Anyone got their exam dates through?
I'm doing the Teaching DipABRSM at RNCM on Thurs 18th Dec.... eek!

Good luck with it, and have fun. I actually quite enjoyed the exam itself when I did mine. An hour talking of exactly what I wanted to talk about and they HAD to listen to me

17th December

[quote name='katyjay' date='Nov 13 2008, 05:34 PM' post='759484']

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Good luck with it, and have fun. I actually quite enjoyed the exam itself when I did mine. An hour talking of exactly what I wanted to talk about and they HAD to listen to me
[/quote]

That's a really nice way to think about it, thanks

DipABRSM violin performance on Thursday 18th. I'm sacred now, it's real!

Good luck being sacred!

Which centre are you at, crankycaz? I'd love to hear how your preparation is going and which bits you're confident about. My son did DipABRSM clarinet performance in July in the Oxford centre.

Yes, it's a little scary, but at least now you have the date you can book your accompanist. Wondering whether you'll be able to find someone who can do your time is one of the worst bits, I think! So much of the diploma repertoire needs the performer and accompanist to respond well to one another's playing.

Best of luck with it!

I'll be in Newcastle. I'm just really glad I got that date, because my uni term doesn't finish til Dec 17th so that could've been fun if it had been an earlier date! I have got an accompanist sorted out, the guy actually examines for the diplomas as well as being a pianist so I'm hoping he can give me some good feedback.

As for which bits I'm confident about...I'm not really sure! I guess sight-reading is one of those things I'm quite good at so it doesn't scare me. The viva could be quite bad if the questions I'm expecting don't come up, it really depends how the examiners are with you! Recital prep is going ok, could be better. I've been playing some of the pieces for ages now and I don't want them to sound like I'm bored with them, but I still need to work on them so it's a difficult compromise.

My son was most worried about the viva too, but on the day he really enjoyed it, because it was more of a conversation than a grilling. He found the examiners very nice; they started off with things you really ought to know and then went deeper gradually, so he never felt they were trying to catch him out, just gently probing his knowledge. It's fairly easy to turn the conversation to things you do know about, as many of the questions are fairly open. Provided you know your stuff, you'll be fine.

You're right that the pieces need to come over fresh, so once you've finished working on them try doing a third of them each day, so that there are three days between. If you do lots of exercises and other pieces it will keep up your sharpness and stamina. Obviously, you'll need to run through the whole thing with your accompanist a week or so beforehand to make sure the timing's OK, but don't do every piece every day or you may get stale.

Hope it goes really well!

Thanks! Hopefully if I balance doing work with relaxing about it I'll be ok!