Wow...... I have not heard this word for longest time, I feel like.....


Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music = ABRSM.

They provide music exam to grade your music skills.
It is exam by Royal family of England(whatever-).... what do we have to take exam?
Pay money, go to the exam and do your best音譜 Who gets money? Hmmmmm I do not know...... England?

Well, if you know this exam, you also know that there are so many criticisms from famouse musicians and music teachers about grading MUSIC by certain ability or mind set.
Grading music is not something I love to do. I respect all kind of music and artists, so I can not grade them. There are many artists that I prefer to listen, but it does not mean that other are worse or anything.....

My friend was looking for the flute teacher to take grade 5 ABRSM exam, so I heard this term after...... 13years or so.
My flute teacher in Japan, who plays the flute all over the world (mainly in NY, and he lives in NY now), did not like the idea of grading the music either.... so I heard all these stories and how much this grading system is useless when you talk about REAL music skills. And obviously, I was not playing music to get better grade.... but make beautiful sound for whole wind orchestra or orchestra, especially in my solo part. I enjoy music with others, but by myself (except the piano sometimes... hehe)
So I heard all b***s*** story about ABRSM and I totally forgot about that for long time.

I actually took a grade exam with the pianoピアノ once... I rarely talk about it since I personally think it was horrible, useless and wasted time to enjoy music...... and I hated itハートブレイク
I skipped all the lower grade and took something fitting for my ability at that time, but man..... that was maybe the worst experience ever I had in my music history.汗 I had to study so much WHATEVER theory over music and you have to do different kind of music even though you do not want to..... It was seriously horrible. I paased the exam, but I decided I would never ever take anything like this again. I was pretty mad that they can pass me just because I remembered something and do something so simple and useless during examプンプン

I learned music theory and composing classes during my college since I was scared to take regular Biological Science classes with my poor English first..... I decided to take classes in my second language first, which is musicト音記号 Yes, I call music notes and marks LANGUAGE.
Honestly, that was much better than studying for ABRSM exam.....

I sometimes wonder why people try to compete in music world......
To be popular is so important for music? To have a paper showing your grade is so important for music? Some people enjoy music that way, so I guess I do respect that... but I will never be that way.

I sometimes wonder..... I started playing the piano because..... piano was making some interesting noise when I pushed the key on the piano. I found that amazing when I was 3. It was that simple reason to start enjoying the music. And somehow I ended up getting some useless grade......あせる
I never wanted to be that way to enjoy my music.

And I will never do again.... that was my mistake in my life. I wasted like 3 months to take this grade exam...... while I could enjoy music as is.....

I just think back that mistake over ABRSM grade.......
Amazingly long time ago, but I still have this feeling that I was stupid to care about papers proving I passed music exam.

Well, sometimes it is good to recall some mistakes in my life so that I will not be that way again音譜 Right!?

This was just a story about my mistakeべーっだ!
Hopefully you do not make this kind of mistakes over what you like to doラブラブ