So, in one of my exams, the oboe keys filled with water and it took about 5 minutes to sort it out The examiner was very nice about it though and didn't hurry me or my teacher up. It did make me nervous so I felt as if I couldn't breath in the last piece

no.2 was at an audition where the Oboe top joint cracked and I had to borrow the school's and one of the keys of that stuck so I had to put the top joint of the school's and the rest of mine together to play

Anyone want to share their horror stories and how the examiner reacted?

I don't know why i'm starting this thread now 'cause it was a few months ago

Certainly the most embarrassing thing that happened to me was when I got the late, and quite famous viola player/arranger Watson Forbes to examine my Grade 6 Organ. My teacher , (who was also the centre manager as there were only 2 candidates), kept calling him Mr Watson instead of Mr Forbes.

I almost fell off the stool in a piano exam. I had positioned the stool where I liked it in relation to my arm lenght and distance from the keyboard - I hadn't realised that the pedals were much further underneath than I'd come across before (it was a grand piano) and when I went for the damper I couldn't find it and had to slide forward onto one cheek. Then I needed the soft pedal too and ....

Mines a bit similar.
When I was playing in a piano exam, the floor was really polished so every time i would use the damper the stool would slide causing a loud squeak which thus caused me to wobble then halfway slide off the stool.
Got a good mark though, maybe the examiner just really likes comedy???

Not sure if I should mention my exam disaster here as it's not actually a music one but a gym one!
When still a teenager I turned up at the sport centre for the exam. Realised in the changing room I had forgotten my outfit. When my name was called the judges sitting next to the mat stared at me when I arrived dressed in a tracksuit bottom and t-shirt. And to make matters worse just as I started my routine the elastic band around the waist of my tracksuit bottom snapped!!! I did the whole routine holding my tracksuit bottom with one hand!!!!
I looked at the judges before leaving (as gracefully as I could holding on to my trousers ) and they were just staring at me with no expression on their face!!
When I received the results I had passed (not sure how!!!) and the comments were: "would have had better marks if had worn appropriate clothing and had not spend the all routine pulling up her trousers!!!)

I had a bit of a disaster today - coming down the stairs 20 minutes before my students arrived for their exams - I slipped and broke a toe (obvious - it was sticking out at a ghastly angle!). I had to accompany one boy for 2 grade 2 exams (cello and recorder), so I ended up hobbling in with a bag of frozen peas taped to my foot. Spent lunchtime at A + E getting (literally) straightened out, then had to come back and do my own exam (grade 2 harp)!

Gah...

I have some rather spectacular bruises

Wow! A true musical trooper! All in the line of duty...! Hope you feel better soon!

Thanks The show must go on....

Emsoboe at the last Oboe and Piano Exams but more effect on Oboe. Horrible virus with a nasty cough. Managed the first piece but ended up coughing in the rests on the second and couldn't sing on the aural at all.

Poor Sue - I bet that really hurt!

If it's any comfort, my daughter was knocked off her bike a few days before her grade 3 violin, and damaged her knee. She had to walk into the exam room on crutches, while I carried the violin! She definitely got the examiner's sympathy vote, though, and achieved a distinction.

Did the shock affect your playing, do you think, or were you able to play just as usual?

I was a very inelegant frozen-peas pianist, but I was neatly strapped up for my own exam! The examiner has been lovely all week, and he was very sympathetic. I am feeling a little sorry for myself now that the local anaesthetic is wearing off! I gritted my teeth for the accompanying and was OK I think. The toe was still numb when did my exam, but I did feel a bit shaky. However, something like that keeps the exam in proportion - it was important to me not to let my students down, and I decided to have a go at my own exam - after all, I can blame the trauma if I get a bad mark!!

Sympathies, Sue, sounds most painful.

My near disaster was two years ago, when accompanying the summer term exams. I had a migrainey headache developing for most of the morning before the exams, and was sick before leaving home, and had to stop the car to be sick again on the way to the exam centre. I managed to get through the exams I was accompanying, and be supportive in the waiting room for the higher grade candidates (although I warned those I wasn't playing for that I might have to make a swift exit). I was fine right up until my last candidate, a Grade 8 came out, and I stood up to leave. I then had to make an undignified hasty dash to the loo.

It put my nerves about accompanying into perspective.

Ouch Sue!!!!!


My Exam Disaster was two days ago and it's not even an interesting one.

I had a total brain blank on a scale!

I tried and tried and tried and couldn't even work out how I even held the instrument, my viola, never mind play a scale. It was truly terrifying! I have practiced them for months and took the same grade on violin over a year ago so the 'finger pattern' was the same... but my mind was like soft toffee and there was no way that scale existed on the face of the earth. I was so embarassed and turned pink! He said nothing!

After the fifth false-start I rambled up the fingerboard on some random notes and hit the top one and came down a little better but missing out a couple of notes

I apologised profusely and he proceeded to ask me practically the entire repertoire of scales/arps for that grade - I have never played so many scales in an exam before!!! I still made a few errors but no brain-seizures.

THEN... he gave me sightreading in the key of the scale I just fluffed!!! So what did I do in my '30 secs'... play the scale perfectly

What a mess - I'll be lucky to pass them but he made me work!!!

I believe, that if you mess up one particular scale then the examiner will ask you several more that are similar to see if it is a consistant problem rather than a one off.

In my G8 exam I did my scales after the aural (I protested about cold fluteness, and the examiner gave me a slightly blank look). So when my 3 octaves of C major died a death once I hit the third octave, I promptly got asked for 3 octaves of C minor, B major (slightly better tone) B minor (flute was warm enough by this point), and various A and B appeggios, etc.

Perhaps your examiner asked you for lots of other scales so he could feel justified in not knocking off (many/any) marks for the one you messed up!

Poor SueHM!

Hope your toe starts to feel better soon...

best wishes for a speedy recovery SueHM...

My real exam disaster was a long time ago now. I was due to take grade 8 piano and oboe on the same day, within 2 hours of each other - a Saturday morning. Oboe came first. Friday night, accompanist phones up to say car had broken down and now couldn't play for exam. So I had to rush to music school (where exam was taking place) at 8.30, ready for exam at around 9.50 and desperately beg one of the piano teachers to play for me. One of them reluctantly agreed, by which time we had no time for a run through, so she sightread my parts, admirably, in the exam. However, my nerves were in tatters by this point, and our 'ensemble' was not great! Scales were even worse - they will always go when my nerves kick in that badly! Dragged myself out, ready to play for piano grade 8 at around 10.20.

Well, I passed both exams, just! Fortunately, I'd already done my music college auditions, as this was all a couple of weeks after my A levels, and had a place to go. Things improved rapidly from there, I'm pleased to say, and that was the first step on a very rewarding journey!

Oops! Should read 11.20 - they didn't come straight after each other, thankfully!

Me too! In my grade 8 clarinet exam a week ago yesterday, i mucked up nearly every scale i was asked, tho i did manage to do F# maj and arpeggios .

I practiced them nearly every day for months and could ply them perfetly the day before!!!!!

Gutted!


And my examiner was hard of hearing. He had a hearing aid which he obviously didn't have turned on as, during the aural, he thought I said perfect instead of imperfect so my identification of chords didn't match up. I did correct him but I dunno...

Dunno how well I've done still waiting to hear.

i agree with the scale thing, i messed up the last octave of Eb major arpeggio and then was promptly asked for Eb minor.

Actually, now I think about it, my worst exam disaster was when I was a teenager and I had grade 8 clarinet followed shortly later by grade 8 piano on the same day.

The clarinet exam went badly because of terrible nerves so I refused to do the piano exam - my Mum had to take me home in pieces. My (amazing) piano teacher never spoke to me again and I had to find another teacher (who was rubbish).

Oh dear... and I thought my 2 day gap of g8 Oboe & Piano wasn't long enough

My own exam disaster was in my Grade 5 piano - I was half way through my first piece when the music fell of the stand onto my hands (there wasn't even a page turn!)

Examiner was lovely, and just told me to start again - and I got a distinction.

Accompanying disaster - my first attempt at accompanying. We'd rehearsed the start loads of times, I'd told her to slightly lift her violin to let me know when she was starting. Nerves got the better of her and when the examiner said "when you're ready" she just launched into the piece wtihout even looking at me!

She stopped after 3 notes and we started again

In my Birmingham Conservatoire audition the fire alarm went off half way through. We all had to go and stand outside for ages and I was absolutely freezing and dying for the loo. The people still had the rest of the days list to get through so when we came back in they made me restart immediately and where I had left off. I couldn't move my fingers, my head was all messed up with the interruption, I was worried about being so late home and nobody knew where I was and I had my legs absolutely crossed not to wee myself in the audition room.

No, I didn't get in.

Ooh, and similar to the gymnastics example, I was in a swimming gala and my hair bobble broke when I was putting my bun in. I decided just to jam my swim hat over loose hair. The race was 50m fly and my hat duly fell off. I have extra-ordinarily long hair, we are talking backside and beyond here. Every time I brought my hands through I got more and more tied to my hair as my arms windmilled around. By about 12m from the end I had both hands thoroughly tied up and hair pulled tight across my throat and I sank with a total absence of dignity.

Not musical and 32 years ago, but still an exam disaster . . .

. . . 6 days before my first A level exam I was sprinting the last half mile home (after a 40 mile ride) on my bicycle and I hit a pot hole. Landing head first at over 30 miles per hour, spending 36 hours in hospital with the resulting head injury and turning up for the exams with your head in a bandage suffering from concussion and double vision is not the best way of preparing for A levels. I remember very little of that summer. Goodness knows how I managed to pass let alone get the grades for medical school!

I somehow got a B in a GCSE exam where I wrote half of my name on the paper and promptly passed clean out. I am told the school did not send any papers for mitigating circumstances, so I guess I must just have done phenomenally on the other 2 papers. Then again I know someone whose family member tragically died mid-A-Levels and despite informing them they were sent exam results showing "missed paper" and no recalculated results.

In march I had three exams, which all went wrong.

First, grade 3 jazz sax. It was accompanied by cd and the backing tracks were all quite similar. I had to operate the cd player, and didn't realise it was on the wrong track until halfway through when it started being VERY syncopated and dischordal. Luckily the examiner was lovely and I still got a distinction.

Next, grade six sax. I had a COMPLETE mind blank on scales. It was awful. I couldn't play any of them, I couldn't remember how to move my fingers or where to put my hands, I slurred tounged ones and tounged slurred ones, did majors instead of minors... it was awful. Luckily I pulled myself together after that and got a clap and a "bravo" from the examiner after my first piece!

Finally, grade six violin. It was in quite a small room and as I walked in I somehow managed to knock the stand over It hit the examiners desk and almost knocked over his jug of water. I was MORTIFIED, but he and my teacher/accompanist found it VERY ammusing. Both of them kept giggling through the first piece, and, because I can't help laughing when others do, so did I. Which meant that I couldn't play part of my first piece properly. Whoops. I got a merit though. So it can't have been that awful

Well, at least it was violin, and not a wind or brass instrument... I remember in concert band a few weeks ago, there was one bit in this new piece where everyone else stopped and it was just the drum-kit and 2nd clarinets. The other two 2nds stopped playing because they can't sight read, or just couldn't concentrate properly, so it was just me, with everyone staring at me, for 8 bars! I got to the end - just - and burst out laughing!

Off topic. Sorry

For my Grade VIII exam my accompanist insisted on bringing a page-turner, who turned over two pages during the trickiest bit (a long chromatic passage) of the last movement of the Robin Milford sonatina for treble recorder. Luckily I'd practised it loads so I just kept going and let the others catch up, which they did - and the examiner wrote in his comments "You caught the spirit of the Vivo well"!

A more nerve-wracking experience was at the Devon Performing Arts Festival when four of us SRP members performed a Purcell chaconne-divisions-on-a-ground-type-thing, and my music fluttered off the stand just as the pace was hotting up. I was mortified at letting the consort down, even if we were the only ones competing in the recorder ensemble category. Luckily we managed to pick up where we left off, and although the adjudicator didn't refer to this mishap in his written comments, he did congratulate me verbally for dealing with it!

for my grade 8 clarinet exam I'd had a practice with my accompanist in the warm up room and had a marvellous run through of all of my pieces....... then went into the exam room and started piece 1..... got about halfway through and my mouth/cheeks sort of gave up on themselves. I had to stop mid piece and ask for water (just to get a bit of a break...)

still got a merit so was happy I still passed..... but after getting distinctions for every other clarinet grade I was a bit gutted.

I'm sorry RoseRodent, but that did make me laugh!

Glad to be of service.

Speaking of flyaway music, when I was doing a military tatoo, we had practiced and practiced like mad the massed bands thing, but only in our working dress (normal shirt and trousers or shirt and kilt) and when we went on for the real thing in full regalia, feathers and the rest we came around the tightest turn and everyone whose music pad was up high lost it as they crashed into the pipe band. We didn't get any of it back till much later, and after it had seen a few passes of 15 massed bands and a highland dance troupe over it.

Like some others, a non-musical tale, but definitely the most embarrassing exam of my life.

In the middle of a German oral exam, the back hook of my b** broke suddenly (not sure if forum rules allow the spelling out of this word for an undergarment worn on the upper torso by females and female impersonators, in the latter case, filled artificially). In any event, it was an alarming moment when I felt the garment in question suddenly float free of its mooring. The discomfiture got worse: as I struggled to converse intelligently about literature while getting my case endings and verb forms correct, the b** gradually worked its way upwards under my blouse, creating a strangely lumpy appearance on my front, while the mammary glands beneath it bobbed about like buoys on a choppy sea. Both examiners were of course male.

Well, I haven't had my exam yet. It will be on 20 November, but I already can tell it won't be fun. Exactly as last year, my flute broke down right before the exam. I have to replace four pads and don't know where to steal enough time to do the job. Besides the fact that I still need to get pads and paper inlays before I can even think about starting the repairs. Now, I have to play on a EUR 20 China flute which just isn't up for the task.

Well...this wasn't a disaster exactly, but it's the funniest thing that's ever happened in any of the exams I've sat It was a philosphy exam, and there was a really really large (ie enormous!) invigilator walking up and down the rows. I was sat at the front, with one desk in front of me, and the invigliator got tired of pacing up and down, so came and tried to perch on the empty desk, which promptly collapsed. She ended up flat on her back and made the most hilarious squawking sound...and lay there until the other invigilator came to pick her up. I was in hysterics, and had to finish the exam with my fingers in my mouth to stop myself laughing out loud!

I once had a computer engineer out to my house and he had been there an hour before I realised that my husband's valentine pressie of a semi-nudie semi-undergarmenty picture had been proudly displayed on the wall.... next to his computer. Trapdoor, please.

My father took his driving test in the days before seat-belts were compulsory. He asked the examiner to put the seat belt on and he refused. When my father did an emergency stop, the examiner went head-first into the windscreen, shattering it (but not going through it) and broke his nose! My father then had to drive the examiner to A&E whilst still on his driving test. Unsurprisingly, he passed!

On the night before my grade 8 exam I decided to clean my bow for that special occasion. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to use shampoo and the result was a super-slidey bow with no grip.

On the day itself the weather was hot and sticky and the exam was held at a local concert hall with the stage lights blazing down. Now I had sweaty hands as well as a glossy bow. The examiner kindly offered to point his electric fan at me to cool me down and I struggled through the exam spending more mental effort trying to keep the bow on the strings than actually playing the music. Thankfully I passed. I'll never again clean my violin or bow just before any serious musical event.

These have had me in stitches. Sorry to laugh at others misfortune as I know the same fate will be bestowed upon me at point!

This happened to me in a dance exam last March! Twas grade five ballet, so a pretty serious exam (ballet grades in the syllabus we do only go up to grade six) and we had purchased "nude" coloured underwear to go under our leotards-halfway through a particularly "jumpy" exercise, I heard a "twang" and realised what had happened amazingly, when I got out of the exam, the other two girls who were taking the exam said the exact same thing had happened to them at different points in the exam!

Fran, that made me laugh! Particularly in a graceful ballet exam!!

In my grade 5 singing, about 8 years ago and with a different teacher, I was doing the sight-singing task. I'm rubbish at it and I started it once and it was all a bit awful. I started again and the examiner just stopped playing, looked at me with this weary look, and said, 'Shall we just stop this then?' and I had to say yes! I got no marks at all!

I was really ill and managed to fall over in my grade six exam in December-it wouldn't have been too bad, except I fell over moving from barre to centre-essentially, I fell over walking! I was devastated and came out of the exam in tears, convinced I'd failed-I somehow managed to get a distinction

Ooh poor you! Worked out ok in the end though!