Digital Exams: Recorded and Live Online Delivery
LCM’s digital route lets candidates take graded and diploma exams either as a recorded submission or as a live online session with an examiner. The syllabus content is identical; the rules of evidence are not, and most lost marks in digital exams are technical rather than musical.
Recorded exams
- One continuous take: no edits and no cuts between items. Announce your name, subject, grade and each piece.
- Framing must show the face and the hands (and the pedals for pianists) for the whole performance.
- Upload by the deadline, in the required format, and keep a local backup.
Live online exams
- Stable connection, wired where possible, with a rehearsed backup: phone hotspot or a second device.
- Camera angled to show instrument, hands and pedals; light the candidate, not the window behind.
- Keep music, ID and the technical-work list within reach; the examiner directs the session.
Worked example
A guitarist films with a phone on a shelf: the fretboard is visible, but the face is in shadow and the announcement is inaudible. Reasoning: an examiner marking a recording cannot ask for a repeat, so anything off-frame or inaudible is simply not credited, however well it was played.
Traps
Editing out a mistake, which risks referral rather than a higher mark; clipped or muted audio from recording too close; forgetting to announce items; filming in portrait; and, in live exams, spending the opening minutes fixing sound instead of playing.