I'm helping my friend to do her violin accompaniment for her violin exam. But i do not know what to note while playing? Is it that i need to play softter? and should the violin catch up to my tempo or i need to slow down to wait for the violin? Anyone can give his/her advices? thank you!

If shes soloing you need to follow her. Does you music have her line written above it?

Hey, Well you are obviously a capable pianisit.!! What grade exam are you accompanying. Earlier this year I accompanied a grade 3 clarinet You have to be able to follow the violin so you can follow them. This is extremley difficult. To get over this I practiced picking up the piano part from practically every place so i knew that i could if i had to do it. I also practiced lots with the clarinet so i knew their part off by heart.

If they stop playing then you must continue to playing until the come back in and if they come back in at a place where you are not you have to be ready to jump to the place that they come in

Ben

hmm.. i've just passed my grade 8 piano with a merit(125). her exam is on november but i can only master one of the 3 pieces.. oh ya.. she's in grade 8 but for trinity syllabus.. the other 2 are difficult, especially the modern pieces!

my piano scores have the violin part. we've tried for sometime for the 2nd piece, Beethoven's Sonata. Sometimes i made mistakes. i just laughed and apologised! haha..

any techniques of accompanying an instrument with piano??

Accompanying is an art in itself. Accompanying for the exam has a huge responsibility. From my experience, the candidates play well and with confidence when accompanied by a competent accompanist, who can follow, support, encourage...

To be honest, if you are a beginner accompanist for the exams, Grade 8 with some works from a major repertoire, may be a little too ambitious. But, yes, you need to start somewhere, I guess...

Best of luck!

My advice would be to study the pieces as soon as possible for a few days and then ask if you can go along to a violin lesson with your friend. Let the teacher advise you, but don't be too disappointed if your playing is not quite up to standard for the exam. As Hero says, it is a huge responsibility playing for an exam of this level and a supportive and confident accompanist can make a lot of difference. Best of luck with your playing together.

One of the major pitfalls is the soloist and accompanist both not understanding the music thoroughly. Both of you need to sit down and go through all the pieces on your own and then get together and discuss the character and style of the piece, what features of the piece you want to bring out, who should play out where and when, if there are any 'echo' phrases and how you are going to tackle any tempo changes in the piece. If you start the piece off, you need to be very certain of the tempo, so that the soloist doesn't struggle with too fast a speed when he/she comes in and vice versa. You also need to discuss any cues the soloist needs to listen for before his/her entry etc. You will require a few practice sessions together to get this right.

Accompanying is not just playing softer than the soloist. The important thing is that you should always follow the soloist - you need to adapt, you need to keep your ears open, and keep your 'radar' working at all times! After all, you have both parts printed on your copy of the music...!

I accompanied my daughter through several grade exams to Grade 8, and also for some music festivals.

I think at lower grades, it is certainly a case of 'accompanying' the violin, perhaps in a more restrained way, but at Grades 7 and 8 I think you must play the pieces as a performance. In some pieces, notably the Mozart and Beethoven Sonatas, the piano is almost the more important part (Note that LvB and WAM described them as Sonatas for Piano and Violin, not the other way round!) It goes without saying that you have to play the piano to a proper performance standard at these higher grades. In fact my daughters 'A' piece was from a Bach Concerto, so she had the main part. But then we did Beethoven (No 1). In fact we have played all of them at some stage (though the Kreutzer is a handful!), but most shoudn't be difficult for a grade 8 pianist. Which one are you doing ?
Her C piece was Sarasate, with a dominant violin part.

Just as an aside to my comments above , one Mozart Sonata for Piano& Violin (K570) can be played just as a piano sonata

I agree, fsm!

I always make a recording of the instrumental part and I practise by playing the accompaniment along with it. It helps me to get to know the solo part part thoroughly so I know what I should be hearing as we play together. Obviously it'll be different when we do get together in terms of tempo and expression, but it gives me a really good idea of the solo part.

Sometimes the piano part is more difficult than the instrumental part, so accompanying a Grade 8 exam when you are Grade 8 yourself is going to be a bit of a challenge. Remember it is your friend's exam - the examiner is not examining you so it is up to you to listen hard and follow the violin part and if your friend goes wrong I would consider it your responsibility to cover it up as best you can. If she misses a beat, you will need to jump to catch her up, or if she comes in too soon, you will need to be ready to cut a few beats. When I accompany in exams I am accutely aware that if I mess up than it is likely that it'll affect the way the soloist plays, and could affect the result of the exam.

You asked for advice in your oiginal post. I'm always wary of giving advice, but if I was just starting accompanying I wouldn't choose to accompany at Grade 8, I'd start with a much lower grade and in fact I wouldn't accompany an exam at all until I had some experience. As hero said it is an art in itself.

Just as the soloist will benefit from a good accompaniment, it's also the case that it's easier to play well as the accompanist if your soloist is good! Practise together as much as possilble in order to get an idea of what you're in for. I find it much easier to play for an experienced soloist than, say, for a child, as the latter sometimes seems to be waiting for ME rather than vice versa, and sometimes barges on ahead forcing me to speed up with no warning! (This is aside from the difficulty of the accompaniment, though, which is another matter!)

Yes definitely. There have been occasions when I've actually enjoyed the exam cos the soloist has been good, I can relax and enjoy playing, rather than being on edge and wondering what on earth they're going to do next!

Hahaha - that's a familiar experience for me too!!!

Two pieces of advice:

1) Given you're accompanying a concert-pitch instrument, there's a trick I use: play the left hand of the accompaniment with a right hand taken from the right hand of the accompaniment and the violin part. Try and capture as much of the melody as you can. Then, when you play the accompaniment normally, you'll know where you played the violin part not your part, and in these places make an effort to keep quiet

2) When keeping quiet, don't quieten the bass line as much. Within reason, it won't sound like it's drowning out the violin part as it's at a lower pitch. It'll also define the beat and help keep you and the violinist in sync.

hey guys there.. thanks for your advices.

my friend who is going to have her exam on November, need to face her school's major examination! She's now busy studying and we don't really sit down and discuss about it! Luckily you guys remind me! that's the problem who always bugs me now!

I did follow her to her violin class, tomorrow will be the 3rd time. Her teacher always support me by saying i'm a great pianist. but i'm going to have my end of year assessment in school too. maybe it's both's problem! i'm afraid that i might disappoint the violin teacher 'coz i need more time to practise but he(the teacher) just demand/force me to prepare well.. blah..blah..blah.. long story!

a question: is it possible to master a Baroque piece with 20 pages and a modern+complicated piece in a month's time?

but anyway, i'll try to talk to her!