I know there have been several threads about exam and/or performance nerves and I have posted on several of them already!

My own Grade 2 exam is in early December. I have had a piano lesson this evening and my teacher has told me that if I had to take the exam tomorrow I would pass BUT I suffer from appalling nerves. Even playing exam pieces in front of ANYONE, including my family and teacher gives me the shakes. So I feel that some kind of drastic action needs to be taken...

We have an armchair next to our piano and I am seriously considering inviting friends and family to sit in it and watch me play through all my exam pieces and exercises, including calling out scales and arpeggios for me to play. Is this brave or stupid? Will it help or make me worse? Has anyone tried this kind of thing before and has it helped? Suggestions and comments very welcome!

If you have some understanding friends then go for it.
If things fall apart a bit then don't make a big thing of it if at all possible... maybe even have a laugh about it.

I recommend your suggestion regularly to my students, and do arrange pre exam performances, even to as informal as asking my husband or kids to sit in.

However:

Don't do it too close to the exam because if anything goes wrong it will just make you nervous if you haven't got time to correct it, now is perfect if the exam is early December, because it gives you time to focus on any weaknesses that are exposed in the performance.

I've never done what you're suggesting, but if it's any consolation, when I did my G2 clarinet, my fingers were shaking and felt as heavy as lead - but I still got a safe pass! Good luck, clarijo

Some good advice given already. I invited people to listen to the grade pieces and call out scales and arpeggios over a couple of sessions before my first grade exam and I felt it helped. Also if you accept you are not going to play everything perfectly in the exam and you will make mistakes then you will cope with slip ups better than if you are trying to make everything perfect and get too tense because of that. Before my second grade exam I was less nervous as I knew what to expect. Also I used a herbal relaxant and I'm pretty sure that helped as well. Good luck.

Hi, I know this isn't necessarily the 'correct' answer, but I have found a solution to my nerves and that is to take a beta blocker on the advice of my doctor. It has stopped the shakes completely and now I feel that I might be in a position to start taking the odd grade.

I wouldn't say it rectifies potential mistakes from happening, but I felt so much better and did not shake once or feel my heart beating at 180bpm!. I know it isn't really the wisest advice, but if it is something that is so difficult for you to manage then why not?

It is brave and very wise! Not stupid at all. Well, if you think your idea is stupid...hear this... In order to help my daughter for her exam, we do pretend-play at home. I pretend to be an examiner. (even though I have never taken an ABRSM practical exam myself) I shut the door to the lounge (where our piano is), call her name. My daughter comes in, clutching her books close to her chest.... Then I say "Hello, you must be xxxxx, my name is xxxxxx, would you like to sit down?" For variety, I change my name each time we play! I believe in practice. My daughter does not play the piano with shoes on at home, but for this exam roll play practice, I let her put on the shoes that she IS going to put on on the exam day. She puts downs the books in in order of performance. I cannot do aural for her, but I present her sight reading book, and say "Here is your sight-reading piece. Have a look, you can try it out if you would like." I time 30 seconds, and say "Would you like to play?" and often my daughter replies "not really". . I hope you will find somebody who is willing to do this "pretend play" with you.

I know that these things are not directly related to performance itself, but these things, I really think, have helped my child be more confiient and relaxed about the exam experience. Or Maybe I am strange..

Good luck with your exam next month.

Clairjo, I just wanted to add that, I used to be highly nervous in front of everyone, but now I drag everyone in to listen to me play and over the course of a year it has improved little by little. Obviously I am still a wreck in front of the teacher and am not doing exams because at the moment I feel it's not worth paying the exam fee to fail! (Negative attitude I know!), so really persevere and play in front of anyone and everyone and it will improve in time. You might find a beta blocker helps to take the edge off with the exams and performances (you may not like this approach but it works for me) but in time whether you use medication or not it will improve.

Just a quick line to thank everyone for your very sensible replies.

Mini Mo, as someone who has been there, thank you particularly for your encouragement to keep playing in front of others. I don't think I'm quite ready to go down the beta blockers route but I am glad to hear that you have found something which works for you and I won't rule it as a possibility for the future.

I am hoping to have my first 'practise exam' this evening and will fit in as many as I can over the next week. Thanks again to everyone - I will let you know how I get on!

Do it!!! Play in front of as many people as you can. Get used to playing while nervous, its the only way. As a teen I performed a lot and quickly got used to it to the point where I would have only slight butterflies before going on. (its not like that now sadly)

Just think of the examiners as normal people who wish to be entertained, do your best to entertain them and enjoy it.

Also practice picking up pieces anywhere, from a random note or bar to get you used to picking up if you make any mistakes. I've got an exam in early December too so I'm performing as much as I can before that day. I'm also recording myself - I used to shake during recording, but now its so normal sometimes I forget I am even recording. I wish that would happen with playing in front of people lol.


Edit: I just noticed you posted... good luck!

Might be worth your while to practice the whole exam, including entering the room and sitting down. Your friends can then comment if you got so nervous you set off too quickly, forgot to set yourself up comfortably, etc. It feels like the world has stopped for a thousand hours if you ask the examiner to hang on while you have a look at the piano, but it's really worth your while. Gives you a minute to be in the room and settled, a chance to see how that particular piano feels and handles, and you put yourself into the driving seat of the exam, you will start when you are ready. Decide if you want to do pieces or scales first, and if you want to get your worst one over with or get your best one laid down for confidence, then you tell the examiner what order you want to go at things. You get some practice at saying to your friends "I'd like to play my list C piece first of all, please" so that come the day you won't forget, panic, start with the stool too high and no idea how the piano will respond to your touch and set off at miles over your practiced speed.

Remember that what you fear is fear itself, the idea of being scared and what might happen if you are scared. You aren't actually frightened of performing at the piano, much as it seems like it. The more you get people to run a mock exam with you the more chances you will have to practice using techniques to settle your anxiety and focus your brain. "I am not nervous, I do know how to play this piece, I want to start at this tempo".

All the very best for your big day.

Keep calm and use the piano as your "relax technique".

You have to make sure that your enjoying playing the pieces and that you are wanting to do the exam are feeling "ready" for it.

Hi,
As with all things on the piano, I think dealing with nerves takes practice. It is very hard to put into practice, but try to take every possible opportunity to play in public that you possibly can. You'll eventually get to a situation where, while you don't lose the nerves, you channel the nervous energy into your performance.
Apart from this, there are a couple of other things you can try. To simulate the feeling you have when you play in public, try to run up and down a flight of stairs a few times, and then sit down at the piano immediately afterwards and play. Alternatively, try going for a brisk walk / jog, and then play immediately thereafter. When you're nervous, your diaphragm goes into spasm, so you feel breathless - exercise just before playing simulates this. And on the breathless bit, try to take two very deep breaths before playing - this helps relax your diaphragm, and helps you deal with breathlessness.

Also remember that you're not the only one who battles with nerves - we all do. I've been playing for the best part of 30 years, and I still can't get away from the nerves. Before I perform, I try to think positively - no examiner / audience wants you to play badly, they want you to play well.

Hope that helps, and best of luck!!

Tom

Hi,

Just to add to all advice given ... try-outs are essential before any kind of performance, exam, audition etc. Ideally you need several goes and should record each one of them so that you can listen to yourself afterwards. It isn't so much about getting comments from other people but about learning to play to an audience and finding out how nervousness affects you. Start by just playing to one or two people and build up to a small group. Also if you can, try to do ome or more of these sessions on a strange piano which will more realistically simulate the actual exam experience.

Good Luck.

Just posting again to say that I think I've been given some very sound advice and have picked up lots of really helpful hints which hadn't occurred to me. I am at the point where I feel that everything is well prepared and what I have to do now is get used to playing under pressure. I have exactly two weeks now until the exam, so I will keep re-reading the thread and putting all your advice to good use. Thanks everyone!

My grade 8 piano exam is on 6th December and, for what it's worth, this is my practise regime for it;

Each day I do my finger exercises, wrist exercises, 8 Hanon's and 30 Schmitt's, 3 octaves of each major scale and 2 octaves contrary chromatic. Total approx. 15 minutes. Then I pretend that I'm in front of the examiner and play my two studies and three pieces in the order I shall play them in the exam, with a short pause between them (as in the exam). I know that following this I should get the sight-read and then the Aural, etc., so I sometimes pick up some music I have not played before for sight-reading practice. When I get within a few days of the exam I try to do all of the above at the same time of day that the exam is taking place.

I have found that using this system has helped in my grades 5 & 7 within the last year and I'm relying on it again to help me feel at least a little more comfortable when I walk into the exam and sit down at a strange piano.

I also measure the height of my piano stool relative to the keyboard (9" in my case) with a view to adjusting the exam stool to the same height.

Hope the above helps and best wishes for your exam

I do that too. I mark it as a notch on the last page of my book.

I'm sure this is part of the reason my teacher's piano feels completely alien to me, I'll give that a try tonight.

Just reviving this thread to say that my exam was yesterday, so is now safely behind me! I am reasonably happy with how it went. I think I was as well prepared as I could possibly have been and I did lots of practising of the overall performance, which I think helped me a great deal.

My performance on the day wasn't perfect and I will not make any attempt to predict the result. The nerves were certainly present but were definitely not such a major issue as they were with Grade 1 (and even the Initial before it!)

Thanks again to everyone who offered advice - it helped a lot and really put things into perspective for me. I sincerely hope that I can now keep a lid on my nerves and take these things as they come in the future.

Glad to hear it went well for you, fingers crossed for a good result now

Good Luck with the result.

Glad to hear it wasn't as bad as you feared - best of luck for the result!

Many thanks for your messages!

I'm just back from my piano lesson and have just learned that both my daughter and I got merits, so I'm very, very pleased!



And how fast was that for a result?!

WOWWWWW!!!!! The daughter I met at York?? Very well done to both you and your daughter

Yes, that's right - we are celebrating together!