There is a thread in another forum about warm-up room facilities - which has made me want to ask teachers here ."Do you teach your pupils (young & old ) exam manners?" Or do you assume that grown-ups can use their common sense? I am interested in particular behavours in the waiting room, where candidates (and possibly their minders, such as Mum's, teachers, grandparents, Dads, sisters, brothers...) nervously wait for their turn. Certain behavours are considered acceptable by some and unacceptable by others. I once accompanied my daughter (age 8 then) to the waiting room (in a churchhall), just big enough for 8 people (8 chairs in the room). There were a girl for singing exam with her Mum, mine for piano with me, and an adult for sax with her accompanist. The sax adult started to warm up in the waiting room. The rest of us in the waiting room were speechless. The sax lady continued doing her scales, playing bits for 20-30 minutes, throughout while the singing girl was examined, and my girl was examined and until I left the venue with my girl. The waiting room was across the corridor from the examining room, and my girl said that she could hear the sax during the exam. Do you consider the sax lady warming up in the waiting room was acceptable? There was no other room in the venue for warm-up. I personally felt that it was very inconsiderate behavour, and the lady was being very egocentric. Why didn't I ask the sax lady to stop? Because I feared that if I had opened my mouth, that would have made my daughter feel uneasy, and it would have had worse effect on her than tolerating the sax in the small waiting room. What is your advice to your pupil regarding warm up before his/her exam?

Not acceptable, in my opinion. Concentration during an exam, in a strange environment, is hard enough without the distraction of other music in the background. Surely, whoever is in charge of the venue should make sure that it can't happen. Some professional musicians I know spend the immediate pre-concert time quietly looking through their music to get the opening bars or pieces firmly in their head - maybe this is the best solution before an exam where there are no warm-up facilities. I'd be interested in other opinions as I shall be in this situation in 4 weeks time myself, for my grade 8 piano exam.

This is a difficult one - instrumentalists and singers both need to warm-up before an exam. Sometimes, if you live close enough, you can do it before you go out, but if you've had a long journey to get there, then you haven't got much choice. I don't think that the exam venues are obliged to provide a warm-up room - I'm afraid that I've never been to one, neither AB, TG or LCM which has had a warm-up room, and in all of these, the stewards have encouraged candidates to warm up in the waiting room.

Was your saxophone candidate inconsiderate? I'm not sure. I would say that it's more a case of lack of thought on the part of the venue and steward rather than the candidates. That said, in all the venues I've been to, you wouldn't really have been able to hear what was going on in the waiting room from the exam room.

David

I think this lady was very rude. She could have at least asked people there if they minded.

Wind instruments in particular can be warmed up quietly by blowing warm air through them and also practising embouchure, tonguing etc. I've done this many times in our band while waiting for our turn to play.


Steve

Yes I agree. I have tried to listen out how my daughter was playing, but really hard. Next time, I will bring a glass to listen through. Joking apart, it IS possible, though that a candidate can hear noises outside, and once you know it is there... it is hard to get it out of your mind!



This is the point! Some candidates do not know "HOW" to warm up in the waiting room, and this waiting room is often shared with other candidates. I, as a pianist, the only thing I can think of to warm up in the waiting room is keep gloves on and move fingers around. I had no idea how other instrumentalists, such as brass players, string players, could warm up in the waiting room until stevensfo and oldnotes have mentioned above! I have learnt something new today

I think it will be beneficial for candidates to know how to warm up in a shared waiting room. I don't think you can rely on "common sense" here, when candidates are nervous and under stress. We do funny things when we are under pressure in unusual environment!

These Music Exams has something to say on the subject!

I think I'd have had a word with the steward and asked if it could be heard in the exam room.

I prefer Trinity for other reasons but now I think about it it's the only local centre which has a warm up room on a different floor down the other end of the building.

At our local exam centre there is only the waiting room to warm up in, and certainly all my pupils warm up there. The sound does not carry through to the exam room.

We don't have a warm up room and you can hear, though muffled, what is going on in the exam room. In the waiting room I leave two synthesisers with headphones for the pianists. I do have unofficial access to another building where my flautist can warm up but it isn't very convenient. The recorder players warm up silently in the waiting room. I certainly don't think candidates warming up should be audible in the exam room.

To help with nerves and to keep them quiet I give them paper and pencil music games to do while waiting. But my piano pupils have the advantage of playing on the same piano as the one they have for lessons so at least they know the instrument. I don't remember ever having a chance to warm up back in the days when I was taking exams.I think the problem of not having a warm up is probably worse for singers.

The only exam centre that had a warm up area was our school, the other two centres we have used have involved one son having a practice on his violin in the car, before giving the instrument to his teacher in the waiting rooms to "fine tune" it and the other son blowing air through the clarinet before stepping outside to have a "quick blow" and warm up of the fingers before going into the exam room. Neither boy was told what to do - they just did it as "it wouldn't be fair for other people to be distracted by them". If they can do it as youngsters without being prompted - then adults can too.

It depends on the distance from the exam room and the loudness of the instrument. At our local ABRSM centre the warm up room is not near the exam room, so no-one is allowed to warm up the waiting room. If they did, they could be heard in the exam room. On the other hand I have used a Trinity Guildhall centre where the waiting room is most definitely the warm up room, complete with piano, but this cannot be heard in the exam room. I found this quite un-nerving as I was doing a piano performance assessment and didn't expect my warm up to be a performance to the waiting grades 1 and 2 and their parents before doing the exam!

One of our local centres is like this as is the one the Music Service use for special visits.

The Ab one has the waiting room next to the exam room and a really awful piano. The one and only time we've been there a couple of parents talked all through the the children trying to warm op. The louder they played the higher the speech volume became. I thought this was very rude but didn't want to say anything as I didn't know who was in the exam room. It could have been another pupil of her teachers.

There's never any problems at the Music Service venue, the rooms are below one another. The parents are respectful and the children all get a fair share of rehearsal time.

I can see both sides of the original post. Under the circumstances the steward should have stepped in. If the waiting area and warm up room are the same then the Sax player is not in an easy position either.

I don't normally accompany, due to nerves on my part I confess, but when I did a favour for a neighbour years ago, the ABRSM centre had a couple of warm up rooms, and the exam room was in a different building altogether.