Over the past year, the world has changed in ways few of us could possibly have imagined. As the coronavirus pandemic spread around the globe, lockdowns forced us to live life digitally and explore the possibilities of teaching and learning online – often for the first time. Meanwhile, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement threw a much-needed spotlight on the lack of diversity and equality in many areas of our lives – music tuition repertoire included.
At Trinity College London, we may not have foreseen such seismic changes, but we had sensed shifts in the attitudes and behaviours of our music teachers and examination candidates. The team responsible for our music grades and diplomas was already investigating the potential for online exams, while those developing our new piano syllabus for 2021–23 ran a global competition in 2019 to find new pieces by a diverse range of young composers to include in the updated repertoire for each grade.
As we head into 2021, we're incredibly proud to have launched digital versions of all the grades and diplomas for all the instruments covered by our face-to-face exams. And we're delighted with the reception to our wide-ranging new piano syllabus, which the European Piano Teachers Association says ‘goes out of its way to provide maximum flexibility and opportunity for candidates to flourish’ and reviewer Andrew Eales called ‘the new gold standard’.
The drive for diversity
As part of our commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion, we wanted to help candidates understand the broad world of the music they're accessing when they learn an instrument. We focused both on personalising their experience and on not propagating a narrow view of piano repertoire. Our new syllabus gives learners access to music from around the world, by composers from diverse backgrounds.
Trinity works in about 60 countries, which gives us access to amazing musicians, composers and music experts internationally and we wanted to capitalise on this wonderful diversity of musical talents and influences. So, we made a conscious effort to support young, creative musicians across our various markets worldwide to be part of the syllabus and have their work published.
We invited submissions from composers aged under 30 and received thousands of pieces from as far afield as Thailand, New Zealand, Singapore and Malta. There was some extraordinarily good music from incredibly young writers – some of the entrants were just seven or eight. We picked one piece per grade from this competition for each of the repertoire books for grades Initial to Grade 8. In fact, the winning entry for Grade 1 is by eight-year-old British composer Matthew Pittarello.
As my colleague Andrew Hatt, Trinity's qualifications development manager, points out: ‘A lot of candidates for our grade exams are quite young. For them to see composers in their repertoire books who are their own age, previously unpublished, and perhaps from their own country, is really inspiring.’
Unprecedented personalisation
The compositions by young composers form part of the broadest range of repertoire we've ever offered in any music syllabus. There are 35 pieces to choose from at each piano grade, representing a huge variety of musical styles and periods.
Andrew Hatt explains, ‘We have pieces from the 16th century right up to pieces by living composers. We've searched out more international composers, more female composers, and more Black and minority ethnic composers, vastly increasing the range of music on offer overall.
‘Candidates are also not restricted to choosing pieces from set groups. They can [at lower grades] construct their programme from any of those 35 pieces, which makes the learning and exam process more personalised and enjoyable. Several reviewers have commented that, even though the range is so wide, the levelling is spot-on for every piece.’
Our ethos at Trinity is to build personalisation and flexibility into all our music syllabuses. Developments in technology have created exciting new possibilities for us.
‘The standard edition of each grade book now includes 12 pieces, instead of the nine we've provided historically,’ explains Nik Preston, executive director of Trinity College London Press. ‘The extended edition includes a code to download an eBook with a further nine pieces (selected predominantly from the previous syllabus), plus concert-quality audio recordings of all 21 pieces.
‘Both books also include new technical exercises and performance notes, with the extended edition also featuring scales and arpeggios for the first time. Additionally, we are excited to announce that a fully digital version of both editions will shortly be available for download at our recently launched e-commerce platform, store.trinitycollege.com.’
One of our favourite phrases at Trinity is ‘bias for best’, by which we mean providing every opportunity for candidates to do the best they possibly can. Whenever a student sits an exam, we want to see the best musician that they can be, so we offer choices in the technical work and supporting tests.
Candidates choose two out of four possible supporting tests in a face-to-face exam (sight-reading, improvisation, aural and musical knowledge) so they can pick the ones that suit them best. And, as is the case in many of our syllabuses, candidates up to Grade 3 also have the option of performing a duet.
As with all Trinity music grades, our new piano syllabus also allows candidates to perform something they've written themselves. So if you have a creative student who enjoys writing music, or you love teaching composition, you can work with your student to develop a piece they can play in place of one of the set repertoire pieces.
There's a tendency for any music examination board to think about the separate components of the exam in isolation – the repertoire, supporting tests, technical work, and so on. In developing our new piano syllabus, we considered all these things together to give candidates a holistic experience and help them make sense of everything they learn when working towards a grade. Reviewers have particularly praised the close links between the technical work requirements and the requirements of the repertoire at all levels.
Flexible formats for the digital age
Being a successful exam board isn't just about how we deliver the music; it's about how we deliver the whole exam experience in a changing world. Piano candidates (like all Trinity music candidates) can now choose to take their exam digitally rather than in a traditional, face-to-face setting. Our digital grades and diplomas enable candidates to do their exam remotely, through video assessment, at a time and place that suits them.
Young people are used to doing things digitally. The way they engage with their education and learning is constantly evolving and has changed dramatically during 2020. By introducing online exams, we're reflecting the digital journey of our users in every other part of their lives.
We know an increasing number of teachers and learners are using tablets and smartphones in their learning. We wanted our piano offering to mirror these changes and enable students to download a piece of music to keep in their pocket and play whenever they want to, at school, home or their music teacher's house. Gloriously, in our digital exams we're starting to see candidates holding their tablet up to the camera to show us the piece they're playing, and off they go…
We've spent considerable time and effort ensuring our digital exams provide a result that's comparable to the result of the face-to-face graded exam. We worked closely with examiners and teachers to refine the criteria and develop not just a reliable, but an enjoyable, experience for our candidates. As always, we've also carefully thought through adjustments for candidates with additional needs.
We anticipate our digital grades being an ever-evolving assessment medium which evolves and updates continually, in the same way you expect to see an app on your phone updated, with new functionality responding to users’ comments, needs and the changing digital environment.
Our digital exams aren't replacing our traditional exams, but they introduce new possibilities for personalisation and flexibility, forming part of Trinity's digital evolution as we adopt digital technologies across our assessments, publications and all our product lines. It's exciting to think that music students all over the world will be able to continue with their learning and progression, no matter what life throws at us in terms of lockdowns and social-distancing restrictions.
New challenges, new choices
2020 may have been a challenging year, but it's also been by far the most exciting since I joined Trinity over 12 years ago. We launched our new piano syllabus in August with the slogan ‘Your performance. Your choice’, and we can't wait to see the first candidates sit the updated exams – both online and face-to-face – in January. It will be fascinating to find out how students and teachers are making the most of the broadest and most flexible syllabus we've ever offered.
Francesca Christmas
Want to know more?
-
Find out more about the new Trinity Piano 2021–23 syllabus and get a free sample booklet of pieces and exercises at www.trinitycollege.com/piano
-
View the full range of grade books and buy online at shop.trinitycollege.com or explore our range of ebooks at store.trinitycollege.com
-
Discover our full range of digital grades and diplomas at www.trinitycollege.co.uk/DGD?
-
Download a free eBook containing three wonderful pieces of music from our young composers’ competition at www.trinitycollege.com/play-it-forward
