don't be such a pessimist...a week can turn things over. stop worrying and get on with the actual work. good luck.

I'm sure you'll be OK, Scaramouche. You must have done lots of research for your programme notes, and it will all come back to you in the viva. Try not to worry and just do your best.

Be really positive and tell yourself you will play well - confidence is half the battle, and you know your recital pieces by now. Same with the quick study - just pick out any bits that look technically difficult and practise them in the 5 minutes; don't waste time looking at anything you know you can play easily.

Good luck!

I only have two days left and the nerves are already kicking in. Any last minute tips for what I can do to control myself and make the most of the next couple of days?!

don't over-practised.....

this will sound crazy, but i think one should relax a bit as well....indulge yourself a bit....go to bed early.....

Do practise, but not necessarily the pieces you're playing. Play exercises and lots of old favourites as well as you possibly can, and enjoy them. On the day, you want your programme to come over fresh and you need to put over your enjoyment of them - easier to do that if you haven't been playing them 4 hours a day for weeks beforehand!

Also, revise anything that you think might be useful for the viva. Look at your programme notes with new eyes and ask yourself what an examiner might pick out from them to ask you about. Make sure you know some other key works written around the same time as your pieces and have something prepared to say about them.

And liebe klavier's right - if you can relax, do so - watch a film, go for a walk (if it ever stops raining for long enough!), read a book (not about music!).

Hope your exam goes really well - is it on Monday then?

Thanks for those tips - I'll have a chill now and try not to get too worked up about it tomorrow. It is on Monday - it seems to be only this weekend that it's actually kicked in that I'm doing my DipABRSM exam if you can understand that! I always just thought about it as some event in the near future, but now it's less than 41 hours away! (I can't believe I just worked that out!)

How is your son feeling?

No idea really - he hasn't said anything, and I haven't liked to ask! He's had quite a busy weekend - music centre all day yesterday, topped off by a barn dance; baby's dedication day today (my Goddaughter's daughter), so hasn't practised the diploma pieces at all.

He still hasn't quite finalised the programme notes, and the viva is the thing he's least sure of. It's not until Thursday though, so I'm expecting a small (?) panic on Wednesday!

I hope yours goes really well tomorrow - do post afterwards so we know how it went.

Good luck for tomorrow! Is the exam in Studio 6? If so, let me know what it's like!

I've had a fairly busy weekend and have a busy week ahead so I will be so glad once the exam is over and I can sleep!

Yes - Studio 6.

I've just done the worst thing ever and played my programme through and it was disgusting and bland and I feel like crying because none of the things I've been working so hard on seemed to come through.

I really don't know what to do now. I supppose I'll just have to leave it 'till I reach the practice room tomorrow and do a little slow practice of some of the tricky extracts then.

Oh dear, I think I'm stressed!

Well, I'm back. I'm a bit disappointed really - it didn't go as well as I'd hoped.

The pieces were ok; I made a slip in Chopin's Berceuse and in a couple of movements of the Beethoven Sonata.

Quick study was... interesting. I improvised quite a nice left hand accompaniment at one stage.

Then there was the viva - some questions were ok, but the bloke clearly didn't think my response to 'what type of tuning system was there before the 'well tempered' one you refer to?' was adequate judging by his facial expression. If you get one question a bit...wrong, is that just a complete fail in terms of viva? Also, the lady examiner asked me exactly the same question as the bloke did at one point. The questions were nearly all drawn from my programme notes. I only had one about compositional output and that was to do with comparing Beethoven's early sonatas with his later ones. I had a couple of questions about my programme and programme order.

I felt a bit down after coming out of the exam room.

Scaramouche - the room is really nice (although I preferred the practice room Steinway to the one in the exam room). I liked the acoustics - a very slight echo, which I like, but not an overwhelming one.

By the way, thanks to all of you for your help and support during my preperation for the exam.

Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

I'm sorry it didn't go as well as you wanted it to - but don't get too down about it! The natural response on coming out of an exam is to remember the bad bits, not the good bits - and it sounds like there was lots that was excellent in your exam. They don't fail you just because you make a single slip - the most important thing is the overall impression they get of you as a musician, not the details. Like the fact that you kept going with the QS - I remember on my piano DipABRSM my eventual comment for QS had something like "a few anxious moments but you recovered well" and I passed that bit comfortably - they aren't looking for perfection, just good music

Now go and have some champagne or something to celebrate the end of exams and the start of your summer - you deserve it after all that hard work.

No it isn't.

Don't worry, joueur, I'm sure there were lots of good bits in the viva and you only need 40% on it. The main thing is that you feel your pieces went well, and I'm sure your marks will reflect that. Thanks for telling us how it went.

I think it's very normal to feel a bit flat when you walk out of the exam. After all, you've been preparing for so long, and wanting everything to go perfectly; life isn't ideal, so inevitably bits have been below par, and you feel fed up about it. Time now to be proud of yourself for all the hard work you've put in, and for sitting a diploma exam. Cellocase is right, you should go out and celebrate!

Looking forward to hearing in September that you've passed with flying colours!

I feel a bit "flat" too. The questions were very vague and I wasn't really sure what he wanted from me. I just waffled quite a bit. I'm soooo glad it's over! My whole life practicly has revolved around "my exam" for so long. I feel now I want to just try and forget about it, although I keep remembering bits I could have done better.

All the best to those yet to take them this week

I also did my diploma yesterday - feel a bit lost now - am so used to planning my day around practising over the last couple of months - am not sure what to do with myself! (Must admit I have already taken a look at the LRSM repertoire list to see what music I have!)

Anyway I felt the recital went well, I played as well as I could have done - so I don't know what I could do to up my game, if I did fail it. The piano was lovely too.

The quick study was unexpectedly tuneful, which was nice.

I was a bit annoyed about the Viva questions - almost all my questions were about other pieces composed by the same composers, rather than my actual pieces themselves. So I hardly got to mention any of my research, and was a bit stumped by how Prokofiev's sonatas developed over time (when I was playing Visions Fugitives), for example.

Does anyone know - if you do have to retake a section of the exam - do you have to pay the entire exam fee again or a reduced one?

Depends on what you retake. If you've failed, you have the option of retaking just the part(s) you failed, or resitting some of the parts you passed as well in order to try for a higher mark. There is a scale of fees with all of the options available, but no, you don't have to pay the full fee if you're only retaking the viva. If you're unfortunate enough to get a small envelope, all of this is explained.

[quote name='Muddy Paws' date='Jul 15 2008, 07:24 AM' post='721887']
I feel a bit "flat" too. The questions were very vague and I wasn't really sure what he wanted from me. I just waffled quite a bit. I'm soooo glad it's over! My whole life practicly has revolved around "my exam" for so long. I feel now I want to just try and forget about it, although I keep remembering bits I could have done better

I also felt the exam was very vague.. I didn't use half the stuff I had studied for and almost felt I could have scraped through with very little work instead of the months of studying that I did actually do! Although the process was useful!

Picked up piano again last October. Doing DipABRSM Performance tomorrow at 11am. Have to travel to Birmingham. Scared stiff. More scared after reading this forum. Haven't prepared answers to questions yet! Can barely type.

Good luck everyone else! Those who have done it, enjoy Summer!

Good luck! And don't be scared by reading this forum - I had the same reaction before I took my piano dipABRSM, before I was a member of the forums. It's really not as scary as posts sometimes make it seem; you don't need to have done 18 hours practise a day on your pieces for the last five years; the examiners are human, honest!
What's your programme?

Good to hear that your recital went so well - I always think that's the main thing. Maybe your viva result won't be as bad as you fear; it must be hard to know how you came over. Hope you celebrate tonight!


Be really positive, Miri! Enjoy showing the examiners what you can do and don't be scared.

Very best of luck for tomorrow!


I think the viva sounds very scary - hope my son copes with it on Thursday!

You should be proud of yourself for doing a diploma, Muddy Paws - hope the result is good for you. Maybe forgetting all about it is the best way, as it's such a long time until 8th September. Celebrate first though!

I've just had a rehearsal with my accompanist (last one). It wasn't too bad, but still full of darn mistakes. The Pierne just has disaster written all over it, I love the piece but can't get that across as I'm panicking too much about everything else to do with the piece - it really does sound awful. Oh well. Roll on Friday...

I'm sure you'll be fine. The Pierne is tricky to pull off on sax as it's not such a "dainty" instrument as clarinet, but I'm sure you'll do it. Good luck x

I'm kind of wanting just to get this stupid thing done and out the way.....kind of glad for the reprieve of a few days that I have!

I had a rehearsal yesterday with the pianist which I'm listening to now, which mainly went well, though I always focus on the bad bits and the things that didn't, so I'm still panicking... I'm listening to a recording of us playing now.

I haven't yet played the whole programme through! I've played the two sonatas through separately, but never one after the other, and it doesn't look like I will now. But I've had long rehearsals on them when I've been similarly exhausted by the end, and blessed adrenaline will hopefully get me through...

I'm hoping QS will be okay - my sightreading is generally good and I've been doing lots of it, without the 5 minutes, and harder than grade 7, so I'm hoping the exam will be easier by comparison. Programme notes are basically done, though I'm still tweaking. Viva - who knows?! I've read a couple of hefty tomes on each composers, and a couple of books on the cello. I wrote what's in the programme notes, obviously, so I'm hoping I can field questions on those...


Argh!

Try to steer your Viva based on your programme notes.

That's what I did with my LRSM last year and it worked. Keep control of it and try to not let the examiners get away from the points you very carefully researched and the background material you very carefully have hidden up your sleeve and want to talk about.

This is a knack, but talk authoratively. Adopt a confident body posture, and fill in gaps with leads you your researched info.

However: If you are playing one of the "48" you will be expected to have researched temperament. You should know the composers complete output for your instrument. If is an arrangement, you should know the original instrumentation and who suggested the alternative instrumentation.

Oh and good luck!

What was your LRSM programme, jod? I aspire to a singing diploma at some point, but have a long way to go even though I have sung choral music regularly for 30 years. Can you give me any pointers?

Oh, and back on topic, good luck everyone for the rest of the week - and congratulations to those who have done the exams already.

Biggest pointer, get yourself a good teacher.

Programme:

Purcell: Bess from Bedlam
Humfrey: Hymne to God the Father
Handel: O pur Cosi/ Piangero
Mozart: Exulatate Jubilate (mvt 1)
Duparc: L'invitation au Voyage
Britten: O waly Waly
Verdi: Caro Nome.

How is your thumb now, cellocase? Probably as well not to have played right through the programme while it was poorly. Did you just use a plaster in the end?

Very best of luck for Saturday!

Much improved, thank you, though still sore! And I picked up some blisters too (you'd think my hands were calloused enough, but no...). I did just use a plaster, but took it off once the cut started to heal as it was annoying me.

How's your son feeling? And do you have bananas at the ready?

Glad your thumb is healing OK. Hope the blisters clear up.

Son is very excited and full of anticipation at a chance to perform tomorrow. He's really looking forward to the recital and quick study. Two male examiners; I hope they like his playing.

He's spent a lot of today reading more about clarinet etc and is now happy that even if he completely fluffs the viva, preparing for the diploma has encouraged him to learn a lot more. He's quite an academic chap - as you are - and always enjoys learning.

So whatever happens result-wise, I think the entry fee has been well spent. We are out tomorrow evening, so I may or may not get a chance to post before we go. I'll definitely post before bed though.

P.S. He's not usually too nervous, and prefers to play on an empty stomach, so I think he'll have breakfast around 8am and then nothing until afterwards - exam is at 10am.

I saw some spray-on plaster advertised on TV yesterday and I thought of you! Glad to hear it's healing. I sliced a chunk out of my thumb a couple of years ago and had to wear a bandage/finger guard for weeks, going on months, but fortunately with being clarinet it didn't affect my playing. I can't imagine what it must have been like on a cello Hope your exam goes really well

Good luck to your son tomorrow Berkshire Mum!

Thanks, skylark!

Thanks for your encouragement, cellocase and BerkshireMum.

I wish your son the very best of luck tomorrow - he certainly has the right attitude towards his exam!

Thanks joueur - I'll let you all know how it goes.

Good luck to your son! I'm thinking of him right now Let us know how it went!

Aw, thanks. I played a Scarlatti sonata, Beethoven sonata, Chopin mazurka and Debussy's sarabande (which my wonderful teacher told me not to rush but I did anyway out because I was too nervous :S ). The Steinway grand piano was amazing.

I missed some obvious answers in the Viva voce. I think that was worst. I also played lots of wrong notes in the Quick Study which started slowly for two lines then became really fast with five #s. Failing even one part of the exam is still fail, isn't it? >_<

Hope your finger heals. Did you injure it from practising too much? /admire
--
Thanks, BerkshireMum. 10:40 right now. He is in the middle of the exam. Do well!

Thanks so much to you both for thinking of him today. Your good wishes must have worked, as he had a wonderful time and said when he came out, "I don't really mind how I've done, because I so enjoyed doing the diploma", so you can't get better than that! He was the first candidate in, btw, cellocase, and was able to start 10 minutes early because the examiners were ready.

There were odd small slips in the recital, which is probably inevitable given the length of it, but he was very pleased with how three of the pieces went and felt the fourth was only a bit below par - he was getting tired by then. The accompanist felt it had gone very well, which is encouraging.

The viva, which he'd been worried about, actually went very well; he had lots to say and had to be cut short once to enable them to get more questions in! The examiners were nice and he felt they were genuinely interested in finding out what he knew, rather than trying to find the holes in his knowledge, so he enjoyed talking to them.

He liked the quick study piece, which always helps, and did his best to put it over as he felt it should be played. Most of it was fine, he thinks he caught the mood and hit the right tempo, but he missed one or two of the dynamic markings.

So all in all, a very positive experience. He is still on a high as I write!

Miri, thanks for telling us how your exam went, and I hope you will have passed all three parts. Sorry you were nervous, but I'm sure many candidates are. My son used to get very nervous, but has done a lot of performing over the last three years, which has helped a lot with the nerves. Go out and celebrate now! Congratulations on having doneyour diploma exam.

Cellocase, I'm sure you'll be fine on Saturday; I hope you enjoy it as much as we did, and I'll try and think of you around 9.15 when you're waiting nervously to go in. The Jacqueline du Pre centre is amazing (did you do your Dips there?) and son loved playing there because the acoustics are so good. I'll look out for your post!

That sounds like he did absolutely excellently - I'll be waiting for the happy post in September!
Go celebrate now

Congratulations to you son BerkshireMum, and I ditto what cellocase said .

Ditto. Good luck everyone who's still waiting to sit their exam.

Congratulations to your son, BerkshireMum, and congratulations to you for being such an encouraging parent! You should both celebrate and I hope that you enjoy the rest of the summer!

Thanks to you all for your kind words. I'm off to an end-of-term do for our science faculty tonight with Hubby, which should be good as everyone is lovely. I've just cooked 13 chicken drummers and thighs, and made a trifle last night, so my contribution is done. Have to go and get ready now!

Very best of luck to Scaramouche for tomorrow - I'll think of you and hope it goes really well.

Thanks BerkshireMum, viva stuff is not sinking in...

If anyone wants to throw viva questions at me, feel free!

How did you choose this programme?

Go and have a drink and relax this evening Nat. It will be the best viva prep you'll get for tommorrow.

I am answering these in my head, as I don't want to write answers down on the forum for the whole world to see!

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Oh yes!

I'll have my fingers crossed for you tomorrow : the very best of luck!

Thank you Scaramouche. That is the end of the viva.

Good luck today Scaramouche. I think the saxophone is an exciting instrument - I am sure the examiners will enjoy your recital.