Rockschool Grades

Caffeined

Has anyone done, or is doing the Rockshool grades for guitar?

I started doing these to give myself some focus. Found the theory and different styles of performance pieces useful in learning more about the way to utilise the guitar.
Lead to me being able to improvise, which has been great fun.

Interested to hear what peoples thoughts on the course?

Cheers.

thomasross20

I thought about it many times and got through the grade 8 material back in high school but never sat the exams. I don't see the point, for myself, anyway.

fretmeister

I had a look last year.

Theres hardly any theory content and minimal sight reading requirements. It might be fun, and it might be useful for performance, but it has very little in common with classical standard requirements.

thomasross20

Is it RGT that is the better one? Even then there are multiple categories. TBH I'm never going to be able to need to sight read.

DefaultM

I got the grade 8 in college and found it worthless.

I completely failed the ear training section because at the time I had no interest so didn't practice it, and I didn't even attempt the sight reading section. Still got a merit cos I played all the pieces/scales etc perfectly. 
That seems a bit backwards to me.

Surely if it was a serious qualification they would weight the 'musician' parts equally with the 'guitarist' parts?
Which is more important? Being able to play an instrumental piece called Metal Maria, or being able to use your ear to play along with others or work out pieces for yourself?

mike_l

thomasross20 said:

Is it RGT that is the better one? Even then there are multiple categories. TBH I'm never going to be able to need to sight read.

My old teacher was a RGT examiner, I did some grade 8 sight reading, and to be honest it was very simple. Far simpler than I'd have given a grade 3-4 credit for.
There was a bit of Am, Em, Gm and Dm, and nothing particularly complex. A bit pointless really.
I think as it was aimed more at rock/pop guitarists then sight reading is a lower priority than would be for classical guitarists.

thomasross20

@DefaultM  are you sure it wasn't called "Metal Mania" lol... I still remember how to play that one, it was by far one of the more interesting songs!

DefaultM

Haha yeah it's autocorrected itself to Maria.

DrJazzTap

I was due to do the grade five at college and couldn't be arsed to turn up. 19yr old me had better things to do. 

Apparently you had to do the five before you could sit anything higher.  

menamestom

mike_l said:

thomasross20 said:

Is it RGT that is the better one? Even then there are multiple categories. TBH I'm never going to be able to need to sight read.

My old teacher was a RGT examiner, I did some grade 8 sight reading, and to be honest it was very simple. Far simpler than I'd have given a grade 3-4 credit for.
There was a bit of Am, Em, Gm and Dm, and nothing particularly complex. A bit pointless really.
I think as it was aimed more at rock/pop guitarists then sight reading is a lower priority than would be for classical guitarists.

I did the RGT up to grade 7, I thought it was okay.  The chord reading was much more involved than the melody sight reading though, which is probably more applicable to most non classical guitarists.  Also, there was a fair bit of improvisation required over chord changes where key centres changed, which was quite involved.  

Caffeined

Interesting to get peoples opinions here.
I mainly am doing them to gain more knoweldge in theory. For that it has been useful for me.