ABRSM piano sight-reading
Grade 6 sight-reading: pedal, triplets and odd time
Twelve to sixteen bars, hands together, keys up to four sharps or four flats with C♯ and F minors new, and three new time signatures: 9/8, 5/8 and 5/4. Triplets, clef changes and the right pedal arrive. Half a minute to look. Worth 21 of 150, like every grade.
Checked against the ABRSM 2025-26 syllabus · last reviewed 3 September 2026 · 6 min read
Grade 6 sight-reading parameters
Checked by us against the 2025-26 syllabus
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What changed
Since Grade 5
Grade 6 is where the foot joins in. "Use of right pedal" is printed in the Grade 6 row on page 16, not Grade 5, whatever you have read elsewhere. The marking criteria beside the assessment objective step up to "complex musical notation" at Grades 6 to 8 (page 56), and complex is the right word: three new time signatures, two new keys, triplets, clef changes and the pedal, in twelve to sixteen bars.
The time signatures first, because they frighten people. 9/8 is compound triple, three dotted-crotchet beats; if you can feel 6/8 in two you can feel 9/8 in three. 5/8 and 5/4 are the first uneven metres in the table. Five beats group as 3+2 or 2+3, usually visible in the beaming. Decide the grouping in the half minute and count that, not "one two three four five".
The keys: C♯ minor (four sharps, raised seventh B♯, which is the white key C) and F minor (four flats, raised seventh E♮). No new majors; the count stays at four sharps and four flats, applied to two minors that repertoire rarely visits.
Triplets: three in the time of two, possibly against straight quavers in the other hand. Clef changes: the left hand can be written in the treble clef, or switch mid-line, and a candidate reading in the wrong clef plays a perfectly confident wrong bar. And the pedal, new to the test but not to the candidate: pedal marks are one more thing to see in the half minute, and a foot held through a harmony change is audible from the corridor.
Why it is hard: the test is now long enough that the half minute cannot cover it all. You have to choose what to look at. A Grade 6 candidate who spends the thirty seconds playing bar one has not seen the clef change in bar nine or the 5/4 grouping, and both stop performances. "Continuity generally maintained" is still the Pass line on page 60. At this length, continuity is a planning problem.
Everything from Grade 5 still applies. New at Grade 6:
- Length
- c. 8-12nowc. 12-16
- Time signatures
- new: 9 / 8
- new: 5 / 8
- new: 5 / 4
- Keys
- new: C♯ minor
- new: F minor
- Hands
- unchanged
- Other features
- new: triplets
- new: a change of clef
- new: the right (sustain) pedal
The drill plan
A week that fits a life
The Grade 6 plan trains the scan and the foot. Both are new jobs and both are cheap to practise off the piano.
The half minute, Grade 6 version. Time signature: if it is 5/4 or 5/8, find the grouping from the beams and say "three-two" or "two-three". Key: say all four. Then a fast pass down the whole page for three things only: clef changes (mark them in your head), pedal marks (where does it lift?), triplets (which hand, which bar). Then hands on the first notes. Do not play bar one. Play the ugliest bar, if anything; page 15 allows any part of the test.
Monday, Wednesday, Friday: odd time and triplets on the lid, then reading. Tap 5/4 as 3+2, then as 2+3, with the left hand on the group starts. Then 9/8 in three. Then triplets in the right hand against crotchets in the left, and swap. Three minutes. Then eight minutes of hands-together reading on Grade 4 material, once through, with the pedal on any piece that marks it. Two grades below is the right dose.
Tuesday, Thursday: clefs and keys. Deal yourself a few notes below in C♯ minor and F minor; the dealer's range is wide at this grade, key signature shown, and the B♯ and the E♮ come round as often as any other note; deal until they are ordinary. The app's Graded Reading, unlike the page, brings a missed note back more often. Then clef switching: read a left-hand line written in the treble clef, then the same line in the bass clef. Two minutes. The hand has to know which clef it is in before it plays.
Weekend: pedal on a long line. One unseen line of twelve to sixteen bars, hands together, pedal as marked. Lift where the harmony changes, and if in doubt, lift more. Play it once. If it went badly, stop anyway. The point is that you scanned it, chose what to look at, and kept going.
What to ignore. 7/8 and 7/4 (Grade 7). Tempo changes mid-piece (Grade 7). 8va and una corda (Grade 7). Three-note chords, spread chords and ornaments (Grade 8). B and D♭ majors (Grade 8). If you find yourself practising ornaments for Grade 6, put them down; simple ornaments are a Grade 8 item.
Deal me a note
What a Grade 6 test can ask of your eyes
The staff below deals notes inside this grade's keys, key signature shown. Press the letter, or click it.
This checks the letter. MidiSlayer checks the note you actually played, in time.
Traps
Where Grade 6 candidates lose marks
- The clef change you did not see. Left hand in the treble clef, read as bass, played with total confidence. Scan the whole page for clef changes in the half minute; it is the highest-value ten seconds you have.
- Counting 5/4 as 4/4 plus one. Decide the grouping, 3+2 or 2+3, before you play, and feel it as two beats of unequal length.
- Pedal through the harmony. New to the test at this grade. A held pedal across a chord change is the most audible mistake on the page. Lift on the change; when unsure, lift.
- B♯ in C♯ minor. The raised seventh is B♯, a white-key C. Read the sharp, play the C. The same goes for E♮ in F minor: the natural cancels the flat.
- Triplets that become quavers. Three in the time of two, evenly. If the other hand has straight quavers, the two hands do not line up, and that is correct.
The honest bit
What MidiSlayer does for Grade 6, and what it does not
At Grade 6, MidiSlayer's Graded Reading deals single notes across every key up to four sharps or flats, including C♯ and F minors with their raised sevenths appearing, in a treble and bass range wider than any earlier grade, key signature shown, and the notes you miss return more often within a session. That is the key drill; it is all the mode does. It is not an exam simulator: it deals notes, not 5/4 bars, clef changes or pedal marks. That reading lives in Practice with real pieces. Graded Reading is part of the full app, one payment, yours to keep. The free version includes Note Flashcards, the Learn course and the daily game. Download it free.
Free to start. One payment for everything, yours to keep.
Questions
Asked about Grade 6
Yes. "Use of right pedal" is printed in the Grade 6 row (page 16). It is not in the Grade 5 row. The una corda pedal follows at Grade 7.
Everything from earlier grades (4/4, 2/4, 3/4, 3/8, 6/8) plus 9/8, 5/8 and 5/4, all three introduced at Grade 6.
Find the grouping first. Five beats fall as 3+2 or 2+3 and the beaming or phrasing usually shows which. Count the groups, not the five.
C♯ minor and F minor. No new majors. The sharp and flat count stays at four, as it was at Grade 5.
"c. 12-16" (page 16), circa twelve to sixteen bars.
About 20 minutes including entry and exit (page 11). The sight-reading is the same half minute plus one performance it has always been.
"Simple ornaments" enter the table at Grade 8. A Grade 6 test written to the parameters has none.
MidiSlayer is independent of ABRSM and not endorsed by it. ABRSM is a trade mark of The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, used here to identify the exams these pages describe. Exam facts are taken from the ABRSM Piano Syllabus 2025 & 2026 (© ABRSM), quoted briefly with acknowledgement and otherwise stated in our own words.