With Examination pieces, do you think we should play each piece strictly as it is written or do you think we should be able to add bits in or improvise a bit?

Regards,
Craig

At the AB violin seminar at the Royal Academy I attended a couple of weeks ago, it was stated that it was perfectly OK to improvise a little (like adding twiddly bits) in the Baroque pieces. My friends and I raised our eyebrows I must say - we wish we'd been told this before and there's certainly no mention of it in any AB literature I've seen!

But there you go.

Violinia

I'll all for variety and improvisation - but NOT in an exam situation.
Remember these examiners will know these pieces inside out and backwards, they'd spot a change a mile off.
I once couldn't reach a large chord when I was a kid - for an exam piece - so I had to play it in 2 bits as it were - but done quickly its not so bad. But if you can't reach - you don't have a choice. And the examiner spotted this and it wasn't a problem.

I can't see why you'd want to. After the exam - by all means - disect it and play around...
If it's due to boredom having got the piece off perfectly - maybe you should leave the piece alone until the exam is due and play other things. And I wouldn't even attempt to play around with it before the exam just in case during the exam you accidently went off into it unconsciously...
In my humble opinion, you'd risk dropping marks by changing what was written.

Perhaps if you really know the musical period the piece comes from and it was acceptable to modify whats written, and you do what's acceptable, maybe so.... but it has to be a risk...

-

Dear Indy_epx

Yes, I see what you are saying and agree entirely with your points. I have no intention to improvise or add bits in during the current Examinations and I WOULDN'T recommend it. Neither is it my intention to say to people "Go out and play as you like before your next exam."

It was more of a thought than a question. We read here about the number of people who are nervous before an exam. Would people be just as nervous if they were comfortable with their own arrangement of the piece? It is the Performer that is being marked and not the music?

Hope you are all well,
Craig

In Baroque music (which I'm extremely familiar with, being a recorder player!) the performer is generally expected to embellish the melody, especially on repetitions of the theme, so I encourage my pupils to add extra ornaments - up to a tasteful limit, of course!
For example, in the green-book (piano) Grade 2 A1 piece, all my pupils who played that one have added two or three extra turns, mordents etc. in the last line, because to me the music seems to cry out for it.
Another example, though not Baroque, is that in the Bossa Nova (green book, Grade 5) I encouraged them to vary the repeat of the first section on the 2nd page, in the style of the embellishments expected in the repeat of the Head in the Jazz syllabus pieces.

Both of these types of addition/alteration seem to please the examiners, and the pupils concerned all got good marks for those pieces. I think the examiners would be wary of a candidate who changed things a lot, though!

I agree with the comments about baroque music, but you have to be careful what you do - ornamentation is one thing, making up extra bars and changing the piece in any other way is another. Be careful what you do in an exam - anything too contraversial, whilst it could please the examiner, could also offend him/her

Dave

for baroque pieces...i will play straightly from what it's printed.... and play "baroquely".....such as use the figerings that would probably use by Bach himself.... but i think it's hard...as those pieces weren't actaully composed for the piano...as the piano wasn't invented yet...

plus....i use Urtext.... i think it's a better edition....

I think you need to be careful. Ornamentation in Baroque music is one thing, improvisation in a Jazz exam another but actually "modifying" standard pieces in a standard exam might be a bit dodgy.

The syllabus says that examiners will respect individual interpretation, so in a Romantic piece your use of rubato might be very different to mine, but changing the notes and rhythms doesn't seem like a good idea to me