Monday, November 8, 2010

New Examination Syllabus wef 2011

The Yamaha Electone Examination "A Course" is going through a major overhaul and be prepared for shock come year 2011. You may click this link "Examination Syllabus" to read in details. For now, let me highlight the important changes:
  • No more aural and listening evaluation from grade 10 to 6. But candidates taking grade 13, 12 or 11 are still subject to the evaluation.
  • No more 'impromptu' improvisation. Depending on the grade that you're sitting, you need to prepare 3 to 6 impro pieces in advance and the examiner will listen to one of them.
  • No need to practise for up to 7 exam pieces. 4 pieces for all grade from next year.
  • Compulsory pieces. Something new here, whether you like it or not and you are required to include 1 compulsory piece.

I have sort out the Compulsory Pieces and Improvisation Pieces for various grade below:

You may download the PDF files to your computer and print the compulsory / improvisation pieces for your own use.

Wishing you GOOD LUCK!!!

4 comments:

  1. No impro?!? That's like removing the a core of Electone playing.

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  2. Depending on the grade that you're sitting, you need to prepare 3 to 6 impro pieces in advance and the examiner will listen to one of them. There is no impromptu element because you can prepare it many months ahead. The worst-case scenario would be the teacher had to give every single ideas to the student. In the end, who's impro is that, teacher or student?

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  3. Preparing impro in "advance." That's more like arrangement. Sigh.

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  4. Hmm, with the new syllabus being changed to this, I can foresee a huge culture shock for students that are moving from Grade 6 to Grade 5. I think the transition will just be too extreme for students to be able to cope well.

    Furthermore, with the removal of aural tests, I dread to think how they will perform when they move on to the higher grade fundamentals. Or if they are considering extending out to Trinity/LCM/ABRSM exams.

    And 4 pieces is just too limited a choice for musical exposure. Worst case scenario, they are going to become like those ABRSM piano students who only concentrate on playing the 3 required songs every exam window and nothing else.

    I really can't imagine why Yamaha Japan would want to do this. I would think they would try to prepare students to advance through all the way to the higher grades, since that's when students will start considering getting or upgrading to a bigger Electone model...

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