Just had a call from my son to say he has failed his grade 7 cello exam (taken last month). Appears really dispondant and annoyed, says that there is no way he is retaking it.
He is in his last year of 6th form and doing A2 music. Any suggestions for what to do for the best?

Give him time to get over it first.
Then maybe he and his teacher can go over the mark sheet to try to see if there is anything in particular needs attention.... or maybe he just had a bad day...
It may be better that he just plays for fun for a while until he is ready to look at grade 8 rather than consider a resit.

Yes give him a chance to recover as anyone's initial reaction would be to be despondent as no-one likes to fail. My son just passed his Grade 5 trumpet but the guy who accompanied him on the piano said that if he failed, as long as he looked at the examiners remarks and learned from them he could see little point in re-taking it just for the sake of it. You may find though that he feels he'd like to re-take after a while just to prove to himself that he can. I agree with the other reply that he needs to have some fun with his instrument for a while as working for grades is such hard and intensive work. I was a little disappointed in my son's teacher, who, at his first lesson after his grade, got him stuck straight into scales and site reading (his main problem area) instead of having a bit of fun with him for just the one lesson. His teacher is a bit intensive and it's prone to putting my son off. Incidentally, even though my son passed, he has no intention of taking any more grades.

I would endorse this view. Sometimes, as teachers and pupils, we can forget that Grade 7 is a senior exam, just like Grade 8 and underestimate what is needed to pass. Sometimes students think they'll pass Grade 7/8 just by having three pieces in good order. The whole programme (including aural and sight-reading) needs to be in good order to achieve these senior levels.

If your son was well-prepared across the whole exam and he still failed, maybe he had a bad day? I would warmly encourage a review of the mark sheet to see what went wrong. I wouldn't plan on taking it again, unless his teacher is very strongly for doing so. Enjoy playing, develop better technical skills and push on for Grade 8 if that's what he wants but with only one term left for Sixth Form it maybe, in the big picture of life, that he puts exams down and enjoys being a good cellist for fun. If he needs a senior level result for University (or similar), then he'll have to re-take.

Hope he bounces back soon - I'm sure once the initial disappointment and the irritation (which is likely to include blaming the examiner, the teacher etc for his failure) has settled, he'll recover. That's life, I'm afraid - getting over disappointments.

Best of luck to him for his A2 exams.

It is very disappointing to fail an exam and while your son will be very upset about it now he will get over it. I'm sure his teacher will go over his report with him. Do you know what marks he got and the breakdown of marks for each section? That can give an insight as to what went wrong. Was he planning to continue after grade 7? If he was, then it's probably a good idea to repeat grade 7. He will have more confidence doing grade 8 knowing he passed grade 7 rather than having failed it. As for now, he needs to have a bit of fun with his music - he will have enough pressure from his A2 exams without adding cello to the list. Hope his A2 exams go well and best wishes to him for the future!

Yes, I agree with everything others have said. A couple of years ago my son failed his grade 7 violin exam. He was shocked and upset. He had never failed anything before. I had accompanied him during the exam and actually felt he should have passed. I was probably more upset than him in reality. Looking back there were problems with his playing - his intonation wasn''t always 100% and although he played extremely musically he fell down in his pieces and particularly in aural! At first we decided to change Boards and redo grade 7. This was because I didn't feel there would be any mileage in taking the same pieces again. My thought was that he could continue learning and have a fresh approach with new pieces. This worked well. In the event though we decided against entering grade 7 again and after about a year of hard work moved on to grade 8. We took on board all the comments on the exam sheet and his teacher did lots of work on intonation etc and agreed maybe she had underestimated the standard required. The happy end to this story is that he passed his Grade 8 last year, just missing a distinction.

I think he learned more through the failure than anything else. Painful and upsetting, yes but a chance to learn and face challenges.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Back when I was taking exams, I passed clarinet Grade 6 at the same time as my O-levels (shows how long ago it was), worked through all my Grade 7 pieces etc in lower 6th so they were pretty much ready to go, then went back into the upper 6th with a new teacher (school peri, and a clarinet specialist at last!). Over the summer I'd decided that since I was doing science A-levels and intending to do a Biochemistry degree I'd give music exams a miss. I had a really enjoyable year musically speaking. It became a welcome break from studying and my playing improved a lot.

Now 20-odd years later I've switched instruments and genres, I've no intention of taking any music exams (OK, I know, I have no real business hanging around this forum), and I get enormous amounts of pleasure from my music. I'm a much better musician and sax-player now than I ever was a clarinettist at school, but don't really have anyway of "measuring" my playing ability, but that's OK with me.

I think, in a very long-winded way, what I'm trying to say is that unless your son wishes to pursue music further academically, then not only is there no need to do exams, but that he may get more pleasure out of just playing for the love of it, now and for a long time in the future, if he gives exams a miss for a while. After all, he has already reached a very acceptable level of playing.

Thanks everyone for your really helpful advice and comments. Initially I thought he ought to retake but after reading your replies I think it will be better for him to just enjoy his playing (he does not want to retake) especially as he only has half a term's lessons at school left and we'll need to find a new teacher for when he goes to uni. He shouldn'y need it for uni although his insurance place is to study both History and Music.

Thanks again for all your replies

So very true! It's awful to fail an exam, but it can actually be extremely helpful in the long run. You learn for the first time about failure, how it feels, and no, the world doesn't owe you a living. It may seem unfair, but that's life, and better get used to it.

I also agree with sox (I did O-levels as well!) that music is for fun as well. Let the lad enjoy himself. Best forget about grade 7 completely. You know, some of those pieces seem awfully easy when you haven't got to play them for an exam!

Steve

I think he's made the right decision. When I failed Grade 6 Piano, I learn't three new pieces, entered the next session and passed... so it can be done. But you have to do this at the right time and place, and have the motivation to do this. At the moment he's concentrating on his A2s. It is possible to do both in a session, but do you and he really want the pressure. I think you've decided you do not. Let him enjoy his cello, and keep the pressure to a minimum.