One of my goals for this year (I don’t like New Year resolutions, for new or regenerated activities I prefer Steve Pavlina’s 30-day trial concept) is to complete my ALCM in composition. This is a diploma assessed on a composition portfolio, and a type of music exam I didn’t know existed until a few years ago. Like the majority of learners in the UK I landed on the ABRSM path at the start of my musical journey pretty much by default, and while I was vaguely aware other boards existed I had no pressing reason to explore them. ABRSM must be the best because that’s the one my teachers chose and they knew best, right? (The “which exam board is best” debate has been going on since the mid-19th century and will not be solved here, or probably by anyone ever.)
Fast forward 20-ish years and I’m considering electronic keyboard exams, and for the first time I’m forced to look outside ABRSM’s parameters because they don’t offer them. As I started exploring other boards and the wealth of alternative options I found many possibilities to embrace, and something that caught my eye was LCME’s composition grades and diplomas. My degree involved some composition but it wasn’t the main focus, and my own publications have so far been for piano so I thought it would be interesting to force myself to broaden my horizons regarding instrumentation. I could quite happily never sit another written exam as long as I live, but I could create and submit a portfolio online within any time frame and without having to visit an exam centre or even the post office. It’s a very accessible assessment, with the only major expense being the exam fee itself – the grades cost £36-54 depending on level, a reasonably affordable amount and fairly cheap by music exam standards.
You can jump in at any point up to ALCM without any prerequisites but I decided to start at the beginning, armed with only the syllabus and a couple of online forum posts to guide me. I have now completed Grades 2, 4 and 6 with distinction and my Grade 8 portfolio is almost finished – assuming I pass I will then move on to the diploma syllabus. The submission process has been mostly smooth (I had trouble with uploading some of the audio files but these are not essential and the submission page has recently been updated) and the feedback from the examiners has been clear and useful, so I am happy to recommend them to both students and other musicians.
Why might I want to try these assessments?
Creating your own music is something that is often overlooked by students learning an instrument. There are no longer any composition requirements for ABRSM theory exams up to Grade 5, which is as far as most students go (not least because there is an extremely large jump from Grade 5 to 6, to the point that I think even giving them the same name is misleading). Students do not always grasp the link between their practical and theoretical studies, which is understandable when they are learning about instruments and clefs and other technical aspects that aren’t directly related to their own instrument.
Composition gives students an opportunity to use all those skills, and modern composition software allows them to hear how their work would sound on different instruments (with varying degrees of accuracy, although modern soundfonts do a much better job than the MIDI files and cheap electronic keyboards of yore). If you are already a proficient musician who wants to explore composition in more depth, or a teacher looking at offering these to students, you might find this an interesting challenge.
What do I need to do?
Students compile a portfolio of pieces which can be submitted by post or online. For Grades 2, 4, 6 and 8 three pieces are required: an original composition, an arrangement of a song and an arrangement of a piece from the current LCME piano exam book for a certain grade (1, 3, 5 and 7 or 8 respectively). The length of the piece and number of instruments is specified in the syllabus but beyond that candidates have free rein over the style and type of instruments used, with the caveat that at least one of the first two pieces must have a vocal part. It is not essential to use standard notation – the syllabus states that an “unconventional notation or layout” is permitted as long as the score includes an explanation of how to read it.
Successful candidates receive a mark sheet and certificate in the post around 4-6 weeks later, with each piece given a mark out of 30 and a mark out of 10 for overall presentation (based on how neat, comprehensible and well-organised the scores are). A total of 65 is required for a pass, 75 for a merit and 85 for a distinction.
Diploma-level qualifications have an overall portfolio length and a list of requirements which must be covered in some way, for example ALCM requires at least one piece or movement to have eight or more independent parts and another to have two or fewer. ALCM and LLCM can have a maximum of 6 different pieces, though it should not be much of a challenge to cover all the requirements within them. The FLCM portfolio has no stated requirements beyond a length of 50-70 minutes – think of this as similar to the dissertation or final project for a Masters degree. Diplomas are graded pass/fail (Approved/Not Approved).
Where do I start?
Grab your instrument and play a melody, a few chords, a scale in a key that you like, and see what sounds good or interesting to you. Find a nice notebook to scribble your ideas down – if you can read standard notation some downloadable or pre-printed manuscript paper would be useful. If you’re stuck for ideas and can read sheet music/chord notation have a look at my improvisation prompts and try developing some music around those parameters.
If you have a Windows/Mac/Linux computer you can use the free program MuseScore to write your pieces (this is the program I use to produce and publish my music), if you have an Android device try Music Writer (free basic version with ads, premium £9.99 per year). I don’t have an iOS device so I can’t recommend specific apps for iPhone/iPad, as I prefer to only recommend products I have tested myself.
These are just some ideas to get you started – if you are interested in developing your composition skills I offer lessons in this and general music theory, in person in Stoke-on-Trent or via Skype/Zoom. Enjoy your musical journey!
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