Keyboard proficiency exam. Now there is a weird title for a post. I’ve been talking about my college experience in my previous posts. Last week I talked about my troubles with music theory and music history. Those subjects were difficult, but neither troubled me more than the keyboard proficiency exam (KPE).
What the heck is the Keyboard Proficiency Exam?
If you want a music education degree you must show a basic level of competence on the piano. Your competence level is assessed through a one on one exam with a professor.
The exam is broken down into various sections:
- Scales and arpeggios
- Chords and inversions
- Harmonization
- Transposition
- A prepared piece
- Sightreading
Each section of the exam is graded and you MUST pass each section. You can’t average the section grades. And, that was a big problem for me.
Getting started
Some folks like my friend David already had basic piano skills. They signed up for the piano techniques class, passed KPE and moved on quickly. Others, like myself, went into the lowest piano techniques class. This meant that I had two years of piano classes. At the end of those two years I would take KPE and pass… hopefully
I came into piano class with absolutely zero piano skills. I didn’t know where middle C was and I had only recently learned to read bass clef (left hand). My high school director hadn’t played the piano. I didn’t see it as a necessary skill that I’d need to be a great band director.
So… I didn’t work hard at becoming a proficient piano player.
Taking KPE
After finishing my second year of piano class, I sat for the KPE exam and I passed!
Well… not everything. But I passed most of it. I passed every area except for sight reading. This meant that I had to take KPE again, but I would only need to do the sight reading part. That’s good, right?
I retook the sight reading component of KPE and failed it again. And, since I failed the same component twice, I now needed to take the entire KPE again.
This was beginning to get annoying.
Not funny
Looking back on this, I can’t understand why I didn’t see the seriousness of my situation. Every time I failed KPE I’d have to retake piano class. This was costing money and time. And yet, I didn’t practice my sight reading. I was getting very good at all of the other components, but still couldn’t read well.
Things finally came to a head on my fourth time trying to pass the test. (I’m guessing fourth. There were so many, it all blurs together.) I finished the test and the professor told me that I had failed the sight reading component, again!
I came undone and I told the teacher what I thought about the test. “This is an irrelevant skill!”. The teacher pointedly told me that if I didn’t like it, I should go to the head of the music department. So, I did. But, not before slamming her door. (How did I get away with this?)
What? NO! Oh, ok…
Dr. Joe Estock was the head of our music department and he was a nice guy. I was still fuming when I was allowed to storm into his office. I had a righteous cause and I was tilting at the windmill of the KPE exam.
He leaned back in his chair and listened as I raved about how unfair the test was. He nodded as I finished my ranting. I knew that I had made a compelling argument and that he was going to see things my way!
“I wish I had a quarter for every student who felt like you do?”
Fantastic! I’ve got this… right?
“Have you ever considered getting piano lessons? Maybe you could take lessons over the summer?”
WHAT!!! That wasn’t why I came in there. I wasn’t there to figure how to pass this cursed test! I was there to make it go away!
After talking to Dr. Estock for several minutes it was obvious that this test wasn’t going anywhere. I wasn’t going to change the curriculum requirements for music majors at James Madison University.
I left Dr. Estock’s office, went to my car, drove to a Best Buy and bought a keyboard. And, I practiced sight reading for 30 minutes or more every day. I had to. What choice did I have? I had to become a marching band director!
One more time
My first piano teacher at James Madison (JMU) was the sweetest teacher I’ve had since fourth grade. She was single when I first met her. During my extended tenure as a piano student, she met her husband, got married and took a brief sabbatical.
In order to take KPE, you had to sign up for the class. I was now in my final semester of my fifth year of college. My student teaching requirement was complete and I had only a few courses left. Courses that I knew wouldn’t be a big problem. But, KPE had to be passed or I wouldn’t receive my degree.
So, there I was, signed up for the keyboard class and sitting in a room full of freshman. The door open and I heard the sound of the teacher’s footsteps coming down the aisle. As the teacher passed my seat, she stopped and looked back at me. I looked up and saw my first year piano teacher, back from sabbatical. She looked at me and said, “Oh, Eric, you’re still here!?”
My heart sunk. It was humiliating.
I finished the semester and took the KPE exam for the final time. This was it. Five years of education, a bunch of money and a career as a marching band director was hanging in the balance. I looked at the sight reading and could feel the sweat rolling down my back as I began playing.
I finished playing and sat in silence. How is this story going to end? I looked over and the professor smiled and said, “You passed!”
I almost cried.
Grateful
The professor who gave me the passing grade was the same professor that I had in my first year of piano class. Did she take pity on me? I don’t know. Maybe.
The lesson here for anyone reading is this: Some things in life are inevitable. You are wasting your time and energy raging against those things. Instead, find a way to get through them in a positive way.
I wish it didn’t take me five years to figure that out.