Cheers all. At my teachers suggestion I'm going to learn the grade 2 classical pieces over the summer and do that at Christmas. I don't feel quite ready to do grade 3 jazz yet although I've already picked out my pieces and can't wait to learn them! Clearly a glutton for punishment!

Congratulations! Glad it's all going well for you

Just took my Grade 8 piano this morning (a special visit examination, hence outside the normal dates).

So nervous I could hardly play, made worse when he asked me two scales (two! well, one scale and one arpeggio) not on the syllabus, one of which I made a complete hash of. Also made at least one fluff in each of the pieces. And the piano was so "bright" it was almost a honky-tonk - the hammer felts must be all but down to the wood.

On the plus side, did 90% of the scales & arpeggios near perfectly, didn't stop in any of the pieces even when fluffed, brought out the main theme at each place in the Fugue and got the articulation, dynamics and interpretation just the way I wanted (fluffs apart). The sight reading went really well and the aural tests were OK: full marks for sight singing and modulations at least.

Overall I'm absolutely certain I've passed and passed well: I suspect that the distinction I was hoping for went West with the scales!!

Results in 3 weeks (ish).

I did have a similar plan - I've just done G3 Clarinet and I want to get to G6 ASAP to join the local band, however I want to be a good & confident G6 so I was thinking of doing the Jazz Clarinet exams in tandem/intermingled. I looked at the Jazz G2 pieces and the 'Classical' G4 pieces and now I'm not so sure as the Jazz stuff looks harder! My teacher has set me going on a Jazzy piece which is on the G4 list - so I may go with that but I seem to change my mind about the hare/tortoise approach every other day.
I'm trying to keep the summer fun and am just playing bits I want to - but some days I feel myself getting sucked into the exam treadmill.

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I did have a similar plan - I've just done G3 Clarinet and I want to get to G6 ASAP to join the local band, however I want to be a good & confident G6 so I was thinking of doing the Jazz Clarinet exams in tandem/intermingled. I looked at the Jazz G2 pieces and the 'Classical' G4 pieces and now I'm not so sure as the Jazz stuff looks harder! My teacher has set me going on a Jazzy piece which is on the G4 list - so I may go with that but I seem to change my mind about the hare/tortoise approach every other day.
I'm trying to keep the summer fun and am just playing bits I want to - but some days I feel myself getting sucked into the exam treadmill.
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Was talking to my teacher about this the other (i.e. the exam treadmill and worrying about getting stuck there). She was saying as long as I was taking them to give myself goals to work towards (which is what it's all about for me) rather than to 'say' I'd passed such and such exam...there was no problem with me doing 2 or even 3 exams over the coming year.

One of my long-term aims is to get all my scales learned, so doing an exam will force me to knuckle down and revise them over the summer. Ideally I want to do G2 classical and G3 classical/jazz over the coming year so (this is really sad) I tried them all last night, worked out which ones I could still remember, which ones were hopeless and I'm going to put together a timetable of x number per week, for the next 8 weeks...yes I really am sad!

Congratulations to everybody who has received such great results so far.

I took my g7 singing earlier on and think it went well (except for the sight-singing - didn't realise it was unaccompanied!) How long do Trinity usually take to get back to you?

x

Well done, Robodoc! It's all good experience. When I took my grade 6 piano at the age of 30 I couldn't stop my hands shaking and fluffed nearly everything! So you did well to get your interpretation etc the way you wanted it.

I'll look forward to hearing your result, though it sounds as if we may be on holiday when it arrives (we get back on 10th August).

My friend/teacher has just texted me with my grade 3 clarinet result - amazingly I got a distinction!! I don't quite know how that happened since I thought I had flunked my scales. I am so pleased.

Well done

Well done, that's great!

Well done Taxidriver - Should set you in good stead for your course in September.
(I'm still waiting for my result I'm not good at waiting)

Well done

Thanks smd. Hope you don't have to wait too much longer for your result!