Today I will tell about why this ABRSM exam is so popular in Indonesia, and why it has, unintentionally, a regressing side-effect to the development of musical life in the country.
Indonesian people are paper lovers. A lot of us do a lot of things and enroll ourselves to a lot of courses, seminars, or workshops and whatever for the sake of a piece of paper. Of course, not merely a blank paper, but a paper saying that they've done this and that and gone here and there. But sometimes what's on papers doesn't really say what's on your head or, musically speaking, on your hands.
Now every exam candidate who pays quite a lot of money to be examined will eventually get a certificate after he/she has passed a practical/theory exam, with an additional "merit" or "distinction" title if they do well enough. (Later they can mention this in their musical CV if they're to perform in a concert.) This piece of paper is certainly quite fascinating because (1) it's nicely made, with golden, embossed printing on your names and the Royal Schools' seal on fancy paper; (2) it's in English, so it has an "international" air attached to it; (3) it has a seal of originality which means that not everyone can just print it somewhere; and (4) you have to see some English people first to get this paper. All in all, this adds to the exclusivity of the whole event.
However, with their ever-lower standard, this paper now is quite easy to get. The ABRSM has 8 graded exams (Grade 1 being the lowest and Grade 8 being the highest). For instrumental exam, all candidates are expected to play a set of scales and arpeggios (and their variations), 3 pieces of their choices, along with a short piece to sight-read and some aural tests. I think basically nowadays the requirement to pass is the ability to play your pieces from beginning to end without stopping (so much). If you can do this, you're sure to receive your certificate in one or two months after your exam. If you stumble during your scales, or progress with a snail-pace while you're reading at sight, and stutter in your aural tests, don't worry, the examiners are a board of forgiving people. Good or bad, fluent or stammering, they are all trained to tell themselves: "this too shall pass."
The accessibility and facility of ABRSM exam have created the crave for going to exams among parents and young musicians alike. Many of them still think that this test is prestigious and DIFFICULT to get by and they are naturally ecstatic when they or their kids succeed, resulting in a belief, slowly but surely planted, that they or their kids are talented. I've had an ambitious dad who, after receiving his son's exam result (who passed with distinction) in piano Grade 2, decided to enroll him to Grade 5 exam the following year. What he didn't know was that there were a lot of kids graduating from Grade 2 exam with distinction that year, and a lot of them are far younger than his son. This is a rare case, but the more usual cases are that parents start to push their kids to take exam every year. Grade by grade, to heck with other stuffs.
Ideally a pupil should complete at least half of the repertoires for his/her grade before taking exam. It's just like regular school. At the beginning of the year every kid gets a book to read, some exercises and little tests before they go to the big, final one. So musically, ABRSM exam should be this one last thing on their agenda. The most important thing of their learning process is the phase where they learn their repertoires and play their Czernys. But parents (and some teachers) today just skip the ultimate rituals and go to the exam straight away. So each year, the average young musicians only learn 2 or 3 works before they lunge at the 3 pre-meditated exam pieces and scales for months.
I think annual exam will work out well with industrious children who have quite some talent. But in today's wild world with full-day school and tons of brain-enhancing extra-curricular activities, they are rare species. The normal ones are those who take about a year and a half to complete their learning materials in order to get sufficient skills to go to the next levels. With pushy parents or certificate-chasing musicians, this is never get done. And sadly, not many care.
So it's quite easy to tell the difference between Grade 8 certificate-holders of ten years ago and of today. By the way they play, they way they touch their instruments, you can see that their maturity level are not the same. It's like meeting two university graduates who have the same "bachelor of so-and-so" behind their names, but one reads 300 books before graduation and the other only 30. You can always tell. And they can tall you. And once they start telling, you will know that papers don't matter that much.
