I have a piano student who is nearing grade 7 standard and he is about to start his A-Level exams.

His Mum is keen for him to continue his piano lessons during the exam period to give him some relief from revision which is great, but realistically and understandably, I know practice will be extremely limited.

So I would like to plan around 6 lessons for which he doesn't necessarily need to do any work inbetween - or certainly nothing too taxing. We have been working hard on composition lately and he is playing his composition in my annual concert next week, so I had thought I could expand on that, do some improvisation, technique work in the lessons etc.

Just wondering whether anyone else is currently in the same situation with GCSE/A-Level students or whether anyone has any ideas? Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

When I was doing A-levels, I worked on some improvisation and jazz with my teacher. It worked really well, as it meant that I didn't need to practise much between lessons. I really didn't have much time for practice! I think that working on improvisation is a good idea!

Could you do some aural work, not just that which they will need for the exam but general aural awareness, and tie it in with improvisation, and mayb some sight-reading, and duets. Also what about doing some pedal technique if you've not already done alot on that, and maybe accompanying skills.
Hope these ideas help.

I'd consider doing some keyboard harmony.

Otherwise, if that doesn't interest your pupil, aural and sight-reading as has already been suggested.

It looks like I'm the only one who sees exam study leave as extra practice time!

I have a very similar situation with one of mine - did Gr8 violin last year and now is in the middle of AS exams. We spent some time last lesson discussing what to do in these exam weeks. We have decided to do the following: keep working on studies, even if only in lesson time; play duets for sightreading; choose short pieces within his current level but exploring different musical styles. This week he has borrowed my Teleman unaccompanied Fantasias and the Albeniz Tango.

No you're not, i have an A level grade 8 student who is also captain of the local swimming club team so is swimming 5 or 6 times a week, making amazing progress with his pieces and doing 4 heavy subjects - my only question is when he sleeps

However I have another who seriously struggles to practice between lessons who is grade 5/6 level, so she is relaxing with famous and fun, we have been sight reading duets in the lessons and still working on pieces with the 10 minutes practice between homework subjects method. So very focused work on maybe 8 bars being the weeks target. It does work takes ages to complete a piece but progress is still being made.

I do too! actually, when people say they have no time to practise while they're revising it gets me quite worried about how much revision they're doing. Even if you revise for 6 hours (which seems quite a lot to me) and sleep for 8 (even with 12 you'd be ok), there are 10 more hours in the day...you could practise and still have half a social life - but do most people do much more revision than that?

Duets?

I have one GCSE pupil, and we talked about this at her lesson this week. She likes Abba and I've bought her The Really Easy Piano book of Abba. She's Grade 4 and these pieces are simple to play. I don't want to give her anything she has to work hard at, but something she can sit down and enjoy playing when she wants a break from revision (that's my idea anyway, don't know if it's what she's got in mind!). She was going to do Grade 4 exam this session but has decided it wouldn't be a good idea as she needed to do a lot of work to get it up to standard, so I think she's made a wise decision, and playing something she likes I hope will keep her playing - so many of them give up playing during their GCSE exams.

I'm with you guys on this one! Also, it is well proven that when revising/learning we tend to remember the first thing we do and the last, so if you want to retain more, take frequent breaks so that there are more 'firsts and lasts' in your day... Getting up and playing an instrumental piece is an ideal 'break' activity!

I make it extra practice as well, quite useful actually, mind you i should really do more revision as well. oops.

I have one student who's taking her GCSEs at the moment and although I have told her that I will understand if she can't practise as much or can't manage to come for all of her piano lessons, she feels that playing gets her away from all the revising and enables her to relax.

Thank you so much for all your replies - will try the suggestions.

I do agree that exam times can be tricky especially GCSEs - if they are still playing at A-Level I think they tend to keep playing.

I'm sure it's another topic, but keeping certain pupils motivated and interested during those early to mid-teenage years as hormones, going out, peer pressure & MSN etc take hold can be a challenge!

I've got a few college students who are about to start A levels and who have just done an exam on their instrument. My ideas are similar to the others here...duets, jazz, light stuff. With one I've also introduced extended techniques - multiphonics etc. And another I've just brought along a different style of music each week for us to explore so she has some ideas of what she'd like to play when she gets to uni. One asked if we could do some Christmas stuff. I quickly changed the subject!

I did my GCSE's last year and the bulk of my AS's are starting in the near future...

During my GCSE's, i still went to all bar one of my lessons (because it was an exam clash and no way round it) and we just did duets and not too taxing stuff(being only gr5ish at the time)...It wasn't my favourite few weeks, even without the exams...don't know why...I think it was a good idea to relieve the pressure a little.

This time, having recently taken my gr6 (result pending) my teachers decided that this time I'm going to start work on some kind of concerto (either mozart D or G or a vivaldi Cmin or Gmin i think, I've got a rather large pile to choose from!)
So to others (and to me when I first looked at them earlier!) it's not really a break, but I can see why my teacher has done it. Yes, some parts are absolutely hideous in comparison to gr6 but it's something I can "get my teeth" into without thinking "must perfect it by next week". So in a way it's a break as i can mess about with it during the exam period to either relieve stress or divert my frustrations and attentions from revision but then after the exams, it gives me a proper challenge to continue with in the latter half of the summer term and over the holidays.

It very much depends on the person, I personally think i'm going to prefer this year to last because I like having something to disect for a number of weeks without thinking "end of year concert, AS recital, grade X exam, 5 AS's to revise for" to work for rather than playing a different duet every week, but others prefer the exact opposite.