Originally posted by KimET:
Well, I have a few questions regarding the requirements for the AMEB AMUS exam and thought it'd be appropriate to ask here. My teacher insists that sight-reading and aural is tested, which I am pretty sure isn't, though, it was in the past. I don't think she's had any AMus students in a while so she's not up to date with the new syllabus. She also says there's a time frame in which your progam must be between 30-40 minutes long. Can you confirm this?
By the way, I'd also like to ask how tough the examiners are. I read somewhere that only one in three candidates pass on their first attempt .. Is the level of playing expected to be that high?I know it is meant to be something like a concert performance but will it be so drastic that if you miss/slip on a note or re-play a mistake, it will jeopardise your outcome? And does the difficulty of the pieces contribute to how they mark you? I think my songs are relatively easy =\
Hi Kim. There aren't many teachers from Australia who post here, so you may not get a lot of response specifically on the AMus, but I can certainly help you with some of your questions.
Firstly, your teacher really must get an up-to-date manual for the exam requirements. It's about 10 years since sight-reading and aural were requirements for the AMus, and the actual listing of works on the syllabus has changed twice in that time. I'd be more worried that the works you have prepared might not actually be in the syllabus than that you might be working on aural and sight-reading "unnecessarily" (they are, after all, most useful skills, whether they're required for the exam or not).
The manual is a little misleading in that "section III" is titled "aural tests, sight reading, general knowledge" but when you look these up it's only general knowledge which is examined at this level. I have printed out the corrections from the AMEB website and it says
the examination of Section III in the Associate Diploma will comprise only General Knowledge questions. Aural Tests and Sight Reading will not be examined in the Associate examination.
Quoting from the syllabus:
The candidate is to choose a program of not less than 30 and not more than 40 minutes' duration, including gaps between the pieces.You need a balanced program, but the difficulty level will not influence the marking as such. A convincing performance is what they are looking for, and minor slips will not matter unless it is apparent that you are not technically in control of the playing, or are underprepared.
In the manual there is a list of the objectives and what the examiners are looking for. You really should read this, as well as the guidelines for General Knowledge - this is a significant part of the exam, and may be up to 15-20 minutes. In my experience (and this can't be guaranteed to be representative) there is about a 60% pass rate, but I have no idea what the overall pass rate actually is. Much higher than for the LMus, that's for sure
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Hope this helps.
) marked? Is it there for the sake of meeting the time requirements or will it have the same emphasis and importance as the other pieces? My program is just borderlining the 30 minute mark depending on how fast i play as well as the gaps in between. What is a suitable time gap between each piece or movement? At the moment I'm taking pretty short gaps .. maybe about 5 seconds in between. What is pretty much standarD? and what's a nice gap so that the examiners don't feel like you're waiting there so to meet the time limit?