 2024 versions in case I change my mind about exams. I like having options.

TLH21 Your teacher will be able to identify the most appropriate pieces or your current skills, although with adult learners they will no doubt (hopefully) take your musical preferences into consideration.

Yes, great point!

twocats

Pallas I got the 2024 versions in case I change my mind about exams.

Do they offer RCM exams in the U.S.? I thought it was only in Canada (where I grew up)!

keystring Which are you thinking of?

I went through RCM (but for exams we rarely went off-book, I think we only used a piece from the syllabus once because it was a piece my dad got obsessed with and wanted us to learn) and I just think of it as a list of pieces in each category. There are different categories A/B/C which are different styles of music like Baroque, Classical, or Romantic.

Seems that there's a whole other syllabus for skills exercises like ear training and sight reading. I was not referring to that one.

My experience is from about 30 years ago... so even more out of date 😂

JohnCW

Pallas After my first recital though, she no longer wanted to use Introduction to Classics to Moderns, and instead chose two Level 2 pieces for me to work on: Schumann's Melody and Petzold Minuet in G with all the ornaments. Suddenly, she asked me if I wanted to do RCM levels, and if so, I could pick between doing Level 1 and Level 2. She said L2 would be very difficult, but ... and left it there. Whenever I ask her what she recommends, she just says, "It's totally up to you."

Rarely do I hear a 'level 1' piece and think that's something I'd really like to play. But, I was just poking around on the website a https://pianosyllabus.com to see what they classified as Level 1. The title 'Sweet Jasmine' by Dennis Alexander caught my eye, so had a listen to it (for most pieces you can hear it played). Sort of in the style of Gymnopedie 1 if you like that sort of stuff. For a 'level 1' piece I thought it was really quite nice

See what you think of it. Not hard to find a free sample page 1 of the 2 page piece if it takes your fancy.

P.S A version by Dao Pham is how I would interpret it, a little faster than others.

keystring

twocats Sorry, I have to disagree with this! They change up the syllabus every few years too. The whole point of buying a book is that you have music to choose from right in front of you!

I had to think about this and wanted to take time to answer. First, you may be more up to date than I am. Then also there is the idea of "syllabus".

When I got the syllabus, there had already been 10 years between myself and a family member who had started before me. What I saw then pretty well matched what had been there a decade before. It may be that things have changed since then, if you examined all this in more recent times.

The second thing is the word "syllabus" which I discovered may mean something different to people. I've seen some people think of it as a list of material, like books, or pieces and such. That is not how I understand "syllabus". This on-line definition is how I understand it, going back to my old teacher training: "an outline of the subjects in a course of study or teaching." So if in math, the grade 2 syllabus says that the concept of multiplication should be learned with particular skills ---- then which book you use, which specific exercises you devise, have nothing to do with the syllabus. In a music syllabus, if the skills and concepts remain the same, then different pieces of music or etudes being featured would not indicate a change in the syllabus.

Which are you thinking of? (thx)

I also literally don't know how any of this has evolved, because my experience is now almost 20 years old.

keystring

Back to changing syllabus, and keeping in mind the definition of syllabus I use: "an outline of the subjects (concepts, skills) in a course of study or teaching" - I loosely stayed with music theory in RCM fir some years after leaving the rest. At that point I was post-rudiments, into the harmony theory section.

The two books I was using that were geared toward this were Sarnecki, and the Andrews/Sclater "Materials of Western Music". I much preferred the latter, which tried to go beyond the narrow confines of RCM while still sufficiently adhering to the outline, The theory syllabus did change to some degree over that time. Above all, they added movable Do solfege so as to be able to trace melodic outline better, and they also included letter-name chords (Cm/Eb rather than I6). That meant that if you went to level 2 harmony theory, and had done level 1, you'd have to do a catch-up of things you hadn't learned if only going along RCM material. Or if you wanted to write the theory exam for level 1, you also needed to do a catch-up.

In this case the actual syllabus did change. The Andrews/Sclater did not update their material so it has probably fallen totally by the wayside.

I don't know how much this kind of thing also happened for pieces and etudes.

So in both my posts, I'm in learning/catch-up mode.

Pallas

twocats Do they offer RCM exams in the U.S.? I thought it was only in Canada (where I grew up)!

I don't have any direct experience. I think so? My nephews from CA both have Level 10 piano, and I have been assuming it was RCM. So I went to the website and found this list of US exam centers:

https://www.rcmusic.com/learning/examinations/examination-resources-for-students/us-examination-centers-by-state

keystring

twocats I went through RCM (but for exams we rarely went off-book, I think we only used a piece from the syllabus once because it was a piece my dad got obsessed with and wanted us to learn) and I just think of it as a list of pieces in each category. There are different categories A/B/C which are different styles of music like Baroque, Classical, or Romantic.

Seems that there's a whole other syllabus for skills exercises like ear training and sight reading. I was not referring to that

I'm getting a better picture now, and it sounds a bit like that period of violin lessons when I just followed along. We had the repertoire book for each grade as it came up and whatever was in there, and a technique book that covered 4 grades and the next technique book covered the next 4 grades. These had scales, chords, and a number of etudes. When things went south I finally got the syllabus itself. I saw that the piecers in the repertoire were some of the pieces listed in the syllabus, and ditto for the etudes. The whole thing stopped for me at that time. But I figured that if I have a whole list plus some of the goals, then I (and my teacher) would have a whole lot more choices. That is where I was coming from initially.

But then when I think of what happened with theory, one can get caught out when doing exams, for example, if something has changed in between. If movable do solfege and letter name chords weren't taught, and they come up in the exam, you're stuck unless you learned them by chance otherwise.

twocats

Pallas oh wow, I think that is "new" (from 30 years ago haha). It makes sense though, it's a great system and there was nothing like that in the States. It is sometimes motivating to have something to work toward 🙂

Keep in mind that most students don't test for every grade. I did exams for Grades 5, 8, and 10. Starting from Grade 5 you also have to do music theory and history (maybe the history one is for later grades) to get your certificate, which annoyed me at the time but now I'm glad for the music history since I go to a lot of concerts and have some background knowledge.

Pallas

twocats Keep in mind that most students don't test for every grade.

Thanks for mentioning that. It seems like a flexible system!

twocats

keystring If movable do solfege and letter name chords weren't taught, and they come up in the exam, you're stuck unless you learned them by chance otherwise.

I don't even know what movable do solfege means!

lilypad

keystring I'm getting a better picture now, and it sounds a bit like that period of violin lessons when I just followed along. We had the repertoire book for each grade as it came up and whatever was in there, and a technique book that covered 4 grades and the next technique book covered the next 4 grades. These had scales, chords, and a number of etudes. When things went south I finally got the syllabus itself. I saw that the piecers in the repertoire were some of the pieces listed in the syllabus, and ditto for the etudes.

I'm not doing exams, but have been following the graded repertoire from prep A on up through grade 3. So far, I've been happy to stick with the books and the convenience of having the sheet music all there in a couple of books. Looking ahead at grade 4 I wanted more choices for their list B and C pieces and went to the lists on their syllabus for pieces more to my liking, but still fitting in with their purposes.

keystring

I think my contribution got too complicated. At the end of the day, teaching is done by the teacher, and learning is done by the student. Pallas, if your teacher is suggesting this and is a decent teacher then I'd go with the flow. I might want to have levels 1 and 2 both, which I think you were leaning toward.

Pallas

keystring I think my contribution got too complicated.

I'm happy to hear your contribution. Thanks for sharing your perspective. I did buy both sets of books (repertoire and etudes) and I'm just going to show up with them and ask what the benefit of exams is to an adult learner who wants to learn classical piano but isn't planning on returning to school. I'm guessing she will say it's motivational, and I'll skip that for now, but just do whatever she suggests for studying.

It makes sense to me that a teacher with 45ish students would prefer to have them all on the same curriculum. It was nice of her to use Alfred with me until I decided to stay with her and get on board with everybody else.

Anyway, please feel welcome in the conversation. I know you care a lot about the pedagogical part, and that's welcome as far as I'm concerned.

Pallas

lilypad Looking ahead at grade 4 I wanted more choices for their list B and C pieces and went to the lists on their syllabus for pieces more to my liking, but still fitting in with their purposes.

OH! Thank you for this. I think you just gave me insight into why choosing pieces in my lesson has seemed so confusing to me. I didn't understand the rationale for my teacher sometimes choosing an Alfred piece and sometimes not. I'm thinking it's because she's always keeping me doing one piece from each list, and sometimes an Alfred piece works and sometimes it doesn't. I love seeing a pattern that I hadn't noticed yet. Thank you so much.

rahalabytes

Hello! I've been lurking here a while, haven't posted before now, but this is the first time I feel like I might have a perspective to contribute since I think we're on similar journeys!

I started piano just over two years ago, went through most of Adult Piano Adventures 1 by myself, and then started lessons with a teacher, where I played through the children's versions of Piano Adventures 2a/2b/3. My teacher then suggested that we work through RCM starting with Level 1. He mentioned that he doesn't do RCM with all of his students, but that it's good for those who are very dedicated. This gave me pause (am I really dedicated enough?) but I decided to go ahead with it.

I went through levels 1-3, typically playing double (or more) the amount of required pieces before moving on to the next level. I found the increase in difficulty to be very gradual from Level 1-3. In fact, there's one piece in Level 1 I played (Cranky Cat 😭😭) that I would consider much harder than anything I played in Level 2. So I definitely think you could jump into Level 2 if your teacher is so inclined.

I decided against doing exams for levels 1-3, but I did end up doing one for Level 4. Like you, the motivational aspect of the exam doesn't really do much for me, but since I was moving through the levels very quickly, I started to doubt my skills and whether I was actually achieving the level I should be, or if my teacher was just being nice.

So I took the Level 4 exam to, in a sense, get a second opinion. And I did well! 😅 So if you're like me, prone to bouts of imposter syndrome, it could be worthwhile to prepare for the odd exam to have that confirmation. I still think I might be an imposter, but at least I'm a pretty good imposter. I did do the exam online, because I was terrified of playing any other piano than my own.

I probably won't take another exam any time soon. Preparing took a lot of time to perfect the pieces, and in this time I didn't feel like my skills were improving much. I've now just finished Level 5 and have started on Level 6. Things are getting really difficult now and I will certainly have to slow down a lot. Possibly I'll do the level 6 exam a year from now, I don't know!

If you do skip directly to Level 2 pieces, I would recommend not skipping the musicianship and technical requirements for Level 1, as each level has a different set of scales, etc. to learn, if you skip a level, you may not come back to that key for quite a few levels. The musicianship also builds on what you learned in the previous level, and at least for me, took the longest to build up skill in.

Looking forward to seeing which pieces you select!

Pallas

rahalabytes So if you're like me, prone to bouts of imposter syndrome, it could be worthwhile to prepare for the odd exam to have that confirmation.

Now THIS is something I can get behind as a reason to do, as you say, the odd exam! I like this idea a lot, and I'm going to save it. The lack of progress while polishing up exam pieces is the reason why I decided not to do them for now and if there's a way to do online ones, then I would do that too, if I decide to get that extra validation at some point and feel it's worth the trade offs. I'm very glad you posted. Thank you!

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