My ARCT Journey

I don't think I've ever blogged about my journey to ARCT. Here goes:

What is ARCT? It stands for Associate of the Royal Conservatory diploma in performance and teaching in music, the highest academic standing awarded by the Royal Conservatory of Toronto. I had no idea what that was when I was 6 years old. I briefly remembered that when I was a little girl, I saw someone at church play an amazing repertoire and I wanted to be like her when I grew up. She was playing it fast, and I was amazed at how fast her fingers were moving across the piano.

I don't remember much when I was little (I have selective memory), but I was told my first quest to learn piano was around 6. Mom was excited that I wanted to learn something new and was willing to put me through lessons, but dad was not so eager. The family did not have any musical background, except for my brother who was learning organ years back, and he ended up quitting. Although he was good at it, I guess he didn't have the passion to continue. Dad didn't want to see another one of his kids quit so perhaps that's why he held back in letting me learn, because this meant having to buy a piano. Instead, I was told to learn the organ. But I didn't want to learn the organ. I wanted to learn the piano.

Fast forward 2 years later. I was 8 when finally, the decision to have me learn piano was granted. A beautiful Kawai gloss black upright piano was bought for me to learn. I finally began my journey as a pianist. In the beginning, it was somewhat easy but confusing at times. It was a combination of learning the keys, and trying to learn the basics of piano theory. Little did I know piano theory would be a pre-requisite to advancing to ARCT.

The requirements for piano (or what they call practical exams) vary from time to time because they keep changing the repertoires every few years, so my memory and experience with my repertoires are probably ancient compared to 2016. Just like school textbooks, I don't think there's a huge change in previous repertoires. Songs mostly remain the same, except maybe they add a few more in, or took out unpopular ones. Who knows what they decide.

I don't remember when I took my very first practical exam. All I knew that it was for Grade 3 Practical and I ended up with First Class Honours. I was proud of myself for doing that, but scared to death during the exam. In the beginning grades, there is one examiner. You play 3 songs or so from memory, and do skill tests as well (scales, playback, clapback rhythm). The passing grade is 60 (I believe it still is).

The next exam I took was Grade 6. Same thing except now they increased the amount of songs you have to play and memorize. You lose points if you have to go back to look at your songs. You lose points for playing wrong notes when it comes to songs, scales, playback, clapback etc. This takes practice. I mean a lot of practice. As you advance further up into the grades, the amount of time and practice increases. Before I'd practice 30 minutes a day. Now it was looking at about 2 hours (and mind you, this is during school time too so it would need to be divided into school home work and piano home work/practice).

Now, this is where the hard part begins, because this is when they really started introducing piano theory. Before I thought theory was optional; I didn't have to do it. But now, it was a requirement if I wanted to take it further with my studies.

I finished Grade 6 and skipped Grade 7. This was the turning point. I switched teachers. This was also the time I was finishing grade school and in the eyes of my parents, it was unacceptable that I was just entering Grade 8 piano. They got word that a spot had opened up at another piano teacher's place. A family friend had just finished Grade 10 piano, but was unable to continue her music studies due to university. She had to quit, so this left an open spot. My mother signed me up right away.

I was really sad to leave piano teacher #1 because she was so nice to me, gave me candy and stickers when I did well, in order to encourage me. Every week I'd look forward to receiving stickers. So I was pretty heartbroken that I would not be looking forward to that from this point on.

My first lesson with teacher #2 was alright. It was like doing an audition, and examiners may give you another chance. That type of feeling. Lesson #2 followed and that's where my hell of a journey for the next 4 years began.

The first words out of my teacher's mouth? "You didn't practice this week." My reply? I had a school trip to Ottawa for my graduation so I wasn't home for 3 days. His reply? "Well you still have 4 other days to practice."

I was shocked. My mom was not. Because she knew he was a strict teacher. She knew I needed this kick.

The days of stickers and candies were gone. I was in my pre-teens, entering the terrible teenage years. The rebellious years. I wanted to fight back but couldn't because well, I wasn't paying for these lessons. I had no job. I had no career. I was just beginning high school. I didn't want to become a bum for the rest of my life.

My piano teacher also became my theory teacher. He was a manager by day, and a piano/theory/violin teacher by night. It was incredible. And scary.

This was also the start of my theory journey. I hated theory. I didn't understand why I had to learn all these weird rules about writing composition. It's not like I'll become a songwriter for famous singers so I hated it with a passion. I knew I was definitely not the next Beethoven, so why should I learn about composition? The problem was, I had to learn it in order to do practical exams. As a kid, I didn't know about it until I was already in it. I thought it was just piano exams. I didn't know I had to write theory exams too!

By this time I had already finished my second theory exam with teacher #1 (or what they call Rudiments 2). My teacher asked how much I got. I think it was 82% and I thought I was proud of it as a 13 year old. His response? "That's it? My students got 100%." Yup, way to ruin a 13 year old's confidence in music. But it also showed something too: he is hardcore and serious about these exams and wants the best for his students.

At the start of lessons, the teacher had asked my parents what the goal was for me: to play for fun, or to get something out of it. My parents wanted me to get something out of it, the diploma. And so he laid out a plan for me for the next 4 years. When I should be taking theory exams, when I should take the practical exams. It was my life for the next 4 years. He makes a very good point as well. If you want to succeed in getting your ARCT in music, you must do it before university, because otherwise you will have very little to no chance due to being busy in school.

When I look back now, I've known people who got it before university, and one person who got it after university. There was no in between. University courses already take a toll on time, so it will be impossible to put aside 3 hours daily to practice piano and theory.

By 14 years old, I knew what I wanted: to graduate with an ARCT.

In the time frame of 8 months, I had completed both my Grade 8 and Grade 9 practical exams, both with first class honour standings, as well as two theory exams. It was the fastest I've ever completed a set of exams. The outline of equivalency is on the RCM website but just to summarize, each practical exam comes with a number of theory exams if you want your certificate for that particular grade.

For example:

Grade 8 certificate = grade 8 practical exam + rudiments 2 theory.
Grade 9 certificate = grade 9 practical exam + history 3 theory + harmony 3 theory.
Grade 10 certificate = grade 10 practical exam + history 4 theory + harmony 4 theory + counterpoint +  analysis 5 theory (or equivalent to that degree back in the day).

Not only do you get certificates for piano, but you also get certificates specific to theory. So Grade 5 Theory would have the equivalent of grade 5 harmony, grade 5 history, grade 5 analysis, all of which are separate exams that you have to write during the course of the year.

Examinations come 3 times a year: Spring, Summer and Winter. During my years in high school, I was writing exams at least 3 times a year, with one practical in between. This is on top of the midterms and final exams in high school.

One great thing about piano exams is that you can use that towards your high school credit, so I did that for sure to balance out my time line, as well as take extra courses. But it is a lot of work and it will take up most of your time.

Grade 10 piano takes about a year and a half to complete on average, and all the theories have to be completed within 5 years of doing the grade 10 piano examination, otherwise you will have to redo grade 10 again. This is a requirement in order to advance further to ARCT. Grade 10 is probably the hardest level to complete because of all the songs you have to memorize, as well as the skill set involved. The overall average to pass grade 10 is 75% or a 70% in each of the skill set (i.e scales, playback) in order to advance to ARCT. If you fail at scales or one of the subsections, you have to retake it and pass it in order to advance. In a way, it's good because you're given another chance but it is time consuming because you have to wait until the next examination period to do it. You can't just do it online or apply whenever you want. You have to wait 5 months until the next exam period (which is a waste of time in my opinion).

My teacher had recommended me to learn a Grade 10 song while learning Grade 9, and I used a Grade 10 song as one of my lists for Grade 9. I never knew you could do that, but in the long run, it makes it a bit easier for the preparation for the next level. So for Grade 10, I used a song from ARCT as one of the list (there's List A, B, C, D, E and Studies subsections). In a way, it was like fast tracking.

Depending which ARCT you decide to do (either performance or teacher), performance is purely just piano songs. You play 6 songs, all memorized, in front of 2 examiners for an hour or so (this will depend on how well you play, how long your songs are, as well as if the examiners are tight on time). The songs are each on average about 14-16 pages long so yes, you will be sitting down for at least an hour of playing almost non-stop. Teacher's will include skill set as part of the exam, although I'm not sure if they changed the outline of that now.

ARCT takes about an average of 2 years to prepare. On top of Grade 10, which is an average of 1.5 years, you are looking at about 3-3.5 years to prepare for 2 grades in order to graduate. If you have an excellent teacher like mine, as well as have the mind to push yourself, you can do it in 2.5 years or less. This would require a lot of daily practice. An average of 5-6 hours of practice time daily is needed. And yes, you would have to really prioritize your school work, so finish all the homework at school, and leave the rest for piano. I had planned for spare periods in between my school schedule so I used those spares to practice piano at school.

I'm not the greatest pianist of all time, nor am I a gifted one. I knew I needed practice, so that's what I had to do. If I knew I was going to be out for the entire day on a weekend, I woke up early to practice. I don't mean 8 or 9am. I mean 4am. Yes I have woken up at 4am to practice piano, until about 7 or 8am because I knew I would be out for the entire day. I can't remember exactly how much I practiced because I always regretted that I could've practiced more. It could've been around 5-6 hours, but when your mind is so concentrated on music, you lose track of time.

Unlike the rest of the practical exams, the ARCT passing grade is set at 70%.

Once I got the letter for graduation, I was overjoyed. It's the most amazing feeling in the world to finally finish everything. It had taken me 10 years from the start of learning, to the finish line but I was so happy it was over. In 4 years with this teacher, I had completed 4 practical exams and 8 theory exams. If it wasn't for him, or for my folks, or God above, I wouldn't have completed it. I would've just given up like the rest.

The key to this success? Don't give up. Always have a plan. You may think the negative words and comments are there to throw you off, but in a way, you need to see it as a motivation. You need to use that as motivation to keep pushing forward. Whenever I hit a wrong note, my teacher would slap my fingers, and hey, IT HURT! I got yelled at, slapped, given the most negative feedback I could think of. I had gone home crying after lessons before, thinking I was a complete failure. I wanted to give up so many times. It was not worth my time to practice and then get negative feedback. I saw the amount of time and money my parents had invested in this activity of mine, and I knew they wanted to get something out of it. They had told me if it was too much, then I should quit. This came at a crucial time of high school finals and university applications. If this was too much, then quit and focus on school.

Keep in mind these lessons were not cheap. Piano lessons can vary from $20/hour to as high as $75/hour, and that's just piano. Then there's theory. You could be paying as high as $140 per lesson for 1.5 hours. It's a waste if I did this for 4 years then quit. I wanted something out of it as well.

So I kept going. I wanted to make them proud. I wanted to make myself proud. And I did. Not only did I receive my ARCT (and the first one in the immediate/extended family to do so), but I also graduated high school, and got accepted to university and program of my choice all within the same month. It was not an easy journey, but it was one that I will always remember for the rest of my life, and one that I can pass onto future generations.

My dad reminds me every time I hit a wall in my life: If you ever feel like giving up in anything in life, always look back at the time you got your ARCT. If you can do that, you can do anything in life if you put your heart and mind to it. Don't give up, but just try your best.

It's been over 10 years since graduation, and these words still stick with me. Thank you all who have been here with me through this journey.