ABRSM piano sight-reading
Grade 7 sight-reading: 7/8, 8va and the soft pedal
Sixteen to twenty bars, hands together, no new keys (still up to four sharps or four flats), every earlier time signature plus 7/8 and 7/4. Tempo changes, the 8va sign and the una corda pedal arrive. Half a minute to look.
Checked against the ABRSM 2025-26 syllabus · last reviewed 3 September 2026 · 6 min read
Grade 7 sight-reading parameters
Checked by us against the 2025-26 syllabus
| Length |
|
|---|---|
| Time signatures |
|
| Keys |
|
| Hands |
|
| Other features |
|
What changed
Since Grade 6
Grade 7 is the stamina grade. The row on page 16 has a blank keys cell and a blank hands cell: not one new sharp, flat or position. What it has is "c. 16-20" bars, and if you have read elsewhere that Grade 7 is 14 to 18 bars, the printed table disagrees. Twenty bars is a real piece. The half minute cannot cover it, and the performance has to survive a long way past the point where the scan ran out.
Two new time signatures, and they are the odd ones: 7/8 and 7/4. Seven groups as 2+2+3, 3+2+2 or 2+3+2, and the beaming or the left-hand pattern tells you which. Nobody counts to seven in tempo; you count three uneven beats. Decide the grouping in the half minute or spend twenty bars discovering it.
"Tempo changes": not only the slowing at the end that arrived at Grade 5, but changes mid-piece. A meno mosso in bar nine, a return to tempo in bar thirteen. The reading job is to find them before you start; the playing job is to make the change audible without making it a stop.
"8va sign": the dotted line that means play an octave higher than written. Two failure modes: not seeing it and playing an octave low, or seeing it and forgetting where it ends. The line stops; the hand comes down.
"Use of una corda pedal": the left pedal, the soft one, marked una corda and released with tre corde. It is not hard to press. It is one more mark on a twenty-bar page that has to be seen.
Why it is hard: a long piece is harder than a short one. Every earlier skill has to hold for twenty bars, the scan has to be selective, and two of the new items (tempo changes and 8va) are instructions that change how you play for a stretch and then stop, so you have to remember to stop. The criteria on page 60 still begin with "fluent, rhythmically accurate" for Distinction and continuity for Pass. At twenty bars, continuity is stamina.
Everything from Grade 6 still applies. New at Grade 7:
- Length
- c. 12-16nowc. 16-20
- Time signatures
- new: 7 / 8
- new: 7 / 4
- Keys
- no change18 carried over
- Hands
- unchanged
- Other features
- new: changes of tempo
- new: octave (8va) signs
- new: the una corda (left) pedal
The drill plan
A week that fits a life
The Grade 7 plan is a scanning plan and a stamina plan. There are no new keys, so the key drill runs at maintenance and the time goes on reading long.
The half minute, Grade 7 version. Time signature first; if it is 7/8 or 7/4, find the grouping from the beams and say it. Then a fast pass down the whole page for four instructions: tempo changes (where, and back to what), 8va (where it starts, where it stops), una corda and tre corde, clef changes. Touch each one. Then key, then hands on. Play nothing in the half minute unless there is a bar you cannot picture; page 15 allows it, but scanning is worth more here than playing.
Monday, Wednesday, Friday: long reading. Twelve minutes of hands-together reading on Grade 5 material, which is two grades below and the right dose. Choose pieces of sixteen bars or more. Once through, no stopping, and when a tempo change is marked, make it. The aim is that a long line stops feeling long.
Tuesday, Thursday: sevens and the instructions. Tap 7/8 as 2+2+3, then 3+2+2, with the left hand on group starts; two minutes. Then 8va reading: take any treble line, imagine an 8va bracket over bars three to five, play it, and come down at bar six. Then deal yourself a few notes below in the keys you find ugliest; the dealer at this grade covers every key up to four sharps or flats, key signature shown, and deals evenly; the app's Graded Reading is the one that brings a missed note back. Five minutes of key maintenance is enough at Grade 7.
Weekend: the full length. One unseen line of eighteen to twenty bars with a tempo change in it. Scan for thirty seconds, then play once. If the tempo change came and went audibly and the pulse survived, that was a good weekend. Stop.
What to ignore. B and D♭ majors, 12/8, three-part chords, spread chords, ornaments, accelerando: all Grade 8. Do not add keys; there are none to add. Do not chase speed; the table prints no metronome marks, and "adequate tempo, usually steady pulse" is the Merit line.
Deal me a note
What a Grade 7 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 7 candidates lose marks
- Missing the 8va, or missing its end. Play where the line says, and when the dotted line stops, come down. Both halves of the instruction count.
- Counting to seven. 7/8 is three uneven beats. Decide the grouping in the half minute and tap it before you play.
- Ignoring the tempo change. New at this grade. Meno mosso means slower, and a tempo means back. Make both audible without stopping.
- Spending the half minute on bar one. At twenty bars the scan matters more than the trial run. Find the instructions first.
- Una corda with the wrong pedal. It is the left one, and it comes off at tre corde. It should sound quieter, not different in rhythm.
The honest bit
What MidiSlayer does for Grade 7, and what it does not
At Grade 7, MidiSlayer's Graded Reading deals single notes across every key up to four sharps or flats, the same set as Grade 6, key signature shown, and the notes you miss come back more often within a session. Since Grade 7 adds no keys, the mode's job here is maintenance while your practice goes on long reading. It is not an exam simulator: it deals notes, not twenty-bar tests with tempo changes and 8va brackets. 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 7
"c. 16-20" (page 16), circa sixteen to twenty bars. Some guides say 14 to 18; the printed 2025-26 table says 16 to 20.
No. The keys cell is blank, so the Grade 6 set applies: up to four sharps or four flats. B and D♭ majors arrive at Grade 8.
7/8 and 7/4. Everything earlier still applies, so a Grade 7 test may be in 4/4, 2/4, 3/4, 3/8, 6/8, 9/8, 5/8, 5/4, 7/8 or 7/4.
Play the bracketed notes an octave higher than written, and stop when the dotted line stops. Missing the end of the bracket is as common as missing the start.
From Grade 7 (page 16). It is the left pedal; una corda presses it, tre corde releases it. The right pedal has been in the table since Grade 6.
Fifteen minutes, most days, mostly reading long pieces two grades below, plus a couple of minutes tapping sevens and five minutes on the note dealer. Start well before the term of the exam.
Sixteen to twenty bars; 7/8 and 7/4; tempo changes; the 8va sign; the una corda pedal. No new keys, no new hand position. The diff on this page marks each one.
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.