ABRSM (The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music)

That's right.

And artistic director of ABRSM.

And I think democratising the music space, particularly at grassroots level...

It's so important, reinvesting in young people, but not only young people, Marty.

OCR uses a graded difficulty system, and your part needs to be at Standard 3 or above to access the higher mark bands.

Standard 3 broadly corresponds to around Grade 3 of a recognized, graded examination, such as ABRSM or Trinity.

If your part is too simple, even if you play it perfectly, the mark scheme caps how high you can go.

So choose repertoire that genuinely challenges you.

Hello, everybody.

Welcome to the show, the first choice for our ABRSM exam this season.

And it's the A1 choice, the Tuono Arbo dance.

It's a dance track.

As long as you've got the melody and everything.

But, you know, you should really know it just by heart as soon as possible, which is why it's a really good idea to keep listening.

to the recording that the ABRSM have released officially.

That's a really good idea to do that.

Oh, that would be amazing.

I mean, you mentioned ABRSM, and I think a lot of listeners will think, "Wow, artistic director of ABRSM, the exam board." Um, what have you brought to the ABRSM as your, in your role?

The, the role is, is, is, uh, very, very fortunate to have, of, of been involved in so many different areas from the publishing area, um, bringing in, uh, new exciting repertoire.

Uh, obviously we have the creative musicianship exam now, which is, which is wonderful.

Brought a new, um, ABRSM stage, which is a, a, a worldwide concert series, um, which champions music a- across the world.

Start Here podcast.

There's so many things I've been, um, you know, fortunate to be involved with.

I'm not sure people are fully a- aware of all the partnerships-

Um, okay, anything more to say about these before we shuffle onwards? Okay, John, over to you.

Um, the, the Associated Board of the Royal Schools-- School of Music.

Um, if you've ever done anything in like-- I mean, I was gonna say be ve-very, be very sort of gray-haired and say classical music.

I'm sure they cover jazz and other things like that.

But sort of exams, you know, grade one, grade th-three, et cetera, plus all the way up to sort of professional-level qualifications.

Um, this is a very big thing, and, uh, ABRSM is not the only player in this space.

There's other like Trinity music and so forth.

But ABRSM, uh, yesterday got hit or publicly hit with a fine from Ofqual, which is the, uh, the, the quango that regulates the qualifications space for which ABRSM is obviously, um, part of.

But just music psychology was so lacking here.

And I just happen to know RCS because I have my piano students go through the ABRSM system.

Tell, tell us more-

Excellent

And I really got it, but it was just a struggle.

And so, you know, I write for the ABRSM and different exam boards.

And what I love is giving kids like me the chance to be able to master the instrument, but not just through European classical music, but through different styles.

And that's been a real joy for me.

So you compose music that kids play in the exams?

Yes.

So I think this year I'm on the ABRSM grade two syllabus and I've done sort of collaborations with jazz pianist Nikki Isles as well.

Also, I wanted to ask about reading music.