My 12 year old son had his Grade 4 flute exam this morning and so nervous. He went in with his teacher and did the accompanied pieces, which his teacher came out and said were fine. He came out looking like a ghost and said that he had done everything wrong.

I said to him, don't worry, its over now, put it behind you and I am sure that you have done better than you think. Poor love had tears down his cheeks on the way home. My heart went out to him as I knew exactly how he was feeling, having experienced the same feeling when I did my Grade 4 piano in March.

I don't think it helped that he is suffering so badly with hayfever at the moment.

The plus side is that the exam was with Trinity so hopefully he can be put out of his misery in a couple of days, rather than wait weeks when it is with ABRSM.

After we got back home he had a drink and a biscuit whilst it gave him time to compose himself and then I dropped him off to school. Hope he was able to put it out of his mind whilst he was at school and with his friends.

My husband and I have told him, however he does, we think he is very brave for doing the exam and we know how well he plays and we think he is a star! Of course that is never enough to hear is it, as I know only too well when I messed my exam up.

Fingers crossed he gets a good result and he is being his usual perfectionist when judging himself.

ET

I'm sure he has done fine.

I know how you feel as we have the very long awaited grade 5 violin tomorrow and also terrible hayfever. I will be there with the bottle of ceterizine!

I will feel very relieved when the exam is over.

I'm sure your son has done well

Just remind him that grade 4 at 12 (when did he start playing?) is a remarkable achievement in itself, very few children at 10-12 are at grade 3 or above (obviously some exceptions, but generally speaking). I know when I was 12, I was still pre grade one having started at 10 1/2 but by persevering I'm now working for gr8 5 years on...your son should be proud whatever the result. My last exam I was completely convinced I'd failed or scraped a pass as my scales and sightreading were so appalling- yet I just managed to make a merit.

Perfectionism is both a blessing and a curse...usually the latter where exams are concerned!

My 14 year old did her grade 4 flute today too and she said she messed things up!
She was also extremely nervous, and she said in one of the pieces she couldn't get the note B to play - presumably that was nerves rather than a problem with the flute (she's at boarding school so I've only heard from her on the phone).
I said the same as you - that I'm sure she's done better than she thinks and it's over now and she can look forward to the hols and the fact she's now on grade 5!

I also said jokingly that at least her father and I weren't like some of the parents on the World's Greatest Prodigy or whatever the programme was called!

Anyway, best wishes to your son and I'm sure he has done fine.

Hugs to you both.
I hope he has done well.
Dora

Hugs and sympathies to all the hayfever sufferers. Eldatom, I'm sure it wasn't as bad as he thinks, but it is hard when they want it to be perfect and feel that it wasn't. My son had his grade 5 piano yesterday - he was fairly relaxed before he went in, looked a bit shell-shocked when he came out, but recovered quickly with the help of mint choc-chip icecream. He's so far from being a perfectionist that he usually doesn't notice his mistakes, though he did say that he was asked for the scale of F minor and was half-way through F major before he realised it was the wrong scale; he added a bit of 'tremelo' (whatever he means by that) to the right hand in the Bach, but he thought it didn't sound like a mistake; and the third piece wasn't as good "but then it never has been"

How did the Grade 5 violin go?



Thanks for all your comments, keep try and tell him how proud I am of him but this has really unsettled him. He hasn't taken his flute out of his box since the exam, he is convinced that he has failed and said that if he has failed he never wants to play the flute again.

Sat down with him tonight going through the possible scores and showing him that I am sure he hasn't failed and if he has then we are still just as proud of him as we know how well he plays and that was just 20 minutes of one day. Told him he can't throw away what he has done just because of one exam.

Just pray that those results come soon. I thought Trinity were supposed to get them to you in a day or so these days!





Hi enharmonice, did your daughter do Trinity? Have you had your results back yet? How is your daughter, is she still playing her flute? I have never seen my son like this after an exam before, even when he has felt he hasn't done that well and he usually has.

He is flying off the handle at every tiny thing and I know it is because of the flute exam. Hurry up results and please let him have passed, so that he carrys on with his flute. I really miss his flute playing around the house, it was just so lovely.







Thanks Dora.



Hope that your son has done well with his Grade 5 piano crotchetymum. What pieces did he play? I am working on my Grade 5 piano.

ET

Any results yet, ET?

You know, I think just turning up and getting through an exam takes a lot of guts. One of my (quite little) pupils nearly pulled out of hers - but having had a pretty good lesson earlier this week decided to go and do it. She thinks it went ok.

Hope your son's results come soon!

Thanks eldatom He played the Bach Andante, which was probably his favourite piece of all time so far, In the Groove, and Allegro con affetto. What have you chosen?

I so understand! children mind so dreadfully when they feel they haven't come up to scratch - even though no one else minds.

My daughter did ABRSM, so she may have to wait until next term for the result. She has got academic exams starting tomorrow, so they have taken her mind off her flute exam. I think she realises that she hadn't practised as much as she should and that may be reflected in her mark!
I am keeping my fingers crossed for your son.

Well still no results, but hopefully they will come tomorrow. However, I think my little talk with him last night has done some good as today the flute came out of its box and he has been playing it on and off all day. The only thing he doesn't want to play is his exam pieces and I reckon that is fair enough.

I am just so pleased that he has started playing it again and got past it his feelings, especially as he has a lesson on Tuesday evening!

ET

Hi Crotchetymum

I had a look at the Bach Andante after you mentioned it, it does seem lovely but also seems exceptionally hard with those demi semi quavers, did it take your son long to learn it?

I am also doing Allegro con affetto, The Schumann piece and Staccatto Bean. I want to be able to play Staccatto Bean with my eyes closed I think before I will feel comfortable doing it in front of an examiner as it is one of those that I reckon you could get your fingers in a right twist.

ET

It did take him quite a while, but it's hard to tell exactly. He started learning it in November/December, but when he decided in January that he wasn't going to sit his exam in that session, he eased off the pieces he was learning and moved onto some others (that's when he discovered the Allegro con affetto), coming back to his exam pieces after Easter. So from beginning to exam, it was about 8 months! But not in terms of actual playing I love the Schumann

[/quote]

How did the Grade 5 violin go?

[quote name='fluterocks' post='840792' date='Jun 23 2009, 05:01 PM']

She says it went OK but we won't know at all until the result. The sightreading is her problem area and her accompanist said she went too fast on the 3rd piece.

ET have you had your son's result yet?

How did the Grade 5 violin go?



No results yet, but we have our lessons tomorrow, maybe we will find out then. Can't believe it has taken a week when I thought Trinity had said last year that candidates would receive result plus certificate within a couple of days. All my friends children have had them that quickly.

At least he is more relaxed about it now, I think my little talk to him and going through estimated marks really helped when I showed him that even if he thinks he has done as bad as he thinks we still calculated a 70 mark.

ET

My daughter took a Trinity exam last autumn and it was about ten days before her teacher got the result.... Then she kept us on tenterhooks for almost another week, because she wanted to tell my daughter in person at her lesson (even though she saw me at my own lesson within a couple of days of receiving the results)! It was particularly frustrating because, like you, we'd been led to believe we'd hear very soon after the exam.

And we didn't see the certificate for months and months...

IT depends on the local rep and also, I think, on how many days examining they have. I don't think they send out results until the end of the session.

Certificates come some time after you've forgotten all about the exam!

Well still no results, we had our music lessons last night. Our teacher said that the representative would be given the results at the end of each day and it would be up to her to send them out. Apparently she may have decided not to do them until the weekend.

As we were the second day, hopefully ours should come in the next day or so.

My son was quite adamant that he didn't want his flute lesson last night, but I just told him he had to as the lesson would have to be paid for whatever. Teacher arrived and just got straight into some new Grade 5 stuff, one of my favourites a Satie piece. He played all these pieces beautiful, and I think he felt better after this.

I told his teacher that he thinks that he has failed, and that he thinks that she told me that he played the pieces that she was in with him were beautiful, just to make me feel better. His teacher told him that no way would she tell me that if it wasn't true, otherwise when we got the results we would wonder what she had been talking about. She also told him that no way has he failed! Hopefully that will be enough to relax him.

ET

I'm sure your son will be fine, he's probably seeing all his mistakes and recognising where he needs to improve. That could be a good thing as he will be able to use it to progress. Perhaps you could persuade him that it's all part of growing up and an approach to be proud of. Even if the result isn't what he expects he now knows what he needs to work on for the future. Just thinking that putting a positive spin on the negative feelings might help.

I hope you get the results soon.

Your son sounds rather like I was as a girl, though in my case it was with academic exams. I was always convinced I'd done appallingly badly, and I had almost always done very well, so I really hope it will go the same way for your son.

My mum used to try and reassure me after almost every exam by saying that if I knew what mistakes I'd made there could not have been so many, and the fact that I could identify that there were mistakes meant that my knowledge of the subject was actually sound. The children who came out of the exam saying how easy it was were the ones who didn't know their subject well enough to see where the pitfalls, and potential for mistakes lay.

Of course, I never took any notice of what she said, but with hindsight now, and seeing how my daughter reacts to music exams, I think there is a lot of truth in this. Certainly when I took a music exam (Grade 1 Guitar at age about 40) I was very satisfied with the way it had gone, until I got the result and read the examiner's comments about my "plodding" playing. I didn't fail but I only just scraped through. By contrast, daughter is always very aware of her errors and believes she's failed but usually does well (touch wood for exam on Saturday, which she is already insisting she will fail...)

Anyway, sorry, to ramble. I think the omens are good and hope I am correct!

Very encouraging talk from the teacher - and she wouldn't say the pieces were lovely if they weren't. It was definitely worth persuading your son to go to his lesson - finding he was ready to play at the next level would have been hugely reassuring and he'll know that whatever the result (though we hope for the best), flute-playing goes on as normal

Thanks notmusicmum,

Always telling him things like that and reassuring him about how proud we are of him, but it is the way he is, and to be honest I don't think he will ever change. Still no results though, but he seems to have put it to the back of his mind as his temperment appears to have improved the last day or so.






yep, he is the same with his academic exams too, if he has noticed that he has got one thing wrong, then it is a disaster, he did very well in all his exams this term although he thought he had done badly on most of them.

Good luck to your daughter on Saturday, and oh dear she has already decided she has failed!!

ET




Yes it definitely does seem to have reassured him, the flute has hardly been away from his mouth since. Normal flute playing resumed thankfully, I really missed it as I love hear him playing all around the house. No wonder he was so bad tempered he was probably missing the flute whilst he deprived himself of playing it.

ET

He passed!!!

Not as good as mark as he has had in the past but the main thing is that he passed. He was a lot more nervous this time as the exam was in a house and it was a small room with a grand piano and he was almost on top of the examiner.

My son hadn't told me this, I was talking to a friend today and she was saying that her daughter hated taking her exams in this house as the room was small.

I have said that we will tell his teacher that we will wait for a group booking when they hold it in a centre.

Thanks for all you support everyone, and I hope all your children pass too.

ET

Congratulations!!!

Please consider that as your son gets more mature he will criticise his own playing more. It's part of the learning process. I think you are probably right to look for an alternative venue next time.

Good luck to your son in his paying.

That's fantastic news eldatom - congratulations to your son

It must've been very disconcerting being so close to the examiner - especially whent he accompaniast was in there too.

I hope your son is pleased and looking ahead to enjoying a lot more playing

Its like he has turned a corner, he has been playing his flute all round the house anytime day or night like he used to. He has also been playing all his Grade 5 pieces that his teacher recently gave him and loving them. Mind you, I can hardly blame him when one of them is Satie.

He said he wasn't going to do any more exams, I just said oh thats daft when you want to end up with a career in music, we will just make sure that next time you don't go to the same venue.

I made a deal with him, that I will do my Grade 5 piano if he does his Grade 5 flute. Can't help thinking I am somewhat to blame as he watched my reaction to taking my Grade 4 exam, but then for me it was my first practical exam ever.

Anyway, he seems quite happy to go along with my proposition.

Yesterday morning, I insisted he took his flute to church to play in the band, he didn't want to but I stood my ground, it was the right thing to do as he really enjoyed it. Afterwards the pianist came up to him and thanked him and told him how much they needed him as the flute has such a soft tone against the clarinet and trumpet.

Mind you now I have a lot to live up to, they have asked me to play the second piano for 3 weeks in August, how can I not do it when I expect my son to play his flute in the band each week.

ET

Please pass on my congratulations to your son. that is fantastic news and you must be very proud of him.

Saying 'now I have started grade 5' sounds very grown up!

No result for my daughter yet. The results go to the head of music at the school and presumably they are sent to the school rather than her home address so Goodness knows when we'll hear.

My son passed his Grade 5 piano. Not nearly as good a mark as either he or his teacher hoped - it was a middling pass and they hoped, reasonably, for a good merit - but apparently all the teacher's students that day were marked quite harshly by this examiner, compared to a couple of pupils who had sat with a different examiner the previous week. Teacher looked into appealing, but we're going to leave it - one of the perils of sitting the things is that you deal with whatever happens, and it could have been a lot worse! The only real disappointment is that he's not well at the moment, so it would've been nice to have given him really good news instead of good news, if you see what I mean

Congratulations! He's passed at the end of the day and I do know how upsetting it is to get a mark lower than expected.

Congratulations to your son, at the end of the day as I told my son, it doesn't show your mark on your certificate, and as I told myself when I just about passed my Grade 4 piano. You have your certificate and your son knows how he plays and that is all that matters.

Well done to him.

ET