Tuesday 11 December 2018

4 Ways to Understand Music Examinations


It is one of those question which has multiple right answers and one of those where it is important to understand what it is clearly, before you delve into it. Grades would give you a parameter to judge your knowledge abilities, however, it doesn’t tell you a lot about one’s musicianship. By musicianship, we mean one’s ability to perform and create one’s own identity in music. Music, in the end should be played from heart, which gives you joy and your emotions spoken by your abilities in your instrument.

So, Why does so many Music School encourage Music Examinations? What can a student take away from it? In this blog post, we aim to give you insight about how music examinations work and help you take an informed decision about whether it is right for you.

1. Examination Evaluation Criteria
Most of the Music Exam boards such as Rockschool, Trinity, ABRSM, etc. organize grade exams from basic levels till the higher grade that is the 8th Grade. The evaluation criteria depends on the content that a student needs to learn at a particular level. The difficulty level in the techniques and other factors related to their instrument increases as the grade ascends. The main purpose of these exams is to give a sense of achievement to the students as they complete their particular level in their respective instrument. It is almost like a final report card of your performance in that level. They evaluate you in various sectors like your theory knowledge, general musicianship knowledge, application of techniques etc. So these examination can help you evaluate your progress in the instrument.

2. Reasons of Taking the Exam
These examinations can be taken by anyone, ranging from school students to young adults to the old. So, each age group might have different reasons to be taking the exam. For instance, in most young children learning the guitar, it is a way of evaluating their progress and earn the sense of achievement as they go through various levels of difficulty. Young adults might be looking to be enhancing their techniques, listening skills and musicianship under a structured curriculum or maybe appearing for grades to make their CV look better. But in the end of it all, it gives you that motivation you need to keep learning and the confidence of executing the knowledge you have gathered through various grades. All these different curriculum are created by a team of qualified professionals, so you really will learn and advance your skill and knowledge.


3. UCAS Points
All the major Music exams are internationally recognized and schools like Rockschool offers UCAS points as you pass their higher grades. These points can be accumulated and be used to meet the requirements for getting admitted in undergraduate degree programmes at UK universities and colleges. Every eligible university has a certain requirement of UCAS points and if you have plans to join one of them, doing examinations and accumulating those points along with your skills can be a factor as you pursue admissions in higher education universities abroad.

4. Learning to perform vs Learning Music for exams
Now lets answer this beast. Which one is better? Well, even if there are benefits to taking an exam, there are various ways of succeeding in those exams without trying your hardest and that can be one downfall to your learning. Even though we come across theories and techniques along the way, we never understand how to use them in real situations or other than the examination songs. Whereas, when you are learning to perform, all those dynamics become an important part of your learning and you utilize them more efficiently. In the end, it comes to the point where you have to learn with consciousness and a plan, playing the instrument should become a passionate hobby. Learning and applying them go hand in hand, otherwise there is no use learning theory and techniques if you can’t utilize them in real live performances.

So, in conclusion, it all depends on how you approach music learning. Music Examination can help you get better and really good if you consciously practice the techniques and learn them to utilize it in your playing and in the end of it all, you have an evaluation which gives you the picture of your progress that can be a huge motivating factor in your learning curve.


BlueTimbre is a unique Music Company that provides Music Education and  Recording Studio services.
BlueTimbre also works with schools to provide end-to-end Music Education solutions for schools. 

The BlueTimbre team comes with decades of cumulative experience in running Structured Businesses, Music Curriculum Development, Music Education and Performance.


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Tuesday 4 December 2018

5 Reasons You Should Learn to Play the Guitar


Guitar is an instrument that can be carried around easily and give you the perfect accompaniment while you sing away your favourite songs at a campfire or on a stage! Guitar is a really responsive instrument that can assist you to deliver your emotions in various ways and finally, it looks cool on anybody! However, it also has other benefits that can really liven up your personality, here are some reasons we think you should learn to play the guitar:

1. Accompaniment
There is nothing better than guitar to company you, especially if you like singing and have to carry around an instrument to help showcase your talent. It is portable, lighter than most of the other instruments and the environment it can create compares to none. It can give you the sense of rhythm as well as assist you perfectly if you want to sing along the tune.

2. Building Personality
As you go further into learning the guitar and tackle each lessons, it makes you a better, smarter and a well-rounded human being. The techniques and the concepts you have to learn to be able to play the guitar to your favourite tunes requires you to improvise and enhances your concentration level, memory power, listening skills, analytical skills and your reactions. All of these nurtures your body language which helps you to feel more confident about yourself and build a personality that others and you yourself respect. Amazingly, it also teaches you to manage your time better and more effectively as you start balancing your busy schedule along with the time you want to give to yourself.



3. Incorporating Fun in your life
With the ever growing fast paced living culture of today’s world, we often forget to leave some time for ourselves, to lay back, relax and have fun. Playing the Guitar can be the perfect getaway from the busy schedules that constitutes our life. Find some time, say 15-20 minutes to practice your Guitar in the day’s schedule, and you will see a vast difference in your mood as well as progress in your playing. With the right instruction, you can be playing and singing your favourite songs in only a month or so.

4. Learning Life Enhancing Skills
It improves your coordination skills, cognitive abilities and also enhances the capability of your brain as you keep learning the guitar and move to advanced stages. It prepares you to be multitask which you can apply in your day-to-day life. You can test and shape your creativity as you start learning to improvise on guitar. It can completely change the way you think, process and analyse certain aspects in your life, allowing you to ‘think outside the box’ and producing more effective results from you.

5. Medium of Expression
Guitar is an instrument that can talk for you, or for your emotions. It gives you an outlet to express your feelings or a mood you are trying to convey to the audience. This is the part where all musicians strive to get to as they mould their music into self-expression which appeals to the audiences’ emotion and form a connection. All instruments has their own capacity to be able to express, however a Guitarist can somehow talk through those emotions in a subtle manner. If you are someone who has a lot to say but somehow can’t, Guitar is the instrument you are looking for which will express your thoughts.

All of these benefits come through stages in your experience in the instrument. If you are curious about the Guitar and feel the interests growing in you, you can easily learn with just a little commitment from you. Nothing is hard, it is only unknown and you just need to familiarise yourself with the unknown to get to know better with every meeting until you understand it completely. The instrument needs time from you but you can be guaranteed a really fun and quality self-developing time under the right instruction and the right learning.



BlueTimbre is a unique Music Company with Music Education spaces, Jam Room and Recording studio based out of Whitefield, Bangalore, India. 


BlueTimbre also provides complete end-to-end Music Education solutions for schools. The BlueTimbre team comes with decades of cumulative experience in running Structured Businesses, Music Curriculum Development, Music Education and Performance.