I've been looking at the Trinity piano accompanying exams for a while, and, after my recent exam accompanying venture, which caused a few headaches, I've got as far as buying the two necessary books. I'm feeling quite positive about working towards Grade 5 (the first exam they offer), as the standard look about right for me - nothing too frightening, but reasonably challenging. The bonus is that there's a lovely arrangement of the Agnus Dei from the Faure Requiem as one of the List C options. It's probably much the hardest choice from that list, but I can't resist it!

I seem to recall a thread about these exams a while ago - is any one else working towards one at the moment?

I'm thinking about it.
I've looked at both TG and LCM for this and while I think that LCM looks easier for supporting tests I also think that TG's supporting tests are more relevant for accompanying skills.

I MIGHT get as far as daring to mention it to my teacher in the new year.
Then I need a tame instrumentalist......

YAP started a thread about accompaniment exams a while ago: http://forums.abrsm.org/index.php?showtopic=17365&hl=


I'm very tame and house-trained

But not very close to me geographically.....




I just asked about them in the music shop this morning........ How good are they as the price seems a bit high if the only use is for a couple of exam items?

Erm..... can I change my mind?

The books arrived this morning and look seriously evil to me.
I was thinking of working on this mostly on my own but it looks as though it will take up too much practice time so it will be difficult to keep up with work my teacher sets on top. Might have to sidetrack in lessons to accomodate it.

My first plan was to have this ready for the summer session.....

What grade are you planning to tackle sbhoa ?

It was YAP that started a thread about it a while ago. He has a tame violinist to do an LTCL in accompaniment with as a trade for accompanying the violinists LTCL.

Grade 5.

I looked at both LCM and TG and the TG syllabus is totally geared for accompnying, even the supporting tests.

Katyjay and I were looking at some of the items on the singing list today, and there's a real discrepancy in standard between the accompaniments. Unfortunately the ones I want to do are the hardest.

You're not allowed to play two items from the same composer, so I can't play both the Faure Agnus Dei and Chanson d'Amour from the vocal list. I'm committed to the Agnus Dei, so it will have to be Linden Lea, which is much harder (at least for my small hands it is).

There is potential for a vast difference in difficulty between accompaniments. For ATCL one has to accompany a group A and a group B piece taken from the current grade 7 or 8 syllabus for any instrument, so something like a Brahms clarinet sonata movement wouldn't be out of the question for the masochistic candidate....

When I got the books this morning it was one of those depressing 'I haven't a clue what to do with all this' moments. It's grade 5.!!!!!..... why does it all seem so difficult???

I think my positive attitude just slipped.
Anyone got a pointy stick?

If it's any consolation the accompaniments are much harder than solo Grade 5 pieces in my opinion, both in length and difficulty. The Faure Agnus Dei is more like Grade 7.

That's weird. I have vaguely decided to take one of these exams at some point in the future - whenever I am ready. I had assumed that grade 5 piano, and grade 5 accompanist would be about the same standard.

Does anyone know why this isn't so?

Well, it's just my opinion. I'm working towards AB Grade 8 piano at the moment, and have played a lot of the recent Grades 5, 6 and 7 material, so it's an informed opinion at least.

Any would-be masochistic candidates are welcome to PM me if they want a stab at the Brahms clarinet sonatas



<wields pointy stick> We all have moments like that, sbhoa. I had my first piano lesson in ahem years on Monday, and Piano Teacher has found me a nice Bach fugue to play. So why am I struggling when it's *only* a three-parter

Because they are evil? I'm just starting on my 2nd one with threats of a real one following closely behind.

And I had hoped to keep the positive attitude nice and shiny for a bit longer...... I only got it a couple of weeks ago.

Latest update.

I have some lovely people who are willing to be my soloist.

Took the books and talked it through with my teacher this morning as my original idea of sorting this out mostly on my own and aiming for summer in not really viable. She agrees that it would be far too much to do on top of whatever she would set and allowing time for preparing things for Forum concerts so if I want to go for it we are going to set other things aside for now and work on it in lessons (alongside some concert preparation). The idea will be to aim to be ready for the Autumn session. This gives us until 21st September to be ready (closing date for Manchester).

This is turning out to be more challenging (that's the 'think positive' word for difficult ) than I thought it would be.

Great, glad you're making progress on it . It is hard to find someone to accompany; odd, really, given how much trouble people have finding someone to accompany them....

Yes, that is a bit odd isn't it.......?

The trouble is you live in the wrong place.

I thought it was time to bump this.
I made my deadline and my exam is on Saturday morning.
Hillyb will be my soloist on Flute and Clarinet.

The panic keeps hitting me now but I am well prepared and have even played the 2 most difficult pieces in public at an Adult Learners concert and a Forum concert.

Good luck for Saturday. What pieces have you decided to do for the exam?

You'll be fine. I'M looking forward to it! Just try to enjoy!

I'm doing the Rutter Chanson and the Druschetzky Allegro for the accompanied pieces (a good contrast) and The Bizet Enetr'Acte for the unaccompanied.



I'm going to try to enjoy it... honest...

We will enjoy it together, then. See you Saturday.

Would you like to enjoy the technical excercises and musicianship tests for me too?
Strange as it may seem I think I will enjoy the sight reading.

Good luck for Saturday.
I'm sure you don't need it after all that performance experience, good to know the forum concerts are doing their job.

I've done the Rutter - it's nice. Don't know the others. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Hope you do well.

Good luck, you may remember I did this exam at the last session (Snap on the Rutter and Bizet!). The sight reading was rather nice in a bizarre sort of way - probably the only time i've ever sat beside the examiner and played together. I'm sure you will enjoy the exam, and not long to wait for the results! My examiner was a real sweetie who gave me the choice on the technical bits.

Sue

Well, it's done now.
I don't feel that I did myself justice by a long way.
The piano stool was too high and we had to start off by finding a chair and a cushion to get an acceptable height. Lost the plot a bit in the Rutter but Hillyb just carried on regardless and I managed to get it back together........ Grateful for her cmoposure there.
Clarinet piece went ok and as the examiner didn't have a copy any inaccuracies could well have been missed.
Didn't get my act together fot the Bizet and though I kept going I hadn't a clue what notes I was playing at the end.
He asked to look at the extracts for the technical excercises then just chose 2 for me to play without really looking too closely at them so again playing like I meant it may have carried the day there.
Sight reading was ok though a little bit of unexpected harmony. I kept it going and responded to the examiner's rall. at the end.
For musicianship tests he asked me to do score reading while he thought about which other to choose. That was similar to examples in the book and I wasn't awfully fluent or accurate. In the end he let me choose the 2nd test so I opted for transposition. It was longer than the examples with several accidentals I kept going but sometimes only one hand was playing at a time instead of both.
Will be back later with the result as they phone somewhere between 5 and 6 tonight. Expect the breakdown early next week.
Thanks to all those who wished me luck.

Roll on the results!

Just had the phone call.
I got 77 so that's a merit.

Will be interesting to see the breakdown and comments.

Well done Sbhoa!

Well done. I knew you'd be ok. Onwards and upwards!!

Thanks.

Next on the agenda is spending time trying to improve my playing generally.
My teacher has quite a long list of things lined up for me over the next couple of years.

Well done, sbhoa!

Well done, that woman.

It's your turn next isn't it?

Well done

erm....

Congratulations and well done !

Well done.

Congratulations!
Well done.


A

Hey! Good for you..well done! Told you didn't I??!

Go on...we can start a grade 5 accompanists club!

Sorry I didn't get a chance to wish you luck but I was thinking of you.

I think you've done really well! The fact you think you could have done better is only important when you consider that you got a Merit without playing at your best. Merit is excellent and you should be proud but you are probably on agood day so much better than that.

The girls said well done! We are all really proud of you!

That was you in the exam. I haven't read trough the whole thread to know just who or what you chose to accompany so it was a guess. Very well done.

Not a bad guess.
Hillyb played for me on Flute and clarinet.

Many congratulations sbhoa!

Yay! Well done!!!

Well done!

On a side note, slightly , but as an accompanist, what are you expected to do if the soloist misses a rest [or even a bar of rests!] where the accompanying part doesn't have one: do you skip a beat out as well and hope for the best; do you speed up and try to catch up (and hope the soloist doesn't speed up simultaneously, not realising why you are doing so), or do you just carry on playing as you are? Same question for if the soloist speeds up and slows down: I'm guessing for this case, you're more likely to go with their fluctuations in speed?

~Wobby~