Hey Blog! I\u2019ve just had the results of an exam back and in this post I\u2019ll go through what I did to get it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I play the piano, as seen in Focus on Music (5th<\/sup> Nov. 2021) and This is music to my ears! (15th<\/sup> July 2022), but I have never done a piano exam. The only other exam like it I\u2019ve done is a drama exam, and that was part of a group and so long ago that I will probably forget sometime. We have always abstained from piano exams, instead focusing on the playing and improvement to be happy and confident, but last year we decided to do one. I did the ABRSM Grade 4 Piano Performance Exam (which I will never forget due to the sheer number of times I had to recite a monologue of who I was and what I was doing at the start of every video), which was made popular via pandemic and is where you take a video of yourself doing four pieces as a performance. Just to note \u2013 I never intend to do this type again \u2013 it requires a lot of hassle and preparation!<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe four pieces I am playing for you today are Allegro in F, by Handel, A3 in the syllabus; La nouvelle poupe\u00e9, by Tchaikovsky, B3 in the syllabus; Ticklin\u2019 Toes, by Price, that\u2019s C3 in the syllabus; and my own chosen piece is In the Hall of the Mountain King, by Grieg.\u201d That is stuck in my head for eternity now, as it is the pretext to all of the 40-50-something videos that we took. Some were a lot better than others. I, although told by my teacher I have a great playing ability, have an incredibly bad ear (not literally, I mean I can\u2019t tell where I went wrong sometimes) which is why Mum had to stand behind the camera not only to turn it on and off in time but also to say when the video wasn\u2019t worth recording anymore. Seeing as it was a video exam, we had infinite tries, and this makes you think that it needs to be perfect. However, it got to the unbearable point and we finally settled for one I did over Christmas where I started off in my Santa Hat. Because I was having fun with this one, it was inevitably better than all the others! The amount of things we needed to do in preparation to take the video aside from piano practice is ridiculous, as you need to check the washing machine won\u2019t beep, none of the phones will ring, the neighbour\u2019s power sander and saw will not interrupt, and all that before setting the camera up on the stand and aligning it so it gets my feet and hands in shot but not the top of the bookcase! This is not made any easier by the fact that I have to sit still at the piano during the setting up process and as Mum has an incredibly good ear, me playing is sometimes very distracting. Don\u2019t worry Mum, I still love you xx. By the time we\u2019ve finished that, we find that the frame while in video mode is smaller than when not taking the video, and we have to do it all over again!<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, you must be mad with suspense by now as I have not actually told you what I got. Clue \u2013 if I was ashamed of it, I probably wouldn\u2019t have written a blog post about it. I got 24\/30 in one piece, and the others 25\/30, in addition to the Performance category where I also got 25\/30. Those quick at arithmetic will know I got 124\/150 \u2013 a Merit. This is Higher than a Pass (100-120\/150) but less than a Distinction (130-150\/150) \u2013 all in all a nice, solid mark. If they had given me just one more mark for that 24\/30 piece I would have had a round 25\/30 for all of them, but I\u2019m happy with what I got. However, I have changed my views on these exams \u2013 I do not intend to do a video one like this again. I have found myself with some time to kill at stations and a caf\u00e9 once or twice over the period of my exam, and have even had a round of applause from all the people in the caf\u00e9, convincing me that I prefer to play live. In-person playing (like in-person piano lessons) is much better than over the internet. Some day you may see me at a caf\u00e9 on the piano in the corner, and while I can play a few pieces at any time from memory, I can play a lot more with some sheet music!<\/p>\n\n\n\n As for the future, I may do a Grade 5 and may progress from that, but for now, I\u2019m happy with a Grade 4 and intend to continue playing the piano!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hey Blog! I\u2019ve just had the results of an exam back and in this post I\u2019ll go through what I did to get it! I play the piano, as seen in Focus on Music (5th Nov. 2021) and This is music to my ears! (15th July 2022), but I have never done a piano exam. 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