I got the new purple exam pieces book and the songs in it are so nice.
I think it's really good but I don't agree with those cds. It makes students lazy to express their own emotions on the piece and copying the exact way of performing from the cd.
Sometimes, when I start playing the songs and practising them early, it ended up giving me more harm than confidence when I step inside the examination hall. My fingers seem to tense up and get all tangle because they are just "over-familiar" with those songs. Any exercises for fingers to prevent this from happening?

hiya
a good book for finger excersises it Schmitt op16 Preparotory exercises for the piano and Hanon the virtuoso pianist in sixty ecerxcises for the piano. These really helped me when i was learning. A good place to get books from is www.musicroom.com they have loads of books on there and the postage is free. Also they are delivered 2 days after you order so its a really great site.
Hope this helps

Deborah

QUOTE (ftlouie @ Oct 4 2004, 03:09 PM)

I got the new purple exam pieces book and the songs in it are so nice. I think it's really good but I don't agree with those cds. It makes students lazy to express their own emotions on the piece and copying the exact way of performing from the cd. Sometimes, when I start playing the songs and practising them early, it ended up giving me more harm than confidence when I step inside the examination hall. My fingers seem to tense up and get all tangle because they are just "over-familiar" with those songs. Any exercises for fingers to prevent this from happening?

AAAAAAAH!!! They're PIECES not SONGS!! *pet hate*

QUOTE (pianissimo @ Oct 5 2004, 12:26 AM)

AAAAAAAH!!! They're PIECES not SONGS!! *pet hate*

Yes I noticed that but some of the grammatical constructs suggest that this is English as a second language; so try to be nice!

You can download the Hanon exercises free from 'The Sheet Music Archive'. Which grade are you looking at by the way?

QUOTE (AnotherPianist @ Oct 5 2004, 12:06 PM)

QUOTE (pianissimo @ Oct 5 2004, 12:26 AM) AAAAAAAH!!! They're PIECES not SONGS!! *pet hate* Yes I noticed that but some of the grammatical constructs suggest that this is English as a second language; so try to be nice!

you guys better be nice to me as well as anotherpianist has suggested ....english is my second language......