Should I set passing the Royal Conservatory examinations as a learning objective?

i think it really depends on what motivate you the most. For some people they enjoy playing popular songs, some people enjoy getting certificates. I think as adult learners both cannot be good, provided that you enjoy the time with your piano. Most important is to set the goal before starting.

Hello..

If it helps you and motivates you, why not? Be careful not to set it as the only benchmark to decide if you play well or not. 

There are many ways to enjoy playing the piano. A good teacher by your side is a great help. Playing informally to friends and family is also a great way to feel encouraged. 

Playing duets with Like minded adult students also helps in many ways to find joy in Piano playing. 

Have fun... :-)

Hello.  For sure - I think the Royal Conservatory lays out a well-rounded program for building your technique over time and learning classical repertoire (classical in the broader sense). 

Looking back, I don't like the conservatory's approach to ear training and theory as much, but maybe it depends on the teacher.

It can be an intense focus on a handful of pieces but that might be what you want and depending on how much time you have, you can still explore other music and other styles of playing.

Another consideration is how you feel about performing for an examiner and being assessed and graded on a single "point in time" performance.  

But it sounds like for you, working on a program leading to an exam would be encouraging and would give you a sense of progress!

Kim

It's my personal hot take, but since you asked... no. The Royal Conservatory's examinations require a large number of scales and arpeggios which are unrelated to the repertoire you are playing, and hands together at that which rarely happens in the literature. The program required is also big. Once you get past the first few levels, you need to play five pieces per exam. Couple that with all of the ear training and sight-reading, and you are looking at a large time commitment.

I do not know you or how much time you have left over for practice after your job. But the RCM exams are a commitment, and one which only gives you a piece of paper in the end. In addition, they cost a fortune, and the judges are only working for them out of love for music. Out of the incredible exam fee you pay, the judge gets just a few dollars.

And while it's only my small experience with it, the students whose parents insist on doing these exams actually achieve less than those who don't.  I just can't see exams as the force for good in the music world that everyone thinks they are. My non-exam students (I only have four students who insist on exams out of 36 total) always achieve more and enjoy music more than those who take the exams. My student duo team took second place in the state for their age category, which I assure you would not have happened had they also had exams to work on.

Now, since you're an adult, things are different. With my own students, besides my recitals, there are numerous other local events for them to enter. I don't know how many other alternatives there are for you to schedule a performance date and have that goal to work towards. But I would look hard for local groups of adults playing for each other, or perhaps a group wanting to play for a nursing home, before taking the exam route. 

It would be wrong simply to say no, and perhaps even worse to say yes. These things are so personal that the decision has to be your own. But since you want opinions, here is mine for what it may be worth - it comes from someone with decades of experience as a teacher (but not a teacher of music), and a life-long love of music but as nothing more than an amateur. 

I would suggest asking yourself what real purpose there is to exams - unless you wish to become a piano teacher or a professional accompanist. I took all the exams in my own field because I knew I wanted to make it my profession; I have never taken a single exam in music because I always knew I was an amateur. So why would I want to force myself through exams that would serve no purpose? I would be obliged to learn the repertoire on the syllabus instead of the repertoire I most loved and felt ready for; I would have to study aspects of the subject in which I have little interest, while probably being deprived of other areas (improvisation, thorough-bass, partimento...); I would be tied to the theories and fashions of a comparatively brief and innovative period (the modern period - a minute part of the whole history of music pedagogy), whereas I want to follow the great masters whose ideas dominated music for centuries; perhaps worst of all, I would waste hours hammering out parallel scales over two octaves at breakneck speed, doing more harm than good. (Did Bach make his pupils do that? Of course he didn't.)

But you are not me, and you may feel quite differently - fair enough. You must of course take the decisions that are right for you - your personality, your circumstances, your ways of working. I would only encourage you to think more broadly before you take that decision: there is so much more to life than passing exams, and so very much more to music than the exercises of Carl Czerny.

Czerny has a place in the history of piano pedagogy, obviously; but compared to Bach and Scarlatti, Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann, Liszt and Chopin, Mendelssohn... Tchaikovsky... Rachmaninoff... he is insignificant. IMHO, you would learn far more (about music, not just keyboard technique) by mastering three or four of Bach's Inventions, or - if you're interested in a different period - just the few more approachable ones among Chopin's Preludes, than you ever would from dozens of Czerny exercises.

If you feel you need exams simply to provide targets, then again - fair enough. But, IMO, there is a need for caution: targets can be discouraging and depressing (if we can't meet them) as well as helpful and inspiring (if they work for us). Do please take care. And if you need targets, why not consider all the things available by natural process that you can (if you wish) use as targets? I mean that you can make mastering (for example) the Inventions in C major, C minor, A minor, and Bb major a target, just as well as you can make passing Grade X of the Y examination board a target - and perhaps with greater pleasure and profit. Then your target after that could be one of the French Suites... your next target rung on the ladder might be something from the WTC... and so on. (I take examples from Bach, but of course you can do the same by simply putting some pieces of other great and glorious composers into an ascending order of difficulty.)

I would also say don't neglect improvisation. The 'tyranny of the score' is only a modern idea, and one that - thank goodness! - we are starting to back away from again. (You might like to use the videos on improvisation here as a starting point.) IMO, you would get far more pleasure (and would learn a good deal more) from playing 'Happy Birthday' by ear (see Ben's very pleasant and interesting video) and improvising variations on it than you would from playing scales and technical exercises. And if you start with the simplest way to apply diminutions to a theme, and progress steadily through more and more ambitious versions of the idea as the weeks and months go on (see https://essaysonmusic.com/the-leaping-romanesca-two-part-embellishment-part-1/) ... you would have another set of 'natural targets'.

Until the modern period, the hard divisions between performing, arranging, improvising, and composing simply did not exist: they were all essential to being a musician. But how you choose to become a musician is, in the end, your choice. What I have been so impertinent as to write here is no more than a personal opinion... an amateur opinion... some people would probably say an eccentric opinion. :)

I am an adult learner who started in 2019 have been doing something similar.  I started with a teacher and Piano Adventures and then I started doing the Music Teachers Association of California (MTAC) Certificate of Merit which is similar to RCM but with better choices for repertoire and exclusive to people living in California. 

There are pros and cons.  The pros are all about being a well rounded musician (theory + ear + piano technique + musicianship) and if you like the classical repertoire that RCM provides you’re learning pieces that you like.

The cons are all about the effort that it takes to prepare for these exams.  As an adult, unless you don’t have a job, you’ll find very little time to play other pieces especially as the levels progress.

I like doing it because it forces me out of my comfort zone pretty often.  I would probably focus exclusively on romantic repertoire were it not for the MTAC exams.

Thank you for asking the question. There are some really great, honest opinions out there. As a child, I did not learn theory, ear training and sight reading only because I didn't practice enough during the week so sight read some of my pieces at lessons. I never did competitions. I never had an opportunity to participate in examinations. My teacher had one recital a year, and I was always terrified! When I decided to teach for real, I decided I wanted a studio that was holistic, giving musicians their best opportunity to play whatever they would like. Chord theory can help you learn to improvise. I never used to be able to improvise before I knew how chords worked together. Now improvising is fun and I love knowing why certain chords work together. And learning scales and inversions and arpeggios not only train your brain for literature that you will likely encounter (not in exactly the same way, but I can't tell you how many times my brain just plays what's written without having to think about individual notes), it develops your small motors and makes you stronger. It also gets you very familiar with key signatures. You also learn modulations, how to transpose, and more music history.  

I realized that I had a lot of holes in my training and RCM was able to fill those holes. I feel like a much more confident musician and teacher. I took my Grade 8 exams a couple of years ago and am working on my Grade 10 exams now. I have two adult students who are using RCM as motivation. Yes, it is involved and it requires a lot and you feel SO good when you are able to get better. 

It is very expensive! That is my qualm with it too. The music is expensive and the exams are expensive, but my students who participate in RCM are more committed and definitely perform better than my students who don't. I appreciate the sentiments of others. Of course you don't need an exam to make progress and you need to consider what your goal is with music. I just felt RCM provided a good list of literature, a holistic program that included everything I needed, and I don't feel like an imposter anymore. :) I can truly help my students and teach them what they need to know to be successful in any genre of music they enjoy. 

Also, don't feel like you need to do RCM every year. With myself and my adult students, I take breaks sometimes. We'll work on other things in between. I have them doing challenge pieces and fun pieces and we'll work a little on RCM throughout. Sometimes it might take longer than a year to be prepared. I actually like them to get all of their pieces prepared and then put them away until a couple months before their exams. By then, they are well into the next level and their repertoire has become better because they are better.

RCM provides structure and a roadmap. Your teacher can do that too, and if you choose not to do the exams, you can still do the program. Like others said, if you just want to play around and improvise, don't do exams. If you want an ambitious goal that you can work towards, don't discount the value of RCM exams.