Serious Advice need on Music Exam Grade and School of Choice

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f5combo

New member
Hey people, i'm a music lover of rock and metal music, but i have no formal music knowledge or learning, not even instruements. I'm truely a beginner and starting from zero. My goal to be able to enter a school like lasalle sia or nafa. I need to get the required graade 8 for practical and grade 5 for theory so i can meet the entry requirement.

My four main questions are.....

1) How long will it take to get to those Required grade in practical and theory stated above? I'm able to allotcate 6 hours daily on weekdays and 3 hours on weekends for music practice and lessons.

2)Which school would be a good one to take these lessons? My interests are in vocal, piano and guitar.

3)I'm not able to afford a piano, would learning the keyboard be a useful alternative for now? Meaning, will i be able to transfer what i learn on a keyboard onto a piano in the future?

4)Issit true that it is not good to learn two instruments like guitar and piano at the same times as you will not be able to learn both well and end up screwing up?
 
Grade 5 theory can be done within 3 years. The fastest I've taught a class - Grade 3 by end of first year, grade 5 by end of second year.

Practical is more tricky. Depends a lot on individuals. A prodigy can complete that quickly. But the rest of us humans will take about 5-6 years.

If you want to take exams for piano, never start on the keyboard, or it will be the end of you.

Taking 2 instruments are OK. Starting on 2 instruments is a different story. I will suggest starting a second instrument after you have at least completed grade 5 practical on your first instrument. Of course, we are talking about taking exams for both the instruments. If you want to play around without taking exams, you can take up unlimited numbers of instruments as much as your ability allows. For exams, it's a different case. One time I had to take 2 practical exams within a period of 1 month - Grade 8 for piano and Grade 6 for trumpet. Almost died practising. The wierd thing is that I got the exact same examiner for both exams... Not to mention I accompanied 2 friends during their exams (one trumpet, one trombone). So I saw the same examiner 4 times within 1 month.

Focus on one instrument first.
 
Thanks for the replies.
Can u further elaborate on this two points?

#1
Why not the keyboard? What would be a better affordable alternative then beside the piano or there is none that will be good enough?

#2
So people who enter performing arts of nafa and lasalle sia all had at least 5 years of practical study and 3 years theory? Didn't expect it to be so high standard.
 
f5combo, i think you are not giving music the respect it deserve. being able to play an instrument takes years of practise. do you remember how old were you when you first communicate in proper sentences? primary 1? and it took you another 6 years to complete primary school education. another 4 years to complete secondary school education. at least 10 years before you are allowed to advanced to diploma level.

same for these nafa/lasalle dip. they are NOT for ordinary music lovers. they are people who have been building their foundation, preparing for music as a life career.

if you cannot get a piano, how are you intend to learn it? i mean, lessons from who? lessons are NOT cheap also.

i am not pouring cold water on you but want you to understand that this is a serious issue.




also, can you not start a new thread for every question on the same issue?

- Serious Advice need on Music Exam Grade and School of Choice
- YAMAHA Music Diploma Course?
- IS NAFA or LASALLE DIPLOMA COURSE WORTH IT?
 
Not a problem soft, i appericated the replies and opinion from everybody. Apologise about the mutiple topics, i'll keep it limited posting in the future. :)

Soft, i understand that music takes years of practice, some will say you can never master a instrument in a lifetime because there can always be improvement made. That why it's an art. That my 2 cent on this issue you raised and i respect your opinion and don't think of it as cold water.

teraslasch- i got it off the the website of nafa, it stated grade 8 for practical audition. Inform me if i'm made a mistake.
 
I don't know the requires for NAFA, so I cannot comment on their entrance requirements. But it shouldn't be a problem for most people. Most would have started on their primary (ie first) instrument at least during primary school and completed Grade 8 by Sec 4. That doesn't mean that if you're a late starter, you are not going to make it. It just make it harder and more work.

Just one quick self-check. If the only reasons for doing exams is to get into Nafa etc, then you have a myopic view of music education. That will not help you go far even if you get into music schools. As you already rightly pointed out that music is an art. So all means should serve one end - that is passion for music. Do exams, practice, go to music school, and what have you, for that purpose.

If getting into Nafa is difficult, it's not the end of the world. You have many other choices in life and career. Make music a serious hobby, like most of us in SOFT. Hobbyists doesn't have to be music mediocres!
 
I think I've said this before. I understand you are rock and metal lover but please please please do not expect La Salle SIA or Nafa to test you on "What brand of corpse paint does Dani Filth?" wears or "At what age did Herman Li start to pick up the guitar?" kinda questions during their exams.

The question to ask yourself is....are you prepared to learn and appreciate other genres of music and that includes classical , jazz and world music as well. Moreover yes La Salle SIA does teach you about rock musicians in terms of their history and stuff like that but they DO NOT entirely teach you rock/metal music. There are jazz/classical/world music components in their courses. To me I feel that only if you sincerely think that you can truely appreciate the different genres of music (including classical) then you should consider going to an arts school. What's the point of saying you appreciate fine arts 24/7 when you only listen to metal music all night long.

I would suggest you take up keyboard (since heavy metal bands have keyboardists) instead of taking up piano because you stated that your interest lies in rock/metal music. You would need formal lessons for this and as such try sourcing for music schools.

I have to agree with James , you are not giving music any form of respect here. Musicianship takes years and years of hardwork and determination to build up. But it's NEVER too late to start learning music right? :wink:

I'm no different from you , I started music lessons at sec 4 (I'm in poly 2nd year now) and also don't be discouraged should people come up to you say ,"Aiyah you CMI lah...music must start from young!" because to tell you the truth , if you put in loads of hard work and determination into what you really enjoy doing most which if music , you will have the last laugh eventually....
 
but u do have to know that it's impossible to finish from grade1-8 piano in wat 2 years? it's hard man, especially at this age, where our brains do not develop as quickly as little children.
 
Actually I beg to differ because as we get older , our mind tends to be more matured in terms of how we think. A 4 year old child may not know what is the meaning of hardwork and determination but a 18 year old teenage would probably have a better understanding of what is hardwork and determination.

A 18 year old teenager knows that success comes with hardwork and determination but I doubt a 4 year old kid would know such things let alone even understand what is the meaning of determination.

It is because of this clear understanding of "hardwork and determination" that spurs musicians who started taking up music at a later age to progress at a much faster rate as compared to their kiddie counterparts. That's just my opinion because that's what I firmly believe in.
 
Actually, that's not entirely true. There's a part where determination and hard work pays. But for children, it's very different. They are able to take in new things very easily because of their developing brain. They soak things in like a sponge. Of course, don't talk about cognitive and deep thinking - they are not able to comprehend those. But they learn way faster than grown ups.

For skills, if you make it fun, they will learn it really fast. You just need to give them the opportunity and environment to do it.

Trust me. I have 2 kids. My older is 5. I wish I knew the things he knew when I was 10!

Again, that doesn't mean late starters to music will not make it. As I said, it will just be harder and takes more effort. For a child, it's easier and faster.
 
Based on somewhere I read and people I know who started learning music late, I would like to point out that from around late 20+ years of age I think, our aural ability starts to degrade gradually over age for differentiating higher frequency notes (maybe chords too).
This is a biological fact.
Needless to say, start as early as possible.

I think there's aural test in the theory/practical test.
 
The hearing loss associated with age is in the higher frequencies and is dependent on many factors (like whether we listen to earphones, noisy music, working in loud environment etc). It has nothing to do with music aural tests since the musical note range is nowhere near that kind of high frequencies.
 
That's your mind playing tricks on you. Or it simply shows that you need to practice more tuning. :D You don't have to worry too much about high-frequency hearing loss at this stage. Shouldn't affect your tuning. If a person starts to lose high-frequency hearing (ie within the audible range of less than 20kHz) in their late 20s and early 30s, there should be other reasons other than simply degeneration.

It hasn't affected mine...yet, and certainly hope not for many more years to come.

Oh, and the high E string is nowhere near 20kHz (ie near the range of high-frequency hearing loss).
 
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