Hi! I'm new to the forum and this is my first topic [got to start somewhere I suppose!]. I was wondering if there any students out there who have had any experience with the Grade 3 Piano 2011-2012 Syllabus. Did you have any favourite pieces, any difficulties with particular technical work? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I'm afraid I don't know anything about grade 3 piano (therefore making this post essentially redundant) but I just wanted to say, welcome to the forums! Hope you like it here

Oh that's alright I was just wondering if there was anybody who had any knowledge of it. But thank you for your best wishes

I have the new pieces for my grade 3. I chose the Beethoven Bagatelle, Enigma Theme and Northern Lights. All alternate pieces lol, I wasn't over keen on many others to be honest!

Hi and welcome to the forums!

I will be entering grade 3 in June, having scraped a pass at grade 2 last year. Haven't seen the exam book yet, so can't say what I'll be going for.

Hi there! interesting. I was looking at Tanaka's Northern Lights, but I must say the 3 that in the end particularly stood out for me were all in the selected piano exam pieces! I've decided on A1 Prelude in C B1 Sad Song C3 Both Sides Now. I felt the Prelude would give me a little challenge, especially near the end where I suppose you would need to control with the semi quaver notes in quick succession. The Sad Song's articulation really appealed to me, and the Both Sides Now arrangement is expressive and would be a good challenge seeing as I played a piece similar to it's type in Grade 1 [less difficult, obviously ] and got a 26, which I wanted to push up to a 27. Great to hear your pieces! Would love to hear how you do in the exam all the best...


Thank you! do let me know how you do in your exam or any pieces you chose. Refer to my previous reply to aesir22 if you'd like to know how I came to choose my pieces. Good luck

I learned the prelude too for fun. The arrangement lacks a lot of baroque qualities I think, and adding some in may help with your exam. At the end, on the rapid scale down then up, I held the top note for a slight moment longer, and gradually increased speed as I went down until the I reached the bottom note, then played it full speed back up. I also decorated the last chord...can't remember exact notes though, will have to look at the score tonight. Can't remember what the ornament is called, but rather than play one note, I played three notes in rapid succession so they kinda blue together and thrum lol. Represented by a kinda

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Kinda written like that lol. The mordents are nice, and I would ignore the fact that you only technically have to do it in one bar, and I'd do it in all three.

At the beginning, I emphasised each starting quaver ever so slightly as well.

I like the Northern Lights piece, simply because it is such a challenge. Arms crossed throughout the entire piece! And its in a dodgy time lol.

I'm taking my exam next week and I've chosen A:2 Englischer Tanz in A, B:2 Kleiner Walzer and C:2 Stroll On. I think Both Sides Now is an enjoyable piece to play but my teacher suggested I play C:2 instead because I'm playing B:2 -.- You should check out alanchan1024 on youtube, he's playing most of the grade 3 pieces

Aye he's got a thread on here with the link to his youtube stuff

I've got a Student making a similar jump. He's spent some time learning a real variety of repertoire. The Pieces we've selected are A1 Bach prelude - our experience with the repertoire have shown he has a flair for the Baroque so this is a sensible Choice. B3 Wilder Reiter - Schumann - again he took well to other pieces in the "Album fur Jugend" so this is a logical step. C1 - Tanzenritt - my wildcard based on some Kablevsky he has recently learnt.

I liked all the pieces listed in the A and B lists printed in the ABRSM book. I like C1 and C2, but I'm not keen on the arrangement of "Both sides now" as it does not capture the magic of Joni Mitchell's original which is one of my favourite songs.

Good luck with your selections, I haven't actually looked at pieces 4-6 on any of the lists as there are sensible selections amongst pieces 1-3 on all of them.