I had a grade 2 pupil sitting her exam last week. She said she was playing fine until something happened in the 2nd line and she couldn't get back on track. The examiner asked if she wanted to start the piece again. She thought she played well the second time.

How will an examiner treat this situation? They must take the first attempt into acount, musn't they?

I think they will take it into account... but they are also aware of the problem of nerves.
In my Grade 6 I think I hardly got through anything in one piece but I got merit.

I had a pupil (also doing Grade 2) last term who broke down quite near the end of one of the pieces, and the examiner told him to start again.
He ended up getting 24 for that piece, so he certainly wasn't heavily penalised. I think he'd normally have got about 26 for it.
When he came out of the exam he was really devastated and convinced that he must have failed, poor thing, but when the results came he had a Distinction!

I took GIII piano last Wednesday and was a total bag of nerves.

I had only got about 6 bars into my first piece and completely lost it !

Luckily, the examiner was very sympathetic and put me at ease.

He told me to calm down, relax and take a minute. Then he said 'now start again'

At the end, I asked him if it really sounded as bad as I thought and he said no.
He told me that it was obvious that I enjoyed playing piano, it's just nerves and it wasn't as bad as I thought

Haven't got my results yet so I don't know what the outcome will be.

I think if you can make an overall good impression and the examiner can read between the nerves, I don't think it probably matters that you start again.

Suppose it depends on the examiner too.

Fiona

I think there must be a difference between the pupil stopping and asking to start again, and the examiner actually suggesting it.

I think it was when I did grade 3, but it might have been grade 4, and I think I was playing No.38 from the flute 76 sudies series, but anyway the point is, i baerly managed to play more than two phases consecutively, due to really bad nerves, I know this is slightly different, but I still got a pass for the piece, and the examiner made some really positive comments, something along the lines of, 'this had nice flow once you got going'!

They tend to be pretty reasonable about such things, I think, but then I guess it also depends on the grade you are working at.

Thanks for the comments.

It was my pupil's first piece so hopefully the examiner gave her leeway for nerves!

But it looks like you lose about 2 marks for starting again?

Hm, I think it's ok. For my grade 2 exam, I was terrified because that was my first exam. I completely fouled up the first two bars of music and I asked the examiner whether I could start the piece again and she replied, "oh sure."

I ended up getting a 24 for that piece, which was a mark I expected since I wasn't really on form.

Ho hum. I think it varies from examiner to examiner.

Hi
When I did my grade 4 piano exam it was also my first ever music exam and I was so nervous.I ended up restarting all of my pieces and I thought I played terribly.I also went on to mess up scales,aural tests and sightreading later in the exam.When I came out I was convinced that I had failed or something but I got a merit so I didnt do as badly as I had originally thought.I didnt lose many marks for restarting the pieces.Im sure your pupil did fine.

doesn't it cause a failure? when my sister took grade 7, she got lost in the middle and restarted the piece. She came out with a fail cuz she got a poor fail for that piece.

Isabel

Perhaps restarting is less of a big deal in the earlier grades.

I'm anxiously hoping for Friday's post because results usually arrive a fortnight later with us...

QUOTE

doesn't it cause a failure? when my sister took grade 7, she got lost in the middle and restarted the piece. She came out with a fail cuz she got a poor fail for that piece.

No. I'm sure you won't fail because of it. Now, if she restarted it and didn't play it very well she might get a bad mark for it, but they wouldn't give a bad mark just for restarting I'm sure.

It's a bit like when people say they failed their driving test because the car stalled. It's not true.

It doesn't help if you have to restart - you will probably lose some marks, but if you then play the piece well, I can't imagine any examiner giving the piece a poor mark.

I think that it does change with the grading- if you restart at grade 1, I guess it's treated as less serious than restarting at grade 8.
Also, perhaps it's less bad if you restart after the first bar than right in the middle of the piece? I don't know.