Prompt or Question: Reflect on how the skills and theory within this course will help you to meet the benchmark statements for your degree.

Prompt or Question: Reflect on how the skills and theory within this course will help you to meet the benchmark statements for your degree.

Reflection is a vital aspect of developing a skill well or becoming knowledgeable in a topic. It can help in remembering the different aspects of what is being learnt, as well as gaining greater understanding of where my strengths and weaknesses are. As I am trying to become a good guitarist, I need to practice in the areas where I am weak, and consolidate those areas I am strong in. Recently, I completed a course in the Australian Music Examination Board (AMEB) Grade 6 for Classical Guitar. In this course, I learned many new aspects of guitar and developed new skills. The course has five categories including performance, technical skills, aural skills, music theory, and knowledge about the music. Each category is also divided into sub-categories, so for example, performance involves pieces that are Studies or Lessons, Early and Baroque music, Nineteenth Century pieces, and Twentieth Century and Contemporary music. Technical skills involves knowing (and playing fluently) the major and minor scales up and down the fretboard, arpeggios, tremolo, slurs and dynamics. The music theory covered major and minor scales, intervals, chords, transposition, form and composition. The Aural skills involved hearing intervals, chords in different positions, distinguishing parts in polyphonic music, and recognising cadences. While studying this course and preparing for the exams, I found that I was definitely strong in music theory and knowledge of some aspects of the music repertoire, but of course there are some areas here as well where I only know very little. My technical skills in general are also strong, but there are many weak aspects that need work such as slurs, dynamics and tremolo. In this essay, I will discuss some of my experiences during the course as well as the more important strengths and weaknesses in relation to what I have learnt in this course. I will focus on two categories: performance and aural skills.

I had a number of important experiences and insights into my playing abilities from learning and preparing the pieces for the performance part of the exam. Firstly, I have found that my knowledge of the fretboard has improved greatly over the year that I have been working on this course. For me, this is a very significant element as knowing all the notes in the different positions means that my sight reading is a lot easier for me and I am able to learn new music a lot quicker than I used to, and I can consider alternative positions where it can be played in order to find the best position for different sections of the music. Another insightful experience during this time has been in learning how to both perfect a piece and prepare it for performance in front of an audience. It is a very different experience playing a piece at performance level in front of others, than by myself in my room, or to my wife who I am used to playing in front of. There is a much greater amount of practice needed to perfect the piece and play it with great expression and quality and on top of that, a lot of practice is needed playing in front of others such as friends and family members before I was ready to take the exam. This involved taking myself out of my comfort zone and then dealing with failure when I was unable to play well. However, it was valuable experience to learn from the failure, where the difficulties in the piece are and where to concentrate my practice so that it would not happen again. So, these were very useful learning experiences for me in terms of improving my performance skills.

The second area I want to focus on is the aural skills aspect of the course. This was initially one of my weakest areas as I have not spent a lot of my time developing my listening skills and my singing ability is quite poor. Initially, when I saw what I needed to be able to do to pass the test, I did not think I was going to be able to do it. However, I found that by taking each aspect step by step, breaking down the skills into parts and slowly developing a part until I was proficient at it before moving to the next part, I found I was able to build my confidence and abilities. For example, in the skill on singing and then identifying an interval in either a major or minor scale, I found that by everyday working on one interval and recognising it and singing it, I was able to slowly build my ability until eventually I was able to do it for all the intervals across the scales. I also did some research on the internet to find out how others did this and came across helping techniques like recognising the interval when it occurs in a song that you know well. So, I would be able to recognise the interval from remembering a song. For example, the interval of a fourth occurs in the opening notes of the Australian National Anthem, so whenever I hear the interval, I can hear “Au-stralians..”. Another important experience I had in preparing for the aural exam was in the importance of rhythm and understanding the different rhythms in a piece through listening. I found that the more I was able to do that, the better my own playing became and ability to keep the rhythm, which is a fundamental aspect of playing the music well. Thus, I found that the aural section was a great help in improving my overall musical ability.

In conclusion, my musical skills improved greatly over the time of preparing for the AMEB Grade 6 exam. Each component of the exam both focused my attention on important aspects of music that I was not as aware of prior to doing the course and helped me see where my weak areas are so that I could develop them. Two areas of significance were in performance and in aural skills: areas that are intimately linked together as the more you can develop your ability to hear what is going on in music, the more you can understand it and play it in your own performance. This course has helped me to work towards the benchmark requirements for the Certificate of Performance, which is my goal. In the Certificate, performance is examined through a balanced and varied programme of thirty minutes from the different periods of music. Studying Grade 6 has helped me to develop this repertoire and the technical skills and theoretical knowledge needed. It has improved my ability to play in front of people by knowing what level of practice is needed, and how to practice for that to be able to have the confidence for performing for an audience. The aural skills that I have developed are another invaluable aspect of becoming a musician, having a deeper understanding of how music is working as I listen to it, as well as what is going on when I play. Aural skills are directly linked to music theory, and in both these areas, my knowledge and skills have improved dramatically. In the future, I will continue to work on these areas to develop these skills further, particularly my aural skills such as being able to identify the key of a piece, the dominant chord structure, and hear the intervals within the music so that I can begin to transpose the piece from simply listening to it. All in all, this course has had a great impact on my overall playing.