Rockshool Or RGT??????

One thing that ALL guitarists are faced with when they decide to take the leap into grades is the choice. There is a ridiculous amount of syllabuses to choose from, in fact there are more than three in the uk alone.

So what one should you choose and why should you choose it? Well there is no real answer to that question because there is no real best one, they all depend on what style of learning you want to go ahead for.

The first syllabus i am going to be looking at is the Rockshool syllabus.

[Web: www.rockschool.co.uk, Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Rockschool/137412866820?ref=search&v=wall]

Rockshool was founded back in 1991 by musicians Norman York and Simon Pitt who wanted to make graded exams accesible to everyone and not just the classically trained. Rockschool prides itself on being the most popular of the syllabuses and aims to use the most up to date grading systems that it can.

So what is it that Rockschool offers? They offer grades 1 through to 8 as well as various other types of exams and qualifications, ranging in guitar, bass, singing e.t.c. this wide choice has been constantly updated throughout the years and continues to be so today.

The exam itself has many different modules: Pieces: offering a range of styles to play, with varying difficulties for each grade, technical exercises: things like scales, arpeggios, chords are all common and in the later grades modes and various guitar techniques are introduced. There are sight reading tests, ear tests and viva voce tests, all aimed at producing a player that can do more than just play a tune, but a player that can read and hear music properly as well.

In the later grades rockshool introduce things like quick study pieces, these are aimed at improving a players adaptability to different styles, this in turn aides the player in becoming more versatile in their playing.

All in all the rockshool package seem very impressive, aiming at the idea that a guitarist becomes a guitarist to play music not to learn it, but at the same time managing to slyly work in some music theory as well as practical sight reading and auditory tests.

Now a look at RGT, or Registry Of Guitar Tutors as the acronym stands for.

[Web: www.registryofguitartutors.com, Facebook: www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=250892166256&ref=search#!/group.php?gid=250892166256]

RGT was founded in 1992 as a way of ensuring that guitar teachers gained professional recognition in the world of musical education, it has since become one of the UK's leading providers of Guitar gradings and offers a variety of guitar aimed tests, i.e. classical, electric, bass and acoustic guitar.

They offer preliminary through to grade 8 and then diploma level qualifications as well as other less formal exam types.

An RGT exam follows musical theory and techniques very closely, placing huge emphasis on the development of scales and chord types as well as improvisation and sight reading. Their exams don't contain any pieces however, [this refers to electric guitar syllabus] so whilst techniques are being tremendously improved there is very little creative outlets with which to use them.

In summary what RGT offers is a fast track towards an expansive technical repertoire and theoretical know how. And whilst this is a good thing, it's lack of including pieces with which the techniques can be directly applied to means that people may wind up wasting their time learning skills that, other than in an exam situation, they may never use.


So which one to go for?

both are very good depending on what you want to do with your guitar playing, the arguments for rgt could be countered with a good teacher with a recommended list of songs for the student to learn, but without this it is unlikely for a students personal musical tastes to cover all the bases. however it does offer extensively more in terms of technique and theory than that of rockshool whom focus more on practical playing.

another thing to look at is price, if you are of a certain age then rockschool receives funding enabling people to take free exams, whereas rgt has no such system. this enables students to save literally hundreds of pounds as they progress through the exams for free, gaining recognised qualifications as well as UCAS points. all you have to pay for is the books.

So in Summary, if you are looking for is a cheap playing based course, go for rockshool. if your aim is to improve you technical and theoretical knowledge then RGT is for you.

Thanks everyone hope to check in soon, leave your comments and suggestions and i will be happy to get back to you.

The Music Dude