ABRSM piano sight-reading
Grade 8 sight-reading: a whole page, and it wants character
About a page, hands together, keys up to five sharps or five flats (B and D♭ majors are new), every earlier time signature plus 12/8. Three-part chords, spread chords, simple ornaments and an accelerando arrive. Half a minute to look. Still 21 marks.
Checked against the ABRSM 2025-26 syllabus · last reviewed 3 September 2026 · 6 min read
Grade 8 sight-reading parameters
Checked by us against the 2025-26 syllabus
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What changed
Since Grade 7
Grade 8 is the last row on page 16 and it adds two keys, one time signature and four textures. The length is printed as "c. 1 page", the only cell in the table without a bar count. About a page. However long that is.
The keys are the famous ones: B major (five sharps) and D♭ major (five flats). They are the hardest keys in the table because your hands have spent least time in them. Note what does not arrive: F♯ or G♭ major, anything with six or seven accidentals, G♯ or B♭ minor. "All keys" at Grade 8 is a myth. Five sharps, five flats, and the minors stop at four. ABRSM lists keys, not counts; the counts here are our arithmetic from the list.
12/8 is compound quadruple, four dotted-crotchet beats. If 6/8 is in two and 9/8 is in three, 12/8 is in four, and the friendliest compound metre, because the bar is long enough to breathe in.
The textures are where Grade 8 earns its name. "3-part chords in either hand": three notes in one hand, read as a shape. "Spread chords": the wavy line, rolled from the bottom, starting on the beat, with the whole roll fitting inside the pulse. "Simple ornaments": a mordent, a turn, a short trill, an acciaccatura, read and played at sight, a small piece of theory recalled under pressure. And "acceleration of tempo": accelerando, the mirror of the Grade 5 slowing, and the harder of the two, because speeding up has no natural stopping point except the wall.
Why it is hard: everything below it is still in play, the page is long, and the new items all reward a candidate who knows what they look like before seeing them. The criteria (page 60) are the same as at Initial Grade: "fluent, rhythmically accurate", "musical detail realised", "confident presentation" for Distinction. At Grade 8 that detail includes the ornament and the spread, and confident means you decided how to play them in the half minute rather than in the bar.
Everything from Grade 7 still applies. New at Grade 8:
- Length
- c. 16-20nowc. 1 page
- Time signatures
- new: 12 / 8
- Keys
- new: B major
- new: D♭ major
- Hands
- unchanged
- Other features
- new: three-note chords, either hand
- new: spread (rolled) chords
- new: a simple ornament here and there
- new: an accelerando
The drill plan
A week that fits a life
The Grade 8 plan is the ugly-keys plan plus a vocabulary plan. Give it a term.
The half minute, Grade 8 version. Key: say all five. Time: if 12/8, in four. Then a scan for the four Grade 8 items only: three-note chords (shape the hand), spread chords (which hand, where the top lands), ornaments (name each one and decide what you will play), the accelerando (where it starts, where it lands). Then clef changes and pedal, from Grade 6. Then hands on. You will not read a page in thirty seconds. Read the instructions.
Two weeks each in B major and D♭ major. Scales, arpeggios and chords in that key every day, five minutes, for geography. Then deal yourself a few notes below in the same key; the dealer's range is at its full width, five accidentals sit on the staff, and it deals evenly with no memory of your misses; the app's Graded Reading is the one that brings a missed note back, and in B major that note is usually A♯, in D♭ usually G♭. After the two weeks, rotate F♯ minor and C♯ minor back in. The what to drill post argues for a week each in the awkward-key country, and Grade 8 is where it pays.
Monday, Wednesday, Friday: page-length reading. Fifteen minutes of hands-together reading on Grade 6 material, whole pieces, once through, no stopping, ornaments played as written and spread chords rolled in time. Two grades below is still the dose at the top.
Tuesday, Thursday: vocabulary. Write out a mordent, a turn, a trill and an acciaccatura on one stave and play each on a random note, in time. Then three-note chord shapes in each hand, root position and both inversions, read in one glance. Then 12/8 on the lid, in four. Then a short accelerando: eight bars from slow to fast with the pulse never lurching.
Weekend: a page. One unseen page, hands together. Scan for thirty seconds. Play once. Then stop, whatever happened, because grace under failure is a Grade 8 skill, and the pulse surviving a bad ornament is what the examiner is listening for.
What to ignore. Six- and seven-accidental keys; they are not on the table. Complex ornaments; the table says "simple". Tempo words and metronome marks; the table prints none. Anything from the diploma quick study; that is a different exam.
Deal me a note
What a Grade 8 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 8 candidates lose marks
- Believing "all keys". The table stops at five sharps and five flats for majors and four for minors. Drill B and D♭; do not spend a week on G♭.
- Freezing at the ornament. Name it in the half minute and decide what you will play. If it goes wrong in the bar, play the main note and keep going; a lost ornament is a detail, a stopped pulse is a band.
- Spreading the chord out of time. The roll fits inside the beat. Start the roll on the beat, keep it inside the beat, and keep the pulse.
- Accelerando into the wall. Speed up gradually to a speed you can hold, and mark in the half minute where it should arrive. An accelerando that ends in a crash is "lacking overall continuity".
- Reading three-note chords as two. The middle note is the one that goes. Read the shape, play all three.
The honest bit
What MidiSlayer does for Grade 8, and what it does not
At Grade 8, MidiSlayer's Graded Reading deals single notes across every key in the table, up to five sharps or flats, with B and D♭ majors arriving last as the 2025-26 order has them, key signature on the staff, and returns the notes you miss more often within a session. That is the awkward-key drill and it is the whole claim. It is not an exam simulator: no page-length test, no spread chords, no ornaments. Page-length reading with real textures 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 8
Every key introduced through the table: majors from C round to B (five sharps) and F round to D♭ (five flats); minors A, E, B, F♯ and C♯ on the sharp side, D, G, C and F on the flat side (page 16). New at Grade 8 are B and D♭ majors.
No. The table never introduces F♯ or G♭ major, C♯ or C♭ major, or any minor beyond four sharps or flats. That is our reading of the printed key list; ABRSM states keys, not counts.
"c. 1 page" (page 16). It is the only length in the table given as a page rather than a bar count.
"Simple ornaments" are a Grade 8 parameter, so yes, they can appear, and "musical detail realised" is in the Distinction band. A fumbled ornament costs less than a stopped pulse; play the main note and carry on if it goes wrong.
Chords with a wavy line beside them, rolled from the bottom note up, in time. The roll fits inside the beat.
Yes, in principle. "A Pass in each component of the exam is not required to pass overall" (page 57). Sight-reading is 21 of 150; strong pieces and scales can carry it. It is still 14 per cent you would rather have.
About 30 minutes including entry and exit (page 11), the longest in the Practical Grades. The sight-reading itself is still a short piece and half a minute to look.
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.