Northern Music Academy has an active Grade Exam program, and candidates typically perform strikingly well. While not an end in themselves, music exams allow a very useful measure of progress, while setting concrete goals to aim for. This makes them very useful indeed to help motivate ourselves and spur progress.
For latest nma exam results please see our News page.
No one ever took up music in order to take a music exam, but once you are learning, exams can be a really useful tool to use along the way. Plus, the leading music exam boards, including ABRSM, Trinity, Rockschool, and RGT, all enjoy accreditation, meaning among other things that you can amass useful UCAS points when you take either practical or music theory exams. This can be most useful, as your UCAS points can help you to get into the University of your choice.
Use one board exclusively, or enter with different boards at different times, to enjoy the broadest range of experience. You can even take jazz exams for some instruments, and ABRSM have recently introduced vocal exams in musical theatre!