Opinion · What the grade misses
An aural test is a peculiar way to sell listening
In the 2025–26 ABRSM Practical Piano syllabus, aural tests make up 18 of 150 marks. That fact makes the usual exam-room dilemma easy to understand. A family with one week left can decide to spend another lesson on the pieces, collectively worth 90 marks, and postpone serious listening until after the exam.
An ear develops through daily musical consequences. When a backing loop feels wrong, which sound is making it wrong? When the band rushes, whose subdivision are you following? A short test samples listening under standard conditions. A lesson organised entirely around those conditions can make the ability feel like a small, separate subject.
Try a blind arrangement change. Record the same two-bar melody three times over one chord. On one take move the bass, on another change one inner note, and on another move the accent. Shuffle the recordings and describe what changed using any words that make sense. Then find the change on the instrument. Tension, weight and timing become things the student can hear and produce.
An examiner’s question ends when it has been answered. A musician’s question should send them back to the sound with something new to try.