I just had my first lesson after G5, and NEW PIECES.
I was so done with the exam pieces, and now I have new music (thanks to a raid on a closing down music shop) and new challenges. I was so glad to be playing different music, that I got totally lost in it, and wore out the embouchure when I practiced today
Does anyone else feel the same excitement on being set new music after the intense concentration for weeks on just 3 pieces?

Good for you!! I have one more week to go...

that's great bassoonista what are you working on now?

I love new stuff at any time

Weissenborn Studies volume 2, no 16+17, and learning about mordants, turns and other ways to put my own ornaments into Corrette 6 Sonatas, Aria 1 & 2 and the Allegro Staccato. Plus wrestling with a couple of hemiolas.

Good for you, bassoonista!

On the oboe, post grade 5 the playable "real" repertoire seems to open up enormously. Lots to have fun with. Is it the same for the bassoon?

I had my first lesson after doing my Grade 4 last night. I was given two new tunes to learn. They are jazz standards so quite different to anything I have done before!

It gives you a new appreciation for your instrument when you get something new like that.

Good for you bassoonista.

I think I kind of go the other way and get post exam blues immediatly following an exam - I think it's because I go from playing pieces really well to being awful again, but like you I do get feed up of the 3 exam pieces by the time the exam comes around.

Yes, it's good to have new music, with the new challenges it presents, new techniques to work on etc....but there are a few exam pieces over the years that I have been really quite sad to leave behind, and look back on them with nostalgia. In fact, I recently dug out my G6 flute pieces so I could play John McLeod's Berceuse again.

Enjoy your new pieces, Bassonista!

Apparently so, as the Corrette is not "dumbed down" at all!!!

I found the same with the clari repertoire after about grade 4/5, there were 'proper' pieces to choose from, stuff that I'd actually heard people play Did make me feel much more like a clari player when I learnt my first 'proper' piece

(Hope all is ok with you bassoonista, missed you at band tonight.)

I'm fine thanks Louise1712, but my Dad was rushed into hospital with food poisoning. He's doing well, but it was touch and go for a while. He got so badly dehydrated, that his kidneys were in danger, but today he's off the drips, and has colour, and enough energy to be bad tempered!!!

Good to hear, hope he recovers fully soon

and hope to see you at band on Thursday too