hiya, so I've got my grade 8 piano exam on the 23rd may (next friday), and I'm almost ready.

Today we got the biography of our examiner, (well, a biographical short piece), and it had loads about him being a great guitarist, but not one word about him playing the piano :S why are we getting a guitarist when there's only one person taking a guitar exam, but more than 50% taking a piano exam?

anyways, that's not important. my question is, being a guitarist, would he be able to hear nuances of a piano performance? like, for example, take into account how complicated my pieces are when judging my mistakes; or, see that certain passages require good fingerwork despite looking easy; piano-specific things like that. What I'm worried about is that he'll miss out on adding marks for things like that which I can do, and just take off marks for slips

Don't worry, remember two things:
1. Your examiner plays the piano for aural tests and to become an examiner he had to be grade 7 or 8 piano standard.
2. Examiners usually have lots of musical experience and know the little problems and specifics of most instruments.

That he plays the piano well enough to be an examiner should be enough reassurance: I'd be more worried for bassoonists, viola players or double bassists (those with rarer instruments which examiners may not know too much about).

Good luck with the exam!
Bombarde Reed

*Must resist getting sarcastic!!!*

I agree with what's been said - All examiners are pianists anyway.

From personal experience, the exams to be most worried about for things like that are recorder exams. They just dont realise the capabilities of the instrument.

Marks are not really either added or taken away.
A mark is given based on the criteria for the grade (regardless of whether you choose what you think is a 'harder' piece) which is shown in These Music Exams.

You can download this by following the 'exams' link from the home page or ask for one to be posted to you if you can't get one from a music shop.

Thanks for all the reassurance Maybe I overreacted a bit. i just dont want all the years of hard work to be for nothing

Anyways, good to know the examiner has also done gd7/8 piano

Assuming its the one I'm thinking of (my understanding is there is only one guitar playing examiner for the AB) he is an absolutely capital fellow, superb in every way, and I'm not only saying that because he was one of the examiners for my LRSM.

Having said all that, is it an AB exam? Didn't know biographies of examiners were sent out for those - only Trinity.

Whichever way, you have no reason to worry!

Remember those of us who aren't pianists have to deal with this a lot of the time. Know how rarely a guitarist is actually examined by a guitarist??

Yes - one out of about 650 AB examiners...unless another one has joined recently, so presumably one in about every 650 guitarists, assuming he does an average examining load.

It works both ways though, in that one who doesn't play your instrument may not notice all the good things you do, but they may not notice all the bad things either - assuming there are any. For instance, some of the more obscure exam pieces, the sort of thing that a guitar player would know; you can't possibly expect a pianist say to know the detail of rhythms, dynamics etc, so they have to go on their basic notion of how the performance went, unless they pop round to your side of the stand to check up on something.

I'm intrigued.

Are you able to say the name of the examiner (Classical Guitar is a fairly small world and I'd be interested if I'd heard of them).

I must say that, even though most (all?) of my examiners haven't been guitarists there has never been any suggestion of anything other than nice supportive attitudes. One examiner even said that she wishes that she had more guitarists taking exams.

As you can imagine, she won me over instantly.

I've always kept the thought that the people who are examining us are [/i]musicians[i] and that the instrument that they play is irrelevant.

I've never had an examiner that I felt didn't know their stuff. I've always found them to be consumate professionals and, when they asked an instrument specific question, I've always found the comments fair and intelligent and I've never felt the slightest bit of snobbery or any negative feeling (something in the Classical Guitar world that we've had quite a bit of experience of).

Cheers,

Matt.

Thank you everyone for the helpful replies And my piano teacher, (as well as some fellow students) have met the examiner and only have good things to say about him, so I feel a bit embarrassed for being worried, but everything's turning out okay My exam is in 9 hours, and unfortunately I fell down with a flu on tuesday, maybe due to stress, but you know, I'll play as well as I can, and whatever happens, happens

Stefano: He is apparently an amazing person, so he may well be the one you are thinking of

Matt: I'm sorry, I can't actually remember his name. But I will have it for you later today, if not when I get home then definitely after the exam, and I'll post his name

(i think I might have babbled out of being nervous, so please forgive me )

If it's any consolation, I believe that the way AB examiners assess candidates is based not on the way that the music is produced (i.e. technique etc), but on the 'end result' (i.e. the music itself). It's the performance that counts, more so than how it has been achieved. So if the examiner is listening to an instrument that they are not very familiar with, it should not make a difference in terms of their ability to mark that performance.

Anyway nish81, how did the exam go? Hope it was ok.

Oh, that does make more sense actually

And the exam went much better than I thought it would! Scales were great The first piece was pretty good too, a bit nervous at the start and a few slips through the piece, but no big mistakes, and musically I think I stayed alright. Second piece was a bit worse, it was actually pretty smooth right until the end when my left hand just went awry and missed a few bars And finally the third piece was great (I think that is )

Sight-reading was much better than i thought it would be. aurals were weird, I normally fluff up the singing sections but got them right this time, and messed up the chords in identifying the cadence (got the cadence right but named the wrong chords), which I normally never do..and right at the end when he asked me for a composer who could have written the sample piece, I just went blank and said 'i dont think I can name anyone', oh god, how bad is that

Anyways, thanks for the support
Matt, I looked for his name but they took down the biography for the exam :S I'll hopefully get it on monday, or whenever I get my results

sorry for bumping this, I just found who his name was. Richard Storey

Hi Nish81.

Many thanks for that. I hadn't heard of him but I'll keep an eye out (always nice to listen to a player I've never heard).

Sounds like you had a good experience with the exam. That's fantastic and just what I've always had with the board. All the best for the results.

Thanks again.

Matt.

No problem I now have a soft spot for him, as I got 132/150; a distinction in grade 8 is what I always dreamed of

Well done, what a fab result - you must be mega chuffed . That seems a super quick notification of your result. Do you know yet the breakdown of marks yet ?

Wow! Well done you! Superb.

I'm sure you'll agree that guitarists are discerning and cultured folk.

Seriously well done. Enjoy the party.

Cheers,

Matt.

[quote name='Matt Molloy' date='May 25 2008, 03:17 PM' post='702437']
[quote name='nish81' post='702350' date='May 25 2008, 11:34 AM']
sorry for bumping this, I just found who his name was. Richard Storey

Yes it is indeed Richard Storry (two 'r's), he was a founder member of the Tetra Quartet. Am glad that he lived up to the descriptions!

What puzzles me is that there was a biography of the examiner available to you at all: the AB examiner I asked about this was of the impression that such a thing never happens in AB exams, whereas I know it happens for Trinity exams.

Here's Richard:

http://www.abrsm.org/?page=teachers/course...ers.html#guitar

We've had them a couple of times at our AB centre. I understand it is the norm for exams taken abroad (maybe someone from abroad could confirm?), but still voluntary in the UK. I've only entered candidates for 3 Trinity sessions, but I've never seen a biog.

(Japan) I seem to remember that there was one once at the examining centre, and have a feeling there was a bonsai bio included on the exam information sheet once (posted out) - maybe it's up to the discretion of the individual examiner?

So I wonder whether folks would appreciate to know the background and experience of their examiner...I'd guess it would go right over the heads of the younger candidates - and might seem intimidating to us older sort who often have quite enough to feel anxious about as it is...

I've taken 5 piano exams in Malaysia and just a few days ago I took one in Australia. I remember being notified of the examiner's name 10 minutes before my exams once or twice, and for the rest, I didn't even know wether they were male/female before I met them, let alone their names. It actually surprises me that you guys get a biography!! It would be cool to know more about my examiner