I'm toying with taking a cello exam in the summer. My teacher thinks I would do well with grade 3. However, he also thinks I'll probably be ready for grade 4 by the end of the year.

I have a reasonable programme that I could play for grade 3, I know the scales, and my sight reading is reasonably good. I've prepared the aural for grade 4, so reckon I should manage grade 3 ok.

My only hesitation is I have a big summer - I'm handing a phd in, and I'm coordinating a conference in July - both of which will obviously keep me pretty busy. I generally do at least a half hour (and usually more) cello practice a day, as I find it nice and therapeutic.

I can't decide what to do. I know I'll have moved past the grade three pieces by the end of the year, I'm not sure though that I'll be ready to take on grade 4. I still feel a bit of a cello fraud, and it would make me feel better about my playing if I had a grade under my belt (I know it's irrational, but hey, I'm an irrational type of gal). On the other hand, I don't want to feel all pressured and stressed.

I am intending to take grade 5 theory this term. I also may take grade 5 singing.

Decisions, decisions.

Do you want an "exam" to hold you back? My first exam was grade 6 (for piano). I remember entering a festival in grade 3 piano, and being ready to move on, but having to stay there until after the festival which was still a few weeks away. On one hand I could have perhaps been an exam session ahead, on the other hand I got to play in a grade 3 festival. Both are good. It depends what is important to you. Do you feel like you would like this exam experience now, or do you feel more inclined to just keep moving? Perhaps you could take your grade 5 cello next spring if you keep moving? Just my 2 cents.

Sounds like you have a busy schedule!! I find that my music is a great release from my PhD Nice to escape from it sometimes. I guess, you should go with what you think really, if you are happy to do grade 3 in the summer go for it. I am sure you'll do really well.

Good luck with what you decide to do

Joy

It sounds like you're more than ready to do the grade 3 exam, and it sounds like you'd rather like to. It depends really on whether you think it will be one stress too many! I think if you can treat it as something you're doing for fun, and not worry about it (in the knowledge that you're really well prepared) then go for it, it'll be good to give yourself something to aim for, you can use your cello practice for stress release, and I expect you'll do great in it.

A few months ago I was facing a rather similar decision. I was preparing an important paper and for a presentation and wondering whether to do my Grade 7 singing three weeks after it all, on top of working long hours... I knew I had done most of the groundwork, though needed to do more work on a few aspects of the aural and sight-singing, but was basically ready. I was just a bit concerned that I would not give my very best to anything, or do myself justice. I'm my own worst enemy in that respect and my harshest critic!

In the end I decided, with my teacher, that I would leave the exam work for a while and work on a wider repertoire. Part of me is disappointed I didn't just go for it and see what happened, part of me is glad, as doing something different has been a lot of fun, and I am now feeling more relaxed about what I am doing and enjoying it more, (apart from the fact that I had just bought my first piano and was rather enjoying that too!).

It's a hard one, isn't it?

I felt like that over my grade 6 flute last year. It would have been nice to do it and get the certificate (hopefully, lol!) but I am actually really glad I didn't, it was causing me so much stress, and considering how rubbish my health has been anyway in the intervening months I can't imagine what I'd be like had I gone through with it! Deciding to learn things that I liked and learn the scales in my own time was definitely a good decision...

Hmmm. It's definitely a difficult decision to make...

So have you done your exam now? or have you left it completely?

Left it completely. I decided that I'd do an exam sometime when it was going to be easy, or when I needed to! Ie if I had learned the repertoire for a different reason, or if I got to the stage where I was preparing for a diploma.

I'm actually doing a lot better learning my scales (all of them, not just the grade 6 ones) and playing pieces much better and even higher-level ones than when I had the exam hanging over my head.

I have cruddy health (ME) so basically the stress just wasn't worth what it was doing to me.

Thanks for your input. It really helps to hear lots of perspectives.

I've got a couple of weeks break from lessons for easter, so I think, having mulled it over a bit, I'll keep practising the grade 3 pieces, get my scales polished up (useful whatever I do) and start work on the Dance of the Blessed Spririts which my teacher set me for the easter break. Then I reckon I'll play it all for him at my first lesson back, and let him advise me then.


I think...

I'm not a big believer in astrology, but sometimes I am the classic indecisive libran!

Sounds like a good plan though - just see how it goes and then act on that. No point pressurising yourself to make a decision in the meantime

I can officially confirm that you don't need to be a libran to be indecsive!!! I can help other people make decisions, but can't make them for myself... ever.... well, only the day before I really have to!

Seems it's a common disease

I'm an Aries and I can be very indecisive. Chop and change my mind about things more times than there's changes in the weather

And the weather has changed about every 5 minutes around here today...

I found the few months before I handed in my PhD extremely stressful. (I was probably not in the same situation as you as I was writing it in a foreign language and teaching full time in a school and so could only work on it at night after my two young children were in bed). Nevertheless things like putting in an index turned out to be more complicated (and therefore more time-consuming) than I had thought, I discovered that a couple of references in footnotes on pages I'd written several years before were actually uncomplete leading to a frantic hunt through pages of notes and then the printer broke down...

Whilst the piano was therapeutic at times there was no way I would have coped with an exam. I took up the oboe about eighteen months after finishing my PhD and getting a University job when I suddenly discovered, for the first time in yeas, that I had free time.

Oh, I work full time too, as a uni lecturer, and am mother to a young child.