Opinion · What the grade misses
The single take belongs to the exam
The camera changes what a piano lesson feels like. A pupil can play three pieces well and stumble at the beginning of the fourth. At home that mistake might take four bars to fix. For a submission that requires a continuous take, it can become the reason to play everything again.
ABRSM’s digital Performance Grades ask candidates to submit a video of a performance programme. That turns stamina and recovery into meaningful challenges. It can also teach a student to dismiss a whole take because one moment would look bad to the person marking it.
Run two recording sessions with different rules. In the first, record one continuous performance and move forward through mistakes. Listen only for where the player recovered. In the second, make a studio recording with separate takes. Listen for the best phrase in each and decide how much editing serves the piece and its intended listener. Keep the rules of the exam for anything being submitted to the exam.
The jobs differ. One certifies what a candidate can play under stated conditions. The other is a language for making an artefact. A single-take performance can be a wonderful artefact too, when the artist has chosen that limitation for a reason.