Hello and Happy New Year
I hope to take grade 2 piano in Feb/Mar 05. I started to learn the pieces from the grade book 2004/5 and bought the CD. My teacher doesn't like me to listen to pieces and then play them as it stops me from learning to play the pieces by myself and fully understanding them. She says hang back until a few weeks before the exam before listeneing to them. I undersatand this and decided to change to the new 2005/6 grade pieces and delayed taking the exam. I see a lot of people promoting playing by ear and it does help to pick up the pieces quickly. I am interseted in other peoples experience of this. Regards PlinkPlonkMan

I feel that if you listen to the pieces it will hinder your rhythm reading and your own expression and interpretation as you'll already have those values in your head.

Think of the poor examiner if everyone has listened to the same recording and tries to play it in the same way! I wouldn't listen to the recording until you know what you want to say by playing the piece.
Cat

I think your teacher is probably (rightly) concerned that you learn to read the music for yourself and give the pieces your thought and interpretation. You will only do that by tackling them without pre-conceived ideas having heard them on CD.

However, it is always useful at some point further on to hear as many recordings as you can of a piece of music to think about the interpretation at a deeper level. Clearly with low-grade exams, it's likely that you'll have to use an ABRSM-produced CD which are generally very good.

I loan mine to my students in the last few weeks before their exam if they are struggling with little bits here and there, just to remind them between lessons what they should sound like to avoid them playing wrong rhythms etc when they rehearse. I find their parents (in the case of children) also find it helpful to hear what the music is supposed to sound like! However, I also make very sure that my student has had a lot of help getting started without prior knowledge.

If you don't play a "mainstream" instrument (ie I do a lot of Oboe teaching) you can rarely find recordings of anything much below Grade 7. So, there are a lot of exam candidates out there who've had to prepare all by themselves. Pianists are lucky in this respect (and some other instruments too) that more is available to help.

For now, however, I'd say work under your teacher's guidance and listen to recordings as a "top up" nearer the exam time.

That said, I also encourage my students to listen to a wide range of music on CD and, where that's not possible at home, we do so occasionally in lessons. After all, if you never hear classical/jazz music played by those who can already do it, how do you know what it sounds like? I can play them pieces on the Piano (and do) but I also like them to hear orchestral, choral, ensemble, band music etc. So we listen together and talk about it afterwards. That, IMHO, is productive use of lesson time and CDs.

Lots of good points already which I hope are useful.

Another point I think is that if you get used to hearing the cd, you may try to copy the speed of the cd too soon, and miss out that vital slow phase of learning when you make sure the details are in place. It's quite difficult to imagine a completely different speed if you are used to hearing the finished article.

I think the idea of hearing the cd only after you've done most of the learning is a really good one.

Maggie

QUOTE (maggiemay @ Jan 3 2005, 12:10 PM)

Another point I think is that if you get used to hearing the cd, you may try to copy the speed of the cd too soon, and miss out that vital slow phase of learning when you make sure the details are in place.

Yes, I've just been told off for doing this! I was so pleased with myself for having learned my grade 4 pieces over the hols (now I've finally plucked up courage to take an exam) but my teacher said she was glad I hadn't had any longer to learn in all the mistakes!!!

Jen

Thank you for all your replies and the time you have taken to help me on this matter. I will take all the advice posted.
Regards Mike....

in my experience... if you memorise pieces, your sight reading is c.r.a.p. that's what happened 2 me.

Memorising on its own won't make your sight reading poor.
If you learn from the written music in the early stages without listening first you will have to read.
Also there is nothing to stop you from actually practising sight reading and/or from just playing through any music of appropriate level from the written copy each day.

Well, I think listening to exam recordings can be misleading. Before I heard the CDs I thought I was free to do anything but after hearing it I'm afraid to play it in another way. In other words, I want to play safe.

I don't like the way some of the pieces are played on the exam CDs.
Some of them sound very rushed.. I know that some are meant to be at quite fast speeds, but there is a difference between playing something fast and playing in a rushed manner.