From Grade 5 to Grade 6: every degree
The Grade 6 paper
The exam is one written paper with five questions. Each one tests a skill, and this course builds them one at a time:
- 3 hours
- one written paper
- 5 questions
- harmony, a melody, reading scores
Start here: this course begins with harmony
- HarmonyQuestion 1: Figured bassWriting chords in four parts that move well, read from a bass and its figures.
- HarmonyQuestion 2: Harmonise a melodyChoosing chords that fit a melody and lead to a cadence.
- CompositionQuestion 3: Write a melodyShaping a melody for an instrument, with phrases, a change of key and performance directions.
- AnalysisQuestion 4: Score analysisReading a score: naming chords, cadences, intervals, ornaments and terms.
- AnalysisQuestion 5: Score analysis, several partsReading a score for voices or several instruments: clefs, transposing instruments and the composer's devices.
Next exam in the UK: 10 November 2026, 17:00
Booking for it closed on 7 October 2026. ABRSM has not yet published the next year's dates. Results usually come about four weeks after the exam (about six weeks outside the UK). Other countries have their own dates: ABRSM exam dates and fees.
Checked against the ABRSM syllabus and exam dates, 8 October 2026. Source: ABRSM Music Theory qualification specification.
From recognising to writing
Grade 5: recognise
- Name the chord
- Name the cadence
- Name the interval, key, term or instrument
Grade 6: write
- Write the chords above a bass
- Choose chords for a melody
- Compose a melody that changes key
Nothing from Grade 5 goes away: it becomes the toolkit for writing. Harmony comes first because questions 1 and 2 rest on it, and so does reading a score: so this course starts with the chords themselves.
You already know this from Grade 5
A quick recap, so you can check nothing is rusty. At Grade 5 you learned:
- Triads and their qualities: major, minor, diminished and augmented, measured by the 3rd and 5th above the root.
- Chords I, II, IV and V in any key up to six sharps or flats, in root position and first and second inversion (b and c), with the figures 5 over 3, 6 over 3 and 6 over 4.
- Perfect, plagal and imperfect cadences.
- Every interval, including augmented and diminished ones.
Grade 6 adds the other three degrees (III, VI and VII), the minor key in full, figures with accidentals, four-part writing and seventh chords. The first practice questions check the Grade 5 part.
Every degree, and what it is
Grade 6 uses a chord on every degree of the scale. In a major key the scale itself fixes the quality:
The new ones are III, VI and VII. VI is the one you will use most: it shares two notes with I, so it can stand in for it (as in the interrupted cadence, V to VI).
Every degree in a minor key
In a minor key the chords come from the harmonic minor, with the 7th raised. The ABRSM Grade 6 book keeps every numeral in upper case and adds the quality in brackets where it differs from the major key:
When a part rises from the 6th through the 7th to the tonic, the 6th is raised as well (the melodic minor), which changes II and IV.
Why III and VII behave differently
- VII is diminished, and it contains the leading note and the 4th degree, two notes of V7. It sounds like a dominant chord without its root, so it leads to I just as V does. Use it in first inversion (VIIb), with its 3rd in the bass, where the diminished 5th moves up between two upper voices and is much milder.
- III in a minor key is augmented, because the raised 7th is its 5th. It does not lead anywhere naturally, so Grade 6 avoids it. In a major key III is a minor chord that is used sparingly: it shares two notes with both I and V and adds little of its own.
- II in a minor key is diminished, so it too is used as IIb, where it makes a strong approach to V.
This matters as soon as you read a figured bass: the figures tell you which notes to add, but only the key tells you the quality, and the quality tells you which note to double (usually the root).
This question is in Brainlag Music Theory