Hey guys just letting off some steam/ need advice for improvement.

i can play my pieces well. but today i did them hoffifically.

1. Allegretto - Dymanics - fine , made a slight rhythmic error in 2 bars and played 2 wrong notes. i think my tone was fine :s

2. evening - Was fine - cant think of much i did wrong to be honest!

3. Someone like you - Started off singing WAYYY high - then mucked up timing , went out of tune, but think i maybe managed to pull it up to a pass at the end but quite honestly HORRENDOUS.

4. Hero, was fine to start with , then missed my timing to come back in , forgot the words even though i could see them , but i think i pulled off the high notes .

I was told at the end that she'd heard me sing better so many times before......so i think ive failed

Thing is - is it just because and exam - because ive played evry one of my peices fine - until i walked into that room


xx

Sounds like you did an awful lot right though.

Won't comment on the singing bits (not enough knowledge), but it sounds like you have little worry about the instrumental bits. Wrong notes happen to the best of us, and they may well have gone unnoticed.

Best of luck for the results.

Well, the examiner (your teacher also i think you said?) will hopefully give you the benefit of the doubt as she has heard you at your best. Don't worry about the results, it sounds like you did ok with the instrumental part, you say you managed to pull of the vocal parts, that shows that you are aware of what is going wrong, and can correct it - thats good. Just remember, you are marked on what you do well, and examiners what to give you the best mark possible, they aren't there to make it miserable. Don't worry about it, it should be fine.

I hope you guys are right -
and i hope im right on thinking what i did right!

x

It's very easy to focus on the negative. It sounds like a lot of good playing/singing went on, so that's something to think about.

It's ok, Laura. It's the prelim. You have a while to polish things up - are the practicals in February? (I know the AH ones are generally in May/June, but can't remember when the others are!) You seem to know what you need to work on. I'd say to work on the opening of Someone Like You; make sure you can hear the notes in your head before you open your mouth - look at the piano part to see if any of the notes correlate. With Hero, you could perhaps find a recording of it and listen to it while reading the score and counting, just to make sure you are absolutely certain of knowing where to come in.

It sounds like the nerves just got to you a wee bit. Could you perhaps arrange to play infront of a small handful of friends or something about a week before the practical exam? When I did SG and Higher, my teacher made us all play one of our pieces in an evening recital, in the week before the exam - apparently this time scale gives you enough time to work through any glitches which might suddenly arise following the recital, but close enough to the exam to help calm your nerves, somehow.

Sorry, I seem to have written loads! The very best of luck to you.

I'd second this - don't worry too much, it's the prelim. And it sounds like you didn't do so badly as you think. Re: your teacher's remark, it's all relative, if your level of singing is usually above what is required, then even if you don't sing as well as you usually do, you're still likely to be within the boundaries of a pass.

Not sure what level you're doing, but I remember coming out of my SG practical (the final one, not the prelim) completely gutted because I thought I'd messed up so badly that I had to have failed. It had all gone wrong from the start - all the music rooms were full so I hadn't had a chance to warm up, and then the person who was meant to go before me was so nervous that they couldn't pull themself together enough to go into the exam room. So I was made to go in considerably earlier than my allotted time, having not warmed up. I was playing a piece by Handel, can't remember the name of it now, but it wasn't a particularly difficult piece, probably only about Grade 4 or 5ish but there was a bit which went quite fast, and if I didn't get it absolutely perfect it fell apart, and you guessed it, in the exam, I made a mistake, and the passage fell apart, and I asked to start again. Came out of the exam room in tears.

But anyway, to cut a long story short...when my certificate came through the door I had got a 1 for SG practical. So I don't think these school exams are ever as bad as they seem.