Recorder - grade 1, Piano accompaniment Options

[porilo]

Thanks for all the advice and comments. It wasn't half as frightening as I thought it might be and I'm back now. There was a very nice lady examiner and the girl played her two accompanied pieces beautifully. Then I was asked to leave the room. The girl seemed happy afterwards and she said the thought she had done well. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Scooby Doo]

Ta-da! Your career as an accompanist begins.....!

[porilo]

Ta-da! Your career as an accompanist begins.....!

Well, I think it might have. There were supposed to be 3 girls taking their grade 1 recorder exam but the teacher took one out of the exam as she felt she wasn't quite ready (and I could feel that too when we had rehearsals), and the other one was attending the funeral of her grandfather today, so I had only 1 to accompany. I think she is going to re-enter the other two in the next period so I shall probably be needed again. By that time, there might even be some more! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)

[linda.ff]

If something does go terribly wrong with the recorder part - eg the candidate forgets to come in at the beginning - don't be afraid to make confident decisions like "let's start that again". Much better to have one false start than to muddle through all upset, but the candidate won't have the confidence to say it.

I did that with a grade 8 singer, pupil of mine. He came in (I think) a beat or a bar early, and quick as a flash I messed up the piano part and said "Oh, I'm terribly sorry! that was my fault" and we started again. There was no comment about it on the mark sheet, in fact quite a good mark.

I remember accompanying the same singer in a festival doing Faure's Clair de Lune, and adding and missing beats all over the place - the adjudicator couldn't have known the song very well, becasue she said to him "you are most accurate in everything you do" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[porilo]

Thankfully we had time for a quick run-through at school before we left to go to the exam centre. She kept skipping one rest in the Soldiers March and was coming in a beat before I was, but we sorted that out, and her performance was great. The steward invited us to have a practice on the piano in the waiting room but the girl said she was fine. There was another grade 1 girl practising on the piano and if she played "Camptown races" once she must have played it at least 20 times. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

[jm-hamilton]

Well done, porilo - it's never as bad as we think it's going to be. I can sense you're raring to go now this one went well!

[limh]

I've been to one where the stand was a rickety nightmare, and collapsed as soon as I put any music on it....

I think the regs. say that it's best to bring one along.

(For the record, I decided to play the pieces from memory after all. And reassembled the stand for the sight-reading, only to watch it die by degrees while I was playing the SR piece through (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) )

KatyJay, many years ago I saw a soloist in a college choir set fire to the top of his music with the silly candle stands they had. Fortunately he was singing faster than it burnt. During the bit where the choir took over, he was able to extinguish the flames, but once he started singing, it caught again. By the end of the piece, he was holding a strip of paper about an inch high. It's a good job it was one sheet, and printed on one side only.