ABRSM Own Composition: Getting a Legible Score

If you wrote the piece yourself, ABRSM will let you play it. What it will not do is take your word for what the piece is. The syllabus asks for a score, and the wording is short enough to quote in full.

Two clauses do all the work there. Legible and fully-notated, and performed as notated. Everything below follows from those five words.

What ABRSM actually says about own compositions

Under "Own composition", the same syllabus is welcoming and precise:

"ABRSM welcomes the inclusion of candidates' own compositions, or arrangements, to be performed as their own-choice piece. We will not judge or provide feedback on the structure or quality of the composition, only the performance of it. However, as with any other own-choice piece, the technical demand of the composition must be broadly the same as repertoire set for the grade being taken."

So nobody is marking your harmony. The examiner is listening to a performance. But the piece still has to sit at the right level: the syllabus says elsewhere that an own-choice piece "should be broadly the same standard, or above, as repertoire set for the grade being taken (prior approval from ABRSM cannot be given)."

That last parenthesis is worth reading twice. You cannot email ABRSM a score in advance and ask whether it counts. The judgement is yours and your teacher's.

There is also a clause people discover too late: "In cases where there is a concern about the standard of an own-choice piece presented, ABRSM reserves the right to request a copy from the Applicant where we cannot readily access one ourselves. This may delay the issuing of the exam result."

A score you cannot produce on request is a result you might wait for.

The other rules around the own-choice piece

Still from the Piano Performance Grades syllabus:

• The own-choice piece "must be either a piano solo or a piano duet (as long as it is the only duet in the programme)".
• It must not fall below the minimum duration for the grade — the syllabus prints a table running from 20 seconds at Initial Grade up to 3 minutes at Grade 8 — and the whole four-piece programme has a maximum time per grade.
• Performance Grades are submitted as a video recording. The syllabus says candidates "should provide their programme information online when uploading their video", and that candidates "should show the opening of their own-choice piece and announce themselves and their pieces before beginning their performance". At Grades 6, 7 and 8 you must also show photographic ID to the camera. If you prefer, a Responsible Adult present may show the music to camera and make the announcement.
• If you are arranging someone else's music rather than writing your own, the syllabus notes: "Care should also be taken when making arrangements, as permission will be required in the case of copyright music."

Read that video clause carefully, because it changes what "legible" means in practice. Your score is not only a document sitting in a folder. Its first page is going to be held up to a camera lens.

Getting from a recording to a score that qualifies

Most people who write their own piece do not write it down first. They play it, refine it at the keyboard, and end up with a piece that lives entirely in their hands. Working backwards from a recording is a perfectly normal route — as long as you respect the "performed as notated" clause.

1. Settle the performance before you notate it

This is the step people skip, and it costs them the most. If your piece has a different ending every time you play it, notating it freezes one version, and that version is the one you must perform in the exam. Decide the shape, the repeats, and the final bars first. Then record.

2. Record it cleanly

A close, dry recording transcribes far better than a room recording with a long reverb tail. No backing track, no metronome bleeding into the mic, and ideally a tempo you can hold steadily — rubato is the hardest thing for any transcription tool to spell rhythmically. Our guide on recording piano with your phone covers mic placement and levels.

3. Transcribe it, and take the MusicXML

A transcription tool gives you a first-draft score in minutes. What matters for this job is not the PDF but the MusicXML, because that is the file you can open in notation software and correct. You can hear what a transcription sounds like before you commit to one, and our own pricing is a single piece at $4.99 rather than a subscription you would cancel after the exam. A PDF you cannot edit is no use when bar 12 has the wrong time signature. If you want the background on the formats, see what a MIDI file is and why MIDI alone is not sheet music.

4. Do the editing yourself — there will be some

Here is the honest part. No automatic transcription of a piano performance comes out exam-ready. Expect to fix, in roughly this order:

• Time signature and tempo. The draft may guess wrong, especially if the piece breathes.
• Key signature and spelling. Accidental-per-note output is legal notation and horrible to read. Set the key and respell the obvious ones.
• Hand splitting. Automatic left-hand/right-hand division is a guess. Anything you play with the left hand belongs on the bass staff, even when it is above middle C.
• Rhythmic spelling. Rolled chords, grace notes and rubato often arrive as tied 32nds. Write what you meant, not what the microphone measured.
• Dense pedalled passages. These are where every tool struggles. Sustain blurs note endings, so you get overlapping notes and phantom ties. Check them bar by bar against your recording.
• The furniture. Title, your name as composer, tempo marking, dynamics, pedal marks, bar numbers, and a sensible number of bars per system.

Budget an hour for a short piece. That hour is the price of not writing the whole thing from scratch.

5. Read it like an examiner, then like a stranger

Print it. Can someone who has never heard the piece sit down and play it? That is what "legible and fully-notated" means in practice. Check that nothing is ambiguous: every note has a clear rhythmic value, every accidental is where it should be, no bar has more or fewer beats than its time signature allows.

Then check the arithmetic: is the piece at or above the minimum duration for your grade, and does the whole programme fit inside the maximum time?

6. Play what is on the page

Go back to the piano and learn your own piece from the score. It is a strange experience the first time, and it will catch the last few notation errors — the places where what you play and what you wrote quietly disagree. Since the syllabus requires the piece to be "performed as notated in that score", this rehearsal is not optional polish; it is the requirement.

7. Have the PDF ready

Keep a clean PDF where you can find it, in case ABRSM asks for a copy. Keep the editable file too, because the next grade may want a longer version.

Does the score have to be engraved?

No. The syllabus asks for legibility and standard notation, not for a particular tool. A carefully handwritten manuscript can meet the requirement — generations of composers have submitted exactly that.

The reason most candidates use software anyway is that legibility becomes something you can stop worrying about, the parts you edit stay tidy, and holding a clean first page up to a camera is easier than hoping a phone lens resolves your pencil. If you are handwriting it, use manuscript paper with staves wide enough for the ledger lines your piece actually needs, and write in ink over pencil once the piece is settled.

If you do not read music well yourself

Plenty of people who write good pieces cannot read fluently. That is not a barrier to this requirement — the score has to be legible to an examiner, not to you. We wrote a whole piece for musicians in that position: play by ear, and get it written down anyway. The short version is to have your teacher check the final score before you submit, which is the same advice we would give anyone.

Frequently asked questions

Does ABRSM mark my own composition?

No. The Piano Performance Grades syllabus says ABRSM will not judge or provide feedback on the structure or quality of the composition, only the performance of it. The score is a requirement for entry, not something the examiner grades for compositional quality.

Does the score have to be printed from notation software?

The syllabus asks for a legible and fully-notated score in standard music notation. It does not require engraving software, so a neat handwritten score can qualify. Engraving simply makes legibility easy to guarantee, and gives you a clean PDF if ABRSM asks for a copy.

Do I have to send my score to ABRSM?

Not automatically. The syllabus says that where there is a concern about the standard of an own-choice piece, ABRSM reserves the right to request a copy from the Applicant where it cannot readily access one, and that this may delay the issuing of the exam result. Have a PDF ready.

Can a lead sheet or chord chart count as the score?

Not for piano. The syllabus specifies standard music notation and gives examples of what does not qualify, including tab and, for a candidate playing a harmonic instrument, a lead sheet. A piano own composition needs fully notated staves, not chord symbols over a melody.

How long does my own composition have to be?

The Piano Performance Grades syllabus sets a minimum duration per grade for the own-choice piece, from 20 seconds at Initial Grade to 3 minutes at Grade 8, and a maximum time for the whole four-piece programme. Check the table in the syllabus for your grade before you finish writing.

Can I change the piece while I play it in the exam?

No. The syllabus requires that the piece must be performed as notated in the score. That is the single biggest practical consequence of writing your own piece down: whatever ends up on the page is what you have to play, so settle the performance first and notate that version.

Sources

• ABRSM Music Performance Grades: Piano, Syllabus Section 3, 2025 & 2026 (PDF)
• ABRSM Music Performance Grades: Piano, Syllabus Section 3, 2027 & 2028 (PDF)
• ABRSM Performance Grades — the address the syllabus itself gives for guidance and administrative detail

Syllabus wording checked 16 September 2026.