My son has been playing keyboard/ piano for a while and his teacher is pleased with his progress. We tried him out with a Prep Exam last December and he got a very good report. He asked to do the graded exams. We felt quite confident he was alright to proceed and the idea of his getting nervous did not even cross our minds. His exam was this morning. We had a session with his teacher before the exam and he performed brilliantly.
He seemed to be quite happy when he went off with the Steward. However when he came out I could see that he was close to tears. He was pretty upset because he felt he had messed up. I think it all started with his scales – my son was not happy with his performance of his G major scale. What upset him most was his performance of one of his pieces –Never Vex a T Rex, which incidentally was his favourite piece and he has always played very well. If he was that distressed over T Rex, am not sure how he would have done with the Aural and Sight Reading and I did not want to distress him further by asking him too many more questions. I managed to reassure him and he went back to school quite happily.
I will obviously give him a break from exams as he did react quite badly to this one. We now have the anxious wait, but if I go with how he felt about his performance today, then I have to prepare myself as to how I help him if the result is bad. If it is, several children from his school have just done the same exams and they are quite happy with their performances. The school normally acknowledges their achievements in Assembly. This will crush him!
He is not a very confident chap and piano has always been an extra challenge as he has a slight developmental coordination delay. I would hate for this to spoil his love of the piano which it would, (he might add it to his list of "another thing he is not good at") especially if others get acknowledged publicly. I also feel the other children deserve that acknowledgement! I would too, if things turned out differently.
I know some of you will ask me to wait till I see the actual result. History has taught me that he is usually very good at assessing himself. He is a very bright chap and yes, perhaps his biggest critic, but watching him today, I somehow feel I need to prepare myself. This will be the biggest disappointment he will have faced and I would like to give him the right support. Perhaps there is also a sense of guilt on my part for putting him through all this, though having said that, as I told him too, some of these challenges in life prepare us for tougher challenges as we grow older.
I am not musical myself, and I have found it quite difficult "feeding" his artistic side, I am hoping some of you would relate/empathise more with what he may be going through. Thanks

How old is he? Talk to him about it, that's all you can really do. Assure him of how proud you are that he's even taken it, because so many people have never taken a music exam. If he mucked up- so what? It's only an exam, it might feel like life or death to him, but reassure him that it's really not. There's always next time. Tell him to learn from his mistakes, talk to him about what made him nervous and how to combat that. If you get the results back, and they're not great, just be positive still about him doing it. Ask him how he feels about the whole assembly thing. And talk to his teacher about it too, about how they can help to make him less nervous.

When I took my 11+ a few of years ago (might not have it where you are, it's a test to get into a grammar school, which you take at the end of primary school) my parents gave me a celebratory meal. Not for passing it, but just after I'd taken it, they asked me which restaurant I wanted to eat at, and congratulated me on merely taking it. We were very unsure whether I'd pass or not, so they didn't want to make me upset by not getting the treat for passing.

I did pass, and they didn't make a big deal out of the passing, only the taking of it.

Sorry, long answer. Just thought I'd try to help contribute.

He's 9. And the answer is very helpful. Funny enough I told him I would take him out after his exam (similar reasons as for your 11+ exams) and asked him where he would like to eat - being 9 he chose McDonalds! When he came out of the exam he said he didn't want to go to eat anymore, but after our chat (which included how proud I am etc ) he was happy to go. At least I feel I may be on the right track. Tackling the failing part will be the challenge because he does not take failure lightly, but I will definitely give it a go. Thanks again

Please don't worry too much. My children are often way off on their assessment of how they've done, and I'm even worse. I was convinced my son had failed his grade 7 sax, because (believe it or not) we'd managed to miss one whole lot of scales. He got a really good merit and some very nice comments. Every time this happens (which is nearly every exam!) I tell myself that I won't worry the next time, but I always do.

My son, who's nearly nine, tends to fall apart in performances and exams. We've tried to tackle this, once we realised, by finding him low-key opportunities to play to get him more used to performing, and it does seem to be working.

I would be very surprised if someone as well prepared as your son clearly was had really done very badly. He may have lost a few marks more than he'd have liked but I doubt it's a disaster. remember, examiners are looking for what you can do not what you can't. It'll be a nervous wait, but then it always is!

PLease let us know how he did when you get his result.

Your son reminds me of how I was after my first TG exam. I thought I'd failed, came out really upset etc etc, wouldn't talk about it... Got a distinction. I hope your son gets the mark he deserves.

I'm going to say it....I think you should reserve judgement until you see the results. Exams assess so much more than just "no mistakes" in the 3 pieces...and then there's always a little individual variation in examiners.

As for mix-ups in exams - examiners do seem to take the view that they are there to assess the music, not to assess how good kids are at taking exams (fortunately )!

Trouble with playing an instrument is that inevitably, there are bad days and good days. What's important is the effort your son put into preparing for his exam, and what he's learned along the way. If you've enjoyed hearing his progress in his scales and exam pieces, make sure you let him know! Maybe give his teacher a call to alert him or her to the fact that your son didn't feel happy with his performance in the exam - an experienced teacher will be able to do a lot to bring the focus back onto the good days.

You've done all the right things for now. Let him know that you will be happy with a pass so if his result is better than this it's a bonus.

Your son tells you he has made mistakes and not done as well as he could in the exam. Other children were happy with their performance. This does not mean they have passed and your boy failed. He may have more understanding of what the exam was about and is therefore making an informed judgement. Try not to worry until you get the result and I know how difficult this is.

On the point of nerves encourage him to play infront of as many people as possible. Grandparents are often a safe bet, or other family members. Anyone who comes to the house will do. You can always explain quitely why. Don't worry if what he is playing isn't perfect.

Will do, and thanks for your comments... very re-assuring. In a way it would be so much easier to get some indication soon after the performance. I will simply have to learn to be more patient.

I will see if he is happy to join a group as we have done the family and friends. At school I hear he performs to teachers and the other children whenever he gets the opportunity. I think that's why his teacher and I did not worry about nerves. He always says all he has to do is focus on the music! Now that we know this may be an issue, we can explore different options especially considering all his "performances" so far have been with people he knows.

Hello, welcome to the forums!

I'm a parent of music-playing children and a peripatetic string teacher, so please be reassured that what you have experienced is actually quite normal! Quite a few younger children - especially the well prepared ones, funnily enough - come out of the exam room first time and shed a few tears. Often it's actually a release of whatever worry that they were building up that does it rather than anything catastrophic that happened in the exam room. If, as it seems, your son was very well prepared and used to playing his pieces very well, it is very likely that he has remembered the things that he didn't like about his performance and has focussed on that, rather than all the good playing which probably happened in between.

Whatever mark your son actually gets will only be a mark of what that one examiner heard, of just that one play of each piece, on just one occasion and most definitely not a cast-iron "grading" (unlike swimming, athletics jiu jitsu or so many of the other things that children take part in) of his current playing standard and potential now. In the couple of weeks before the exam I make sure that my pupils - and children - understand that while everyone hopes that they will play their very best for the examiner, an exam is really just like a photograph of their playing at just one point in time. Just like a photograph, sometimes it comes out brilliantly, sometimes you blink at just the wrong moment and the camera catches you with eyes closed (whereas usually you have them open - obviously!), and sometimes it's quite ok but doesn't come out quite as well as you thought it might. None of that changes who you are and what you normally look like.

Remind your son - and yourself - that he has done really well to get to the stage where his teacher thinks he is ready to benefit from taking an exam. I nearly always only enter pupils who I think could get a merit - not because I only want good stats with the exam boards but because I firmly believe that a child should only enter a music exam if they are likely to benefit from the whole experience. Many of my pupils spend a lot of time learning varied repertoire and building up a strong technique using material that is especially suitable for that pupil and probably only do an exam every two or three years rather than just blazing through exam book after exam book. As someone's signature so wisely says on the forums "music is for life, not for exams " (sorry if I've not quoted exactly, you know who you are and I'm sorry I can't give you the credit here I can't think who you are offhand!). Let your son enjoy his music, praise his efforts and let him know just how proud you are of him for having worked so hard.

We live in France so it is not the same exam system but here goes...

My almost 12 year-old-daughter took a cello exam in April and we are still waiting for the result (due at the end of June). For various reasons I was unhappy about the way the exam was done and at the end of the exam the examiners said they were "reserving judgement" (they tell you that you're likely to have passed, likely to have failed or "reserving judgement" ie they can't make up their minds). My daughter has decided she's failed and her reasoning is that when she finally gets the results if she has failed she won't be disappointed and if she's passed then she'll be pleased anyway.

When she came out of the exam, I pointed out to her how much progress she has made preparing for it (her progress has in fact been spectacular) and she proved it to herself by managing to sight-read some Harry Potter music which I had bought for her a year ago and which at the time had proved much too hard. I managed to convince her that whatever the result of the exam, no one can take away the progress she has made and that she should be proud of the progress.

I also recorded her exam pieces. Every Christmas we make a CD of my two daughters playing their various instruments as a Christmas present for their grand-parents and she was proud of the fact that I recorded these pieces for the Christmas CD months in advance (whereas usually we just do it in the run-up to Christmas).

Slightly off topic, but recording them has enabled them both to see how much they have progressed from one year to the next. They are not really aware of how their playing has evolved and when they listen to their younger selves they are always surprised by how differently they play now.

I don't know if this will help but my daughter's Piano Teacher has a philosophy that the better you get the more the cracks open up. That doesn't actually mean that your playing is worse but sometimes it feels that way. My girl is 14 and she is just beginning to understand what is meant by this. Perhaps that is what your son experienced.

It's hard waiting for results particularly if there are any blips.

Good luck to him and I hope the result comes soon.

Straight after an exam, it is often the mistakes and slips that loom large, while it can be easy to forget all the things that went 'right'.

One of my students (a teenager) came out of grade one last term almost in tears and quite convinced that it was disastrous - expecting a fail. When the result came it was a just-merit.

I'm sure lots of things went ok as well as the G scale and Tyrannosaurus that didn't go so well. It very well may be a lot better than your son thinks. I'll say it as well - wait and see. You and he may be pleasantly surprised.

We don't focus on exams or results at all. I very rarely give rewards for effort but never for exam results. My children know that with the exception of Grade 8, and we are a long way from that right now, no result matters. It matters very much that they work hard and make progress but what happens on the day really isn't important.
I'm careful not to anticipate a great result either. I don't ever say anything about expecting a distinction or anything like that, which is just as well all things considered.
What I would say though is that examiners' comments are almost always useful and perceptive and it is worth doing exams for those alone.
Onwards and upwards.
Enjoy learning new pieces and getting better.
Dora

I always tell my students that it is the preparation for the exam which matters, not the result on the day. Sometimes things go wrong, adrenaline can have a funny effect on us under pressure, and you can't always prepare for that. If they have practised regularly and prepared thoroughly, that is success for me.

One thing springs to mind though, if your son has always been confident before, perhaps it is just a matter of learning to pick yourself up after a slip. Maybe he hasn't ever made a mistake when performing before. He maybe thought that a mistake on one scale was enough to blow his chances, you and his teacher could just encourage him to "let go" of the odd mistake in performance situations. In the past I have found it helpful to show students the actual marking criteria found in "These Music Exams". They show quite clearly that you can have a few errors and still do well, especially at Grades 1-5. It is the overall impression of the performance which counts.

If it puts him off exams altogether, it may not be a bad thing. Too many students just want to pass exams, not learn to play their instrument, if you see what I mean. My most interested pupil just plays for fun, and as a result of this we have explored a wider range of repertoire than with other students, she just loves making music, and isn't that what is all about?

You make an interesting point - re learning to pick himself up after a slip.
I was going to respond to each post individually as each one has been very helpful.
Quick update -my son is feeling better today and he even played "Gavot" for me - he knows it is my favourite piece (from the pieces for his exam). He also talked a bit more about the test. Basically he lost focus and panicked. He did finish t-rex, but as most of you have highlighted, it was not to his satisfaction.
He also told me that for his SR, the examiner told him after he had finished it that she had given him the most difficult one. I asked him why he thought she had done that - and he thought that perhaps she had wanted to see how much he could do.
We will take some time out to expand his repertoire. Recording his playing is a great idea. We have sometimes revisited his earlier books and he has been somewhat surprised at how easy he finds them now.
I spent some time last night reading the assessment criteria in "These Music Exams." If the fact that he was unable to continue for more than a few beats without error (apparently when he lost focus he attempted to continue a few times) means he scores low on T-rex then that's that.
As far as I am concerned the exam was one bit of his whole musical experience. Achieving good grades would have given him opportunities to enter some great secondary schools. but that would have been a bonus and not necessarily guaranteed.
As long as he is happy and this does not dent his confidence too much, then I am happy too.
Thank you all for your best wishes and helpful comments. I am glad I joined the forum.

You do point out that it would crush your son to hear of other successes in the exams if he had not also managed to get a mention....obviously, wait and see first of all if it really was as disastrous as all that (and it so often isn't) - and if it should have panned out not so well, you could always time a dental appointment or something to coincide with the assembly in question . I'd not suggest this if he were much older, but at nine I think we can still reasonably shield our kids from some of the knocks life brings without needing to steal other childrens' thunder .

I hadn't heard of schools' admissions processes taking music exams into account before. Is that a new thing? Or specific to your local schools?

As for your son's result - he's probably done fine. A lot of kids (and adults!) come out of exams thinking they've done badly, but get good results.
Even if he did mess up one of the pieces, he could still do well overall.

Hi, please try not to worry,my daughter had to start a piece again after nearly half way through and got an overall high merit,you may be pleasently surprised at the results. I think anyone who takes exams like these are very clever and brave and feel sure I could never do it. You have praised your son and made him feel better about it,well done,he will be fine and thinks won't seem so bad after a few days.Good luck and let us know his results.

We have a tradition on music exam days, ice cream! It stems from my eldest daughter's grade1 piano, we arrived back at school to pick the others up with 15 minutes to spare, not long enough to be worth her going back in, so we called at a shop and bought ice cream.

When my little one came out of grade 3 piano last summer with tears welling in her eyes (it had gone brilliantly in the practice room and fell apart completely in the exam, I could hear her stopping every 2 bars in one of her pieces) I just said to her " SHall we go and have the ice cream then?" . She calmed down quite quickly, with a bit of reassurance and did pass, but not quite as well as she might have done.

And we always have pancakes on an exam day too!

Chocolates from Hotel Chocolat

Mean Mum who never does anything with daughter after the exam She only gets congratulations on the results too

Well, to be fair.... She does a lot of exams

I think a small distraction immediately after the exam is no bad thing - it also makes it easy for a child to choose whether or not to talk about the exam, without the risk of either Ominous Silence or Nauseating PostMortem.

Viohazard is very fond of cheesecake, but there seems to be a jinx on it. After every exam, we pick a coffee-shop with cheesecake on the menu, he orders some in happy anticipation and waits...and every single time over the 5-6 years he's been taking exams, the waitress comes back with "Sorry, but we appear to have run out of cheesecake..." .

We always do something special after a music exam, usually lunch. Mine love subway so it isn't expensive.
I'd not thought of pancakes but they are Jamie's favourite food so I will try that one next time.
He's just agreed to give up Crunchy Nut Cornflakes in exchange for pancakes once a month.
Dora

My daughter has done a fair few of her exams at school, so has gone straight back to lessons afterwards. What better distraction could she have ?

[quote name='Teigr' date='Jun 17 2009, 12:35 PM' post='838473']

[/quote]

I hadn't heard of schools' admissions processes taking music exams into account before. Is that a new thing? Or specific to your local schools?

As for your son's result - he's probably done fine. A lot of kids (and adults!) come out of exams thinking they've done badly, but get good results.
Even if he did mess up one of the pieces, he could still do well overall.
[/quote]

Hello - Thanks for your kind thoughts.
I re-checked a few neighbouring boroughs - (these are selective schools) - some are specific eg to apply on Music, the pupil has to have achieved Grade 3, others are not specific but state how many pupils they will take on musical talent - for instance 10. I have noticed, however, that the number for all is very small compared to the intake - about 1-10% of the intake.

Ha! What a difference it makes to be having exams in the UK, where they are almost part of the educational landscape! Last exam entailed...skipping end of school and 90 minute commute home...then about 2 hours' travel to the nearest exam centre, evening exam, 2 hours' travel back home again...and up at 5:30 for school the next morning! Fortification by cheesecake seemed an excellent idea, just a pity it was not achievable.

As for exams and admission, my feeling is that if music is not available as an academic subject, the ABRSM exams offer admissions boards some evidence of what you've been up to all these years.

I have to say, everyone here has been very helpful. Since it was our first experience, I probably felt alone. Listening to everyones encouraging words has made me realise we are not the first, we are not alone and this can happen to anyone.
I also agree, that they are very clever and brave. I know I could never do it.

At first the 2 to 4 weeks seemed too long a wait, but as time goes on, it does not seem that bad.
The important thing is he is much happier and has been enjoying his lessons because he is playing for "fun." His new thing is to play in the mornings before school..... (I am learning to wait politely when we are running late)!

As for the dentist (appointment) idea! I am tempted. I will play it by ear. If the result is bad and he is devastated, I will spare him assembly. If it is bad and he takes it well, then I think it will be important he is there to cheer his friends on. If it is good, I might ask the technical team about the possibility of posting a flashing banner - "You were right - He made it! Thank you" ... or something like that!

"I would hate for this to spoil his love of the piano ...."

Perhaps keep reminding him (and bearing in mind yourself) that playing the piano and passing exams are two entirely separate things. Because he had exam nerves today doesn't mean he's suddenly no longer a pianist, it just means exam nerves got the better of him. It happens....

Encourage him to play, listen and share the joy...

Just a thought.

The elephant

(and good luck with the result anyway)

Not sure mum, if he is now enjoying his lessons again, then it sounds as if he may be able to cope with disappointment if he has to...but fingers crossed that all is well!

Greate that he's started playing before school - it seems to take the pressure off the afternoons, and what a great start to the day.