I'm really worried 'bout my Grade 5 piano practical results which are due this month. I played some wrong notes for my pieces and I missed out on a few notes for my scales as well. Forgot to sustain some notes during the sight reading test as well.
Has anybody had this problem before? I'm really afraid of failing.

Pretty much everyone makes some sort of mistake in graded exams. Have a think about what you did well in, and best of luck for the result.

I see this is your first post, so to the forum, I hope you enjoy your time here.

Your post says you didn't do every part of the exam perfectly: If you had you would be expecting 150 marks. I don't know if this has ever happened, but somehow I doubt it. In order to pass you only need 100. If your target is perfection it is highly unlikely that you have lost enough marks to fail.

Besides, whatever you did there's nothing you can do about it now so why worry? I took my grade 8 (making a complete hash of at least one of the scales) on July 16th (a special visit after the normal end of session B) and I haven't had my results yet either, but I'm not remotely worried . . . honest . . . well, not very (anxious but not worried!)

The last performance I gave I repeated 8 bars of a Mozart sonata because I couldn't remember what came next - and had to think quickly and do something. Fortunately after 8 bars I remembered where to go next. No-one noticed! Then - still rattled by that mistake - in the next item, a Chopin etude - I went atrociously wrong, stopped and had to start again. And someone said they enjoyed it more than if I'd just rattled it off correctly first time round - as it added to the excitement!

The time before that - in a student recital - I hit lots of wrong notes in a Beethoven sonata, and got comments like "That was beautiful", and "I wish I could play like that".

Remember the Beach Boys song "Barbara-Ann" where they go completely off-key at one point - but overall it was still the best take - so it stayed on the LP for posterity?

Artur Rubinstein was notorious for hitting wrong notes. Someone said they'd rather hear Rubinstein's wrong notes than Michelangeli's correct ones. In the more distant past Cortot famously played lots of wrong notes, but was revered as the greatest Chopin player ever. And the great Anton Rubinstein was - according to contemporary reports - also not note-perfect (this was blamed on his very broad fingers) but was forgiven because he created such a diversity of beautiful tone colours.

Stop worrying. There is more to playing well than hitting all the right notes. (Fortunately!!)

It's too late to worry now, about wrong notes, as far as your grade 5 exam is concerned and just try and put it to the back of your mind. As far as I can remember, some years ago now, when I took my G8 practical I played a few wrong notes but just carried on playing over them 'till the end of the piece. The problem is not so much playing wrong notes, but rather stopping playing to correct them there and then. By doing this you're actually advertising the fact to the examiner that you made a mistake. In future when you hit wrong notes try and disguise it as though it is part of the music. OK! you probably won't fool the exmainer, if he's listeneing intently and not fidgeting with his papers, but if you're playing to most other people they won't even realise you hit a wrong note.

Has anybody had this problem before?? Only just about every person ever to have taken a music exam! Don't worry - a few wrong notes will not cause you to fail if the rest of the exam went well. I played dozens of wrong notes during my Grade VIII and still managed to get a distinction (and they are much harsher at that level).

Let us know how you get on when the marks come through.

I'd echoed other comments that you shouldn't worry too much. Exams are not about flawless performance. When I did my grade 8 piano years ago, I had one nasty page turn and had to memorise quite a long passage. So, I turned the page and promptly forgot what I had to played, simply "omitted" those bars and continued. Still I came out with a distinction. The examiner's comment was (along the line of): candidate gave convincing performance despite forgetting a large chunk of the piece; may want to consider using photocopy of that one page in future . When you made mistakes, the tendency was to focus on the mistakes and made a mountain out of a molehill (my exam was 15 years ago and I still remembered...) Focus on the positives!

PS> And welcome to the forum!

"The person who never made a mistake, never made anything!"

Here's a booklet the AB produce called These Music Exams

If you look on page 39, you can see what they expect for the different marking bands. Nowhere does it have a requirement of 'gets all notes perfect'. You can have slips in your scales and pieces and still do very well. No examiner is going to expect a perfect performance (ignoring the philosophical discussion of what constitutes a 'perfect performance'!)

Like some others have said, it is done now. Worrying yourself isn't going to change the result. So don't worry about it...in the unlikely event you haven't passed, you can deal with that then. If you have passed - which I'm sure you have - you can celebrate in the knowledge that you haven't wasted lots of mental energy worrying about something which didn't happen!

After any exam there is the temptation to over analyse and get yourself all wound up, I've had mark sheets back with 'a few slips' and passed (mind you I've never had a merit or a distinction).

Personally the hard bit was controlling myself during piano sight reading - they often seem to put in some weird harmonies and I always had to supress the urge to 'correct' them on the fly.

I have heard some very famous names indeed play wrong notes or make nasty squeaks in live performances. We are all human!

There's also the simple fact that most examiners won't actually know the piece you are playing as well as you do. This is why you may be asked to show them the sheet music before the start of the exam: they may not recognise the title, and need to refresh their memories of approximately what they are about to hear!

This means that many examiners may not even notice minor slips and mi###### notes.

[Oh, for goodness sake. Mis-hit notes. Kinda amusingly appropriate though! ]

the censor thingy is way too sensitive...

As a thought a wrong note played quietly is a wrong note...A wrong note played loudly is an interpretation

Regards

Andrew

Love this!! will keep this in mind next time I hit a wrong note!!!

As in my signature, the thing to say is,

"I'm playing all the right notes, just not necessarily in the right order."

Cheers,

Matt.

Another excellent quote I have to remember! I'm sure they'll be many occasions I'll need to use it!!!

As Eric Morecambe said to Andre Previn.

No he didn't, he said it Andrew Preview.

Aye, I'd credited the Late Great Eric in the sig. Youtube is good for finding the old sketches as well.

Cheers,

Matt.