. I had my flute lesson today, and Anna my teacher asked me if I would like to do the same as her other Grade 6 pupils and take a mock Aural Test. I said Yes, she should treat me the same as all the others regardless of age difference, so we began. She explained what was required of the first test, which was singing back the right hand part after both hands had been played twice. Apparently I got the rhythm quite correct, but ducked out of a larger interval and sang just a third instead. At least I finished on the right note! I remarked that this was the same as but more difficult than the Aural test at Grade 4.Then came the sight singing. First Anna asked if I wanted to sing from the bass or treble clef. I thought probably the treble but an octave lower than written. She explained that the piano would accompany in both hands while I sang the line I had chosen. The cassette started and the first couple of bars went OK. But then I had to sing from an A up to a D. Yes I know it is only a perfect 4th, but it didn't come out like one
. As a result my last three notes were quite bizarre sounding and turned a perfectly ordinary piece into a most modern composition. I nervously looked at Anna and it was clear she didn't know what to say, so I volunteered the words "that wasn't very good was it?". She smiled and asked me to try again. On my second attempt, realising that the interval hadn't been large enough, I made it some kind of 5th - but not one in the book 
. This also wrecked the ending as you can imagine.Anna smiled an even bigger smile and suggested that we sing it together. I discovered that she has a really lovely soprano singing voice (which I have never heard before) and I tried really hard to follow her lead up to this note. The problem was that the D above middle C is just a bit on the high side for me and in spite of all my efforts the note was just, well frankly, appalling
. It was so bad it put her off and she couldn't finish the piece, at which point we both collapsed into a fit of laughter 
. When she had recovered her composure, she said "perhaps we had better try the next test on the cassette" 
.I came home and ordered a copy of the David Turnbull book Aural Time for Grade 6....
The good news today though was that I managed to play a G# melodic minor straight off first time, so now I must change my signature
