Talk about ridiculous: I received my jazz flute G1 exam date this morning.

Then I did some practice...

I had a dry mouth from nerves

This is not a good start... especially as I am fairly sure I'm more than ready for this exam

Does anyone else suffer from, erm, premature nervousness??!

Grade 7, about three weeks beforehand, peaking during the scales, grrr.
Grade 8, got completely sidetracked by illness in the family, and didn't get nervous until the aurals. I have to say, though, I don't recommend this as a way of dealing with exam nerves.
ATCL, when packing up our harpsichord into the car to take down to the centre for the continuo part (oh, and about half an hour of panic the day before when I realised the timings had changed dramatically ).

I don't remember feeling nervous for my Grade 2 until the moment of the first note in the exam. But I must have been nervous when I first arrived at the exam centre because for a moment I couldn't remember how to put my clarinet together The steward (who knows me, it's at my college) asked didn't I have my mum with me to help me with it

Friends have said that I was nervous leading up to the exam but I don't remember that, although I do remember being nervous in the weeks leading up to the Chester concert.

I can't remember exam nerves as a child, though I'm sure I was paralysed with them as I remember having stage fright to a considerable degree (when I didn't even have a speaking part!).

I do remember taking two exams in anatomy, one at medical school and the other 7 years later for what was then primary FRCS, and although the syllabus (the human body) was exactly the same (and non musical), the difference between the two viva voce examinations is instructive:

For the first one I had done no work at all (the reasons for this don't have a bearing). I was quite convinced that there was no relevant question that my examiners could possibly ask me that I would be able to answer. My knees were water, my mouth dry, my skin pale and clammy. Then they asked me a question I knew the answer to, in theory at least, and that was my name; I was so strung up with nerves it took me 20 seconds of stammering to answer. I had never stammered before in my life, so I was utterly shocked to discover that I couldn't make my voice work. Then they showed me a bone and asked me what it was. I struggled for nearly thirty seconds over the first syllable of "tibia" and then mutely pointed to my own leg. By then I was crying. I didn't speak for the rest of the exam. They were kind, understanding and finished as soon as they decently could, but we all knew from the first and only syllable of my only answer that I had failed abysmally. Astonishingly, I passed the retake, but by then I had actually done quite a lot of work.

Seven years later I sat for primary FRCS: Same subject, but whereas at medical school the pass mark was 50% now it was 75%. There was another difference: I had done the work, and now I was reasonably sure there was no relevant question that my examiners could possibly ask me that I would not be able to answer. In the written paper I could have answered every question (I only had to answer one from each of 4 sections) and in the multiple choice I knew I had done well so when it came to the viva I was calm, confident, happy and actually looking forward to it. I sat down, we went through the introductions without a hitch and then he passed me a bone and asked me what it was. It was the highest bone in the spinal column and it is not an easy option like a tibia. It didn't matter, I knew it. I was slightly relieved, but not much - I had been confident beforehand. I thought of the tibia 7 years before and smiled. "It's an Atlas sir, and I'm holding it the right way up with the front towards you!" He smiled, his colleague smiled, I carried on smiling and we all knew I'd already passed. The next 10 minutes were a pleasure. Such a difference from 7 years before.

What I'm getting at is that exam nerves usually reflect preparation: When I knew I wasn't prepared, I was terrified. When I knew I was prepared, I was confident and calm. I believe that confidence through preparation is a transferrable skill.

That's only part of the story... I can be extremely well prepared for an exam (or indeed any sort of performance) and still be extremely nervous. I can be playing pieces that I could sight read standing on my head and scales that I could play at almost twice the required speed and still be terrified. (Exam in question: I have been in a position where I am as certain as I can be that I will pass and should pass well for months... getting the exam time in the post this morning still made me feel very nervous and even get a dry mouth from excessive nerves. Not much fun when playing the flute!)

Same with written exams actually. I've always been pretty good at written exams, heaven knows how, but still, even for ones where I was really well prepared, I could be literally shaking with fear before going into the exam room.

Sure, being well prepared really helps, but for some of us it doesn't make a huge impact on nerves.

Sadly that isn't my exerience when it comes to music exams. Other exams, yes, absolutely. But with performance there's a here-and-now to it that allows you to completely blow all those long hours of preparation. There's not just the being judged for what you can do, there's the prospect letting yourself down by not showing what you can really do in normal circumstances.

Another aspect of music exams - which may no longer be the case - as I remember, was being treated like a child by the exam centre representative upon arrival and when being shown into the room. Such that by the time I got there I was in the little child mindframe. I had thought this was just me being sensitive but since I've had a chance to discuss it with a hypnotherapist I find there's a whole of science of this - Transactional Anaysis - and I was indeed lead into that feeling of helplessness.

I'm having another shot at exams soon (G2 Singing and already know the date). I don't feel at all nervous. But then that might be my hypnotherapy working. I'll let you all know what happens.

This time around I had two exams one day apart so I was nervous about two weeks beforehand, plus it didn't help that I had third year exams at the same time. So for Grade 6 piano and clarinet, I was a bit of a wreck but not as bad as I was for Grade 5 piano (I think that was because I had to go into town for it, so I was somewhere that I really didn't know very well.)
However, for my Grade 1 piano I was 9 years old and I don't remember feeling particularly nervous for that. I don't think I really understood how important the exam could be for me! So I think that as I have got older, I have the tendency to get more nervous as I progress to the higher grades

Nerves are funny! In my recent exams I have got nervous about 2 weeks beforehand - I mean panic. Then I calm down and have 'normal' nerves on the night before and on the day.

I don't get nervous till the night before - normally when everything is going wrong! I get really nervous just before i go in. I've went into exam rooms crying and come out smiling - probably from relief rather than having done well!

I kind of panic when it gets to important dates such as exactly a week before the exam

Yes, when I did my grade 8 in March I felt fine beforehand (had had a few bananas and walked to the exam centre, which no doubt helped!) and nerves only kicked in after the first note. However, my mouth went all dry which had never happened to me before (usually just get shaky hands and trembling knees) so that threw me!!

But I guess nervousness did hit me beforehand, like exactly a week before I had a short panicky feeling. I think nerves are very interesting as it's an actual physiological reaction to something that is completely in your head! And also interesting in that they disappear as soon as you've played the last note!

There's examination nerves and there's performance nerves and I don't think they're the same. In music, a practical examination inevitably involves a performance so it is easy to confuse the two.

What I wrote above about examination nerves I stand by: Exam nerves usually reflect preparation (not always I admit). The same is not true of performance nerves - even Lord Olivier, quite late in his career, developed crippling stage fright for no apparent reason. Rachmaninov used to be phsyically sick before a performance and had to be pushed onto the stage.

I genuinely believe that you can reduce (not eliminate) the 'examination' part of nerves by knowing you have prepared properly. There will probably always be a slight worry about whether you've missed somehing, or maybe a bit of "imposter syndrome' creeping in so that you will always feel that you need a little luck. However, as Gary Player once said (of golf, but it still applies); "the more I practice, the luckier I get". Nonethless, although complete elimination of the examination side of nerves is probably impossible, minimising this half of nerves is possible.

From the sound of Alicia Ocean, hypnotherapy may be the answer to the other half of it.

As I said before:

It's unlikely in that situation that I was mistaking performance nerves for exam nerves! If anything I prefer performing, though I still find it nerve wracking, so I don't think it's that performing fears make me dislike exams... Performances are nerve wracking, exams plain scary.

I have had middling to very bad nerves, and similar or identical symptoms, as far as I can remember, for pretty much all the exams I've ever done: written exams, from 10 GCSEs and 4 A Levels through to 3 hour Finals, speaking exams (which could be considered also performances, depends how you look at it: I did Russian, French, and Croatian at uni so I've done a fair few!), music exams (grade 1-3 piano, grade prelim to 6 violin, grade 4 flute, grade 1 recorder and practical musicianship), CELTA course final teaching practice, and for pretty much all the performances I've ever done. I remember sitting outside a Russian history exam in my first year barely able to speak because I was so nervous about the exam (I was well prepared and got a good 2-1 in the exam)

And I'm generally well prepared, (bar a couple of music exams as a child and one uni exam I was ill for) and it's generally not made any difference at all. I rarely if ever have felt reasonably confident going into an exam room - I don't ever remember feeling so, I'm prepared to believe it may have happened and been forgotten. As a young adult doing uni exams and as an adult doing music exams, and as an adult playing and singing in forum concerts, I have, if anything, been more prepared, and also more nervous than I was when I was younger (I disliked exams as a child - I didn't fear them...).


I think that is an overgeneralisation which is not reflected in everyone's experience. It simply doesn't work like that, for an awful lot of people. And on the other hand I know people who don't feel especially nervous even when they know they're not very well prepared! I know far too many people who, one way or another, just don't fit into the "exam nerves are because you're not well prepared" equation.


It makes little or no difference to me. I find both exams (even written ones) and performances scary.

Being well prepared means I can play (write/sing/speak) well, it doesn't make the least difference to how I feel. More experience has enabled me to act completely confident, and indeed after Woodford last year someone commented on how relaxed and confident I seemed. I was still shivering in my shoes and still felt extremely nervous

Once I'm playing/singing/whatever I am usually OK, even if I still feel nervous, autopilot takes over and often I'm surprised at what I achieve. Doesn't make me feel the slightest bit less nervous, or stop me from having a dry mouth, or sweaty, shaky fingers - the preparation helps execution, enables me to get on with the job, it doesn't stop me feeling slightly sick.

Some people find that being prepared lessens or even eliminates their nerves. GREAT! And generally, yes I do think it can HELP. But it doesn't, by any stretch, mean that those of us whom it does not help just aren't well enough prepared, or that more preparation will magically get people over their nerves (sometimes it has the opposite effect!) and it's a huge generalisation to link nerves mainly or solely to preparation or lack thereof, or say "practise more and you won't be so nervous". Exams of any sort, requiring some sort of performance or not, have always made me nervous: even those which I was well prepared for and achieved good marks for in music, or for academic work. The old "you won't be nervous if you're well prepared" simply doesn't work for everyone.

I've been having the total panics on and off for an exam I'm aiming to do in November.
About 6 months before the final entry date.

I'm sure it doesn't, not least because it doesn't always work for me and I don't believe I ever said it would: I said you would usually be less nervous in an exam if you were well prepared but I also said that performance nerves often take no account of preparation whatever. Of course it's a generalisation (which is why I said "usually") and therefore not neccesarily applicable in every case: Of course there are exceptions, but let me put it the other way around: In general less preparation is unlikely to lead to less nervousness. Are you seriously sugggesting that preparation and nervousness are completely unrelated in most people? If you are then we shall have to agree to differ (amicably I hope)!

Besides, the original thread wasn't "why?" but "when?", and I apologise for diverting it.

crumbs!

I guess 3 weeks isn't so bad as I thought then

Apologies if this is but I get nervous before every lesson I teach (in varying degrees). People always tell me I look calm when I'm teaching but this is a classic case of the swan gliding serenely on the surface and paddling furiously under the water! It's why I'm always exhausted afterwards - I expend a huge amount of nervous energy on looking calm and in control...

Regarding exams - I was so crippled by fear and nerves as a child that both practical music exams and school exams were a complete nightmare for me and I either flunked them or scraped through them and they were a truly miserable experience. My confidence grew slowly through college when I began to realise that I wasn't as thick as I'd always thought I was and I began to learn HOW to pass exams well.

When I did my Kodály Advanced Diploma I worked SOOOOOOO hard so that I knew my prepared pieces inside out, back to front and upside down. I knew that I had to know them that well so that if I stumbled due to nerves I knew I could pick it back up again easily. Successful strategy!

I think, as Robodoc so eloquently illustrated, that confidence plays an enormous part here. Don't get me started on my self-esteem/self-confidence soap-box...

Cyrilla is going to be examining those of her intermediate Kodaly group who are brave or crazy enough to actually do the exam (which includes me ) in just over a month's time. I expect my nerves will hit tomorrow, when I go through the requirements properly and work out how many free days I have between now and then.

PS Cyrilla, do join me in the Forums Cafe for a drink if you're still there...

Aww, thanks Willard *heads to Forums Café*.

I'm with you Willard! I have my solfege exam on Tuesday and as well as our highly distinguished teacher being present to run things, we also have one of the other finest and most distinguished solfege teachers in Hungary moderating the exam for us.

My brain hurts with all the work!

As Cyrilla rightly says, it's about knowing the stuff inside out and back to front etc. I have found throughout my year here that every time I went to the piano in my solfege lessons to perform a sing and play that I would have a blank as I prepared to start and often, I was concentrating so much on trying to hear what I was doing so that I could check it was right, that I would have slips. This was all to do with nerves and there is a need I think to be able to put local difficulties outside of one's mind. This is difficult and especially difficult to do when your teacher is sitting right behind you as well as your peers being in the room!

There are also levels of knowing something I think. Just because a mistake is made in an exam or even in a lesson does it mean we don't know it? I think we know things at different depths and just working methodically and in a concentrated way will hopefully lead us to the outcome of a good, polished performance whoever is listening.

My belief is that if we can know something well enough so that if a mistake happens, we can just continue on, then that is possibly the best thing and if we can do it without error, then so much the better.

I will be in the pub on Tuesday night having gone through my exam, and it will also mean the very end of the course for me.

I'm looking forward to coming home!



If you're interested to know, ask Cyrilla about the teacher here whose initials are K.K. This is the teacher who will be moderating us!

Ah, I found KK VERY scary ten years ago but I think she's mellowed! HK, you'll be fine - I'm sure this year has taught you lots of things about yourself and how to cope with certain situations and you're certainly coming out with some wise advice.

At least you didn't have TWO fairly ancient and VERY scary Hungarians who had been pupils of Kodály themselves examining your Adv Dip *large gulp*

Well, Cyrilla, this pupil of yours thinks you rock!

Oh, wow!

*blushes furiously*

For my last music exam, I was nervous when I arrived at the exam centre. I was annoyed with myself for getting nervous and berated myself and this seemed to help. The conversations in my head were ridiculous 'oh, you've paid good money for this exam, you better enjoy it; if you flunk this exam it won't affect your career/salary/status unlike those lovely accountancy exams; get a grip woman, you've done harder things in your life; you'll never see this examiner again so it won't matter if you wear a bikini and play awfully for this exam; you've practised hard you deserve to do well'. It did seem to help though having written this down, I may come across as being somewhat disturbed.

For my theory exam, there were no nerves. I was looking forward to it as I'd revised so much for the exam that I was bored with the revision. I was also throwing up just before the exam (morning sickness) and my son was in hospital at that point so this helped dispel any nerves should there have been any.



Don't be so angry with yourself. People get nervous for different things. Personally, I think it's amazing that you can stand up and perform without falling apart. I haven't got the confidence to perform, at least you've done well to enter the exam. Having said that though, do you really need to do the exam? Isn't music for fun?



Conversely, if I'm very underprepared for the exam, I don't feel nervous at all. There's absolutely no pressure to do well, I can't disappoint myself any further. For a very well prepared exam, I look forward to it and may feel a little nervous that I may not obtain a result that reflects my preparation and knowledge.



That's so lovely to hear that a teacher gets nervous before a lesson and it's not just one sided with students getting nervous for the lesson.

This won't apply to everyone and some people won't even understand it - but music can become a part of who you are rather than a trick you learned.

I think the big difference with performance exams rather than theory or any other non-music subject is that (for me anyway) my performace skill is part of my identity and therefore it's who I am that's under scrutiny. It's not a test of what I know or how well I practiced at all - though the upside, I guess, is that the examiner knows that too - but a test of who I am.

Perhaps this is why adults are much more badly affected than children? As I child I learned my instrument because I had no choice - but now it's more then for the love of it, it's a necessity of my existence.

I don't think I'm in a minority here. Perhaps in a minority for having tried to do something practical about it, that's all.

Aha, I think I might have cracked this selective quote thing.

HK, I'm sure you'll let the forum know how it goes.

Barry, I was talking to Cyrilla about you because there's a distinct shortage of male voices in her Intermediate class. However as I'm a low bass, I gather there's not much overlap in our ranges ! This isn't entirely because I'd probably be a lot less nervous if I was singing in the same octave as everyone, or anyone, else. Tuning an octave (or sometimes nearly two octaves !) apart I find quite difficult. On the plus side, the ladies are all very nice about it, and they do like it when I sing a low C (at least that's what they told me)

No, I'm not really a low bass. Or a bass of any description, come to think of it.....

Or indeed an intermediate Kodaly student!

Hope to reach levels of intermediacy (is there such a word? ) sometime in the future.....

Definitely! I feel so more self conscious and nervous in music exams than say a written exam because it's part of me - it is so personal to me.

Nerves are such a strange thing, I don't understand them... When I did my G1 Theory, I knew it inside out and the mark I got proved that. And I wouldn't have said I felt at all nervous. Whilst we were waiting for everyone to take their places, I was chatting to my neighbour about a school concert she was in and I felt fine. But when I took up the pencil and tried to write, I found that my hand was shaking so much that I couldn't do it I couldn't understand it, and I still don't Thankfully it did stop after a few minutes

For me, the fretting starts, pianissimo, when the entry form arrives/online entries open.

It builds in a gradual crescendo until a couple of days before the exam, making me more than usually challenging to live with...

Then just before the exam, I go calm again, and only get "keyed up" in the waiting room....

Then after the exam I get very low and subdued for a couple of days.

Then a week before the results come out I get very fretted, and get worse rapidly until the results arrive.

Then the results arrive and I'm either high as a kite for a few days or down in the dumps.

Then I decide what exam I'll do next, and Misterjay waits aprehensively for the whole pattern to start over again....

Yes, we do!




Intermediacy shall be reached, bass or no bass!!!