Hi All

I took Grade 5 piano this week and, well it could have gone a lot better.

Like most adults I am really nervous in the exams and don't handle them well so imagine when, firstly a huge, lazy fly was buzzing around the room and although I tried to ignore it, it kept landing on my hands during the scales and pieces and at one time even landed on my nose! How on earth do you deal with that?

Secondly, although apparantly a new piano, the notes were sticking badly in the heat and humidity and not just a bit sticky but completely staying down - again during the pieces and the scales.

I should add that I took the exam in a hot country which accounts for these conditions and the examiner was brilliantly understanding and couldn't have handled it better or more fairly.

I'm not sure how examiners are able to assess how pupils would have performed in the absence of such distractions but to be honest I'm happy that I got through it and any future exams I take can only be easier at least from the point of view of distractions!

Howie

That was a great example of what you don't want to happen in your exam. Good for you. The fly landing on my nose would have done it for me though

In the olden days of the Advanced Certificate, my examiner was delayed due to a signalling problem on the railway. I arrived and he did not. Eventually he did and was very apologetic.

I passed with distinction, he was very pleasant, and my accompanist and I talked about what I was going to do next. I mentioned going to Howarths to get Oboe and Cor Reeds (the exam was at RAM). The examiner looked at me and said, but you took your supporting tests on the piano and your advanced certificate is in singing? Piano is my third study! Oboe is my second.

I just got the feeling at that point I'd done rather well as he said, I wish more of our students were as complete musicians.

Are we to assume you will also be singing that well-known ditty "One's Own Praises" in your FRSM programme?

I don't know that this accounts for an "unusual exam experience"

About 12 years ago, an acquaintance of mine took grade 5 piano (she was approx 10yrs). At the beginning of the exam, the really-nice lady examiner asked her if she was an "advanced" or "normal" student. My friend was totally befuddled as she'd never heard anything about that from her teacher. The examiner then proceeded to ask for scales she had never learnt before (presumably from the "advanced student's list of scales"). Near the middle of the exam, the examiner finally realized that this poor child probably was a "normal" student (whatever that is) and tried to make the rest of the exam as simple and easy as possible. She seemed "apologetic" about how it had gone; but, as they were completely out of time, she had to finish off the exam.

Needless to say that my friend had a much lower aggregate score than she would have gotten had the examiner examined her as a "normal" student.

Oh no. That seems so harsh

An examiner said that he had an accompanist die of a heart attack during an exam. Since then he's always been nervous of examining grade 7s.

Oh, I have a good one. A story my tutor told me.

He was accompanying few of his students for the exams and he saw a ten year old kid crying and his mother was quite anxious and kept looking outside the building. It turned out that the kid's accompanist didn't turn up and the examiner was kind enough to let them wait well past the exam start time.

Even after my teacher had finished accompanying many of his students, the accompanist didn't arrive. So he offered to play the accompaniment for the boy, much to the relief of the boy and his mum.

Even after this ordeal the boy managed to pass with a decent score! I can't say if I would've passed..

oh dear...poor examiner - and pupil - and accompanist...

My Grade 5 theory exam was in a centre a 16 minute drive away, so we left an hour before the event to allow plenty of time for parking etc (hubby driving so I could relax and focus on the coming ordeal exam - thank goodness, given subsequent events).

There was a traffic jam. On a bit of dual carriageway where there was no possibility of getting off. Moreover, traffic was then diverted through a route that neither of us knew (the original route was so simple we hadn't bothered to take a map).

It turned out that a lorry had jackknifed, completely blocking the road and with its cabin lodged in somebody's house

I arrived 33 minutes after the start of the exam but was allowed in to take it (I learnt later that after 35 minutes they don't allow any late-comers - glad I didn't know that beforehand).

Adrenalin and blood pressure were through the roof but I got through it by thinking how lucky I was compared with the poor people who had a lorry in their living room.

I did something much worse in my eyes. I read the time wrong on the letter which says the time/address of grade 5 theory exam. It apparently started at 10:00am, but I got there for 11:00am. Thankfully, I was allowed to take the test, but at the compromise of 1 hour rather than the allotted 2 hour exam. (Moast alert) Needless to say, I did not reach my full potential, but still got 82/100. Do more than neatness.

Not a music exam, but a hairy ballet exam.
When I was at dance college in London, during the third year, a notice went up stating who was being entered for the advanced exam. Just about everyone was, with the exception of me and a friend. We asked why, and were told that we would probably fail. So, off we went, and got our home town dance teachers to enter us, but at the London centre.
That was when the undercover work started! You wear a tutu for this exam, and of course, neither of us could practice in it. Our college was the exam centre, many of the teachers were examiners, and our fellow third years often acted as stewards. We were lucky, and were allocated a Saturday, managed to sneak into the building, and had an examiner who didn't know us.
When the results came out, most of our fellow students had failed, but we both passed!!
I went back to a reunion a few years ago to find that this event had passed into college lore, and attempted by a few other foolhardy souls.

Good for you!

Not unusual perhaps, but I post so that hopefully none who read this will ever do the same!!!

I arrived for my Grade exam, nice and early. Went into the practice room, did a few scales and ran through my pieces.

Still had time left, so as it was a nice sunny day I thought I'd have a look around the garden (Exam Center was in a private house).

Steward came and got me and told me that the examiner had finished his break and would I mind starting early.

Picked up my guitar from the practice room and headed off into the exam room, the lounge of the residence.

Examiner asked me to play my first piece and I did so. Examiner asked me to play my second piece BL**DY H*LL - I'd left half of my music back in the practice room. I'd got the pieces memorised but I didn't want to risk it without the music.

Went belting down 3 flights of stairs, and back up again in short measure. I felt a right fool!!

Heart rate was going through the roof. Exam went decidedly downhill after that. Sightreading rubbish and aural not much better.

On that day I was a nervous wreck and I even managed to leave my footstool behind when I left.

Anyway, luckily, I passed - but if I'm honest on that performance on that day, I would not have passed me!

So - moral of the story - make sure you have ALL your music and EVERYTHING you need for the exam!!!

All the best,

Nigel

.....Not like one of my violin students who departed from the waiting room to the exam room. He was back in under a minute to collect his violin!

It gave the other ones waiting a laugh!

The worst I had was (being rather allergic to everything... or so it sometimes seems) settling myself down in the waiting room only to discover a bowl of highly scented hyacynths on one side of me, and a cat on the other. I was rather snuffley and wheezy by the time the exam came around!

Images of gorillas in tutus...

Not an exam but my audition for the Royal Academy in Glasgow. I had finished with my principle instrument and was attempting a rather difficult Bach fugue on the piano that I did not know by heart.

It was a hot and windy day... and the window behind me was open... and the music took off in the breeze and flapped all the way across the room!!!

Unfortunately I had to retrieve it to carry on and the audition panel commented that I SHOULD have been able to carry on without stopping and as if nothing had happened

I thought I'd ruined the audition.. and spent a few weeks feeling very sad... but I was offered a place in the end


Another audition was when I took the train from Edinburgh to Manchester for the RNCM. I woke up that morning 5 minutes before my train left due to sleeping through my alarm clock!!! I managed to catch the next train but had to change trains in Preston. I was so stressed I fainted in the toilet at Preston and nearly missed the connection. I also had a sore head where I hit it on the floor! By the time I arrived in Manchester I was a gibbering wreck and my audition was awful - the aural examiner actually sat on the piano keyboard and asked me how many notes he was playing - and I already had a migraine!!!! . Needless to say I wasn't offered a place there.

The candidate before me (Grade 1 piano) was running late so I went in early for my Grade 8 piano. The rep said he would tell the examiner of the change. I went in sat down and the examiner asked me to play A minor, I thought I was on to a good thing as scales are not my thing, then he asked for D major and I was laughing to myself. Then he said I hadn't needed to play hands together, 4 octaves. i said but what was I supposed to do at Grade 8 and he said OH I thought you were the Grade 1 candidate, it seems that the rep had forgotten to tell him. We had a laugh about it then he asked me some hideous minor and by run of good luck came to an end.
Thankfully I still passed!

I know of a guy who greased his clarinet up before his grade 5 and as he was going in the bottom half of his clarinet fell onto the stone floor of benslow and then did the same thing in the exam room. Needless to say he said the tuning was horrible and he couldn't get half the notes out, but still passed.

That would be my luck on Friday! However the other day I'd just been practising the "hideous things in minor keys" and thought 'oh good, at last' tried to practise C major 4 octaves hands together staccato and ended up a note out at the bottom so all is not as easy as it first appears!

I had a heavily pregnant candidate confuse a major and minor scale, the examiner was feeling kind and made allowance for her condition. She was a rather wonderful pupil and did very well despite a serious case of pregnancy brain on the day of the exam.

I had quite a bizarre grade 7 exam experience about 25 yrs ago. We had gone to a new exam centre and the room wasn't brilliant , everything looked a little old and rickety - piano included, which wobbled!

The examiner sat on a squeaky chair and fidgetted for most of the exam, then to top it all about half way through my second piece (think it was a Spohr concerto slow movement) the music stand slid slowly and gracefully to the floor as the as the screw gave way and the legs collapsed. The examiner saw this happening, sniggered quietly, then stood up and carefully put the stand back up while i carried on playing trying not to collapse in fits of giggles.

I got 29 /30 for that piece and a merit overall - needless to say we never used that centre agin but it was a surreal experience!

Examiner forget to ask me to sing for the aural exam. I probably should have kept my mouth shut (she said if she hadn't asked me she would have to judge me by the aural tests I was asked to do) but I told her and we did the singing anyway. Got 18/18 for aurals, but I seriously think its more through her embarrassment than any talent on my part LOL!

I had a similar experience during the aural for my Grade 8 singing exam last year. The examiner asked me to sing back the bass line and then went straight to the sight singing. I said, 'I hate to say this, but you haven't asked me for the cadential progression'. He made a comment along the lines of my bass line singing being so accurate it had put him off his stroke.

On those lines the examiner did double check I wanted my sight singing in the treble clef! Excuse me I am a soprano I can do the Octave transposition in my head but it is normal to give a sight singing test to a woman in the treble clef. Even then the bass-line and sight reading test were more suitable for a contralto very low in my rang. (Pianists have to read bass clef!)

What was worse on Friday was the interruption from another piano in the middle of my scales and constantly referring to F# Major when on the Piano I know that one as Gb! + the Stool I didn't have time to adjust properly and insufficient time to get used to the piano and get the stool right in accordance with guidelines set out in 'these music exams'.

Not very impressed candidate!

I felt rushed at times when I did my grade 8 but I remembered to take the 'when you are ready' instruction at face value and not make a hasty start on anything.
I wouldn't ask for time to adjust the stool and try the piano. I'd just do it. They can't ask you to play if you are still fiddling with the stool height or position. I instruct my own candidates to take their own time and to say if a non adjusting stool is wrong (I had to do that in one exam).
It can be difficult if an examiner is crowding you though and it can take confidence and experience to do what you need.
I'd want to know from my candidates if there were any problems like this so that I could notify the board in advance of results being issued.

A few (both mine and my teacher's):

- in Grade 2 piano, as a 10-year old, I had a real battle-axe of an examiner who insisted that I had to beat time in the aural tests (back in the days when you had to conduct rather than clap the beat) using my right hand "because conductors always use their right hand". Being strongly left-handed, and never having practised conducting with the left hand (and being rather nervous), I couldn't do it. Threw me completely for the rest of the exam: I was just glad it was almost the last part. My then teacher was livid...

- in my Grade 1 jazz, the examiner asked me to play the A minor pentatonic scale as "straight eights, swung". My response: "err - sorry??". The examiner patiently repeated it slowly, then as it registered with him what he had just requested, he put his head in his hands and said "And it's only 10.30 in the morning!".

- in one of my teacher's clarinet exams, the examiner couldn't find the clarinet sight-reading book anywhere, and eventually realised that a previous candidate must have walked off with it. So my teacher ended up with a Bb trumpet sight-reading test instead - an absolute gift, given the more limited range the trumpet candidates for that grade would have been expected to have!

My son inadvertantly came home with the sightreading book from an exam. The examiner left it on the music stand while they did the rest of the exam and at the end son (no doubt trying to escape quickly) just grabbed all the music off the stand and fled. It was only when we got home we realised what he had done.

When I did my Grade 1 piano I had come down with shingles and was feeling quite poorly. However, I was determined to give it my best shot so off I went regardless, dosed up and covered in calamine lotion, and trying not to scratch.

I walked in to the exam room only to be greeted by a startled examiner who did a double take and said - Oh I was expecting a little girl (I assume because it was Grade 1!! )

Anyway all went relatively OK bearing in mind how I felt, and I even felt rather chuffed at my sight reading expertise that had seemed to go extremely well, until the nice examiner pointed out the key sig - and I realised I had played it quite fluently in D major, instead of D minor. I blame the painkillers!!