Hi there, I wonder if any other parents here have lived through this....my 13 year old son is taking grade 5 trumpet next friday. He's quite well prepared; he enjoys his playing, it's one of many interests he has but not his passion in life. (His passion is astronomy). He says he's not nervous, but has been getting really grumpy and cross during and after his practice. He thunders down the stairs and announces things like "I hate music" and "what is the point of scales" etc etc. I have tried giving him calm sensible answers, tried laughing it off, tried telling him we're proud/he's a good player regardless of his exam performance, tried sharply telling him to stop being silly, nothing stops his rage. Normally, he is a sweet, kind, cheerful boy; only music practice seems to bring out this monster in him! I've told him he's made a commitment to do it (he did have the choice) so has to see it through, as I believe in teaching him to be a man of his word. There's no question he will pass, he's playing well.
Does this ring bells with anyone?
I don't want to live through this again!

Yes it rings bells. I have a 15 year old horn playing son with a looming grade 7 exam. I think he'll pass, but his sightreading and transposition are very dodgy and scales somewhat variable. He quite enjoys playing most of the time, but is not helped by having two more musical sisters, so feels that he can't play in comparison to them. His teacher has suggested to him that he practice for more than half an hour a day to build up his stamina, but his maximum is usually about 25 minutes and he gets very grumpy if asked to do more.

It definitely sounds like nerves. Elder daughter got very grumpy in the run up to grade 7 piano, which she wasn't quite ready for when she took it. (although she did pass) From my experience the best thing to do is to largely ignore the tantrums, pamper him slightly (frequent application of chocolate works well with girls, or PS3 for our son). Maybe suggest he concentrates on one or two things that he might be able to improve at this stage before the exam.

Good luck anyway.

Yes, I fear teenage nerves have manifested themselves in your house. My trumpet playing son always regretted entering for exams. Scales were a trial, and aural a big challenge - let's not go there! Sight-reading and transposition, for some reason, were ok. But he passed every one that he was entered for, and was very happy about it afterwards.

My daughter was the same for piano exams, although not so bad for singing.

I agree that a certain amount of pampering and "gentle" treatment for the next week might ease your way through and agree with andante about the concentration on a few aspects. I used to help with scales by reading out random scales, but that was a challenge to me to keep my mouth firmly shut if they were a struggle or sounded wrong (some trumpet scales only do an octave and a half which I thought very strange!).

I think you've tried the whole range of responses and now all you can do is ignore the rages as just his way of venting his tension.

As Susie says, I'd tread quite carefully this week - no need to change character completely but now's not the moment to have a go about dropped socks or the messed up maths test.

It's only a week - you'll be through it in no time. Just be quietly supportive in the background - he's got to deal with his own way.

Roll on next Friday!

It's really common to be nervous in early teenage even if you've done exams at junior age with few nerves, so it's a good idea to let your youngster know that it's OK to feel nervous - it's how you respond to the nerves that matters, i.e. they shouldn't prevent you doing something you want to do.

Ours responded to talk about their parents only expecting them to do their best, and the usefulness of experience in performing under pressure. Our son was always desperate to learn to drive from quite early on, so drawing a parallel with the driving test helped with him - I failed my driving test twice despite my instructor being sure I was ready for it, so we used to have a laugh about that and say that in the long run it hadn't mattered. Actually, I think the having a laugh bit was quite important, because it released some of the tension.

Very best of luck to your boy.

BB smashed up his music stand about six months ago because he got into such a rage about his scales! I tend to sit in with most practises now as I worry about the bassoon but I am considering getting a punch bag to hang just outside the music room door as I think this temper wil only get worse with age.

Will he give it up after grade 5 or does he want to continue? May be best not to sit any more exams until grade 8 now.

It's really hard if you've been making lots of progress and suddenly hit a brick wall with it! I've had this over the past few days with my piano which I put down to over tiredness - only 4 weeks until I have all my free time again! So I can see why kids who have lots of activities get really frustrated. They need to know in the grand scheme of things Grade 5 Piano, Cello, Clarinet or whatever isn't going to be life changing but it should be put over in a way the pupil does not think it is pointless.

Hard one ...

I trained to run teenage parenting groups a while back and there was a lot in the course about the importance of listening to teenagers. Rather than giving advice, however good you think that advice is, I'd try listening carefully to what he's saying (even if it's said grumpily and unreasonably) and then say something that shows sympathy with his mood, such as "yes, scales can be annoying can't they" or "so you're saying you feel frustrated with music and practising - is that right?". This is called 'reflective listening', ie saying something back that shows clearly that you are really hearing what he's saying. When we're frustrated or angry, so often we don't want advice or reaction, we just want a bit of empathy. Knowing he's allowed to say what he feels without fear that he'll be told off or given advice he doesn't want might make him feel more free to air his worries, and then he might calm down - or you might realise he is really unhappy about the exam and have to think about whether or not to go ahead. It's worth a go anyway. It worked really well with my daughter!

Thankyou all for your wise advice and sharing of experience. Listening carefully is always my first response, always works a dream for my daughter, but with my son, in this situation, it seems to wind him up the most, as he wants to have an argument to release his tension and you can't argue with someone who's listening kindly to your rage. If I say little and listen much, his statements get more and more cross and outrageous trying to provoke a response, usually ending in some wild statement like "I hate the trumpet!" (he doesn't, he loves playing in all his ensembles). Then he'll start swinging on the door or tapping his trumpet on the floor. Then I have to tell him off before he damages something.
Come to think of it, these episodes don't usually last longer than a few minutes, he runs out of steam eventually, but it's not nice to see your child struggling with his feelings and my own frustration stays with me a lot longer than his mood lasted.
I'll be glad when it's over. He's got no ambition to be a professional trumpet player so we may decide for the future that it's not worth the stress.

Maybe dispense with the exams and let him just play just for fun rather than ditching the trumpet altogether. This is what we are doing with the piano as we also had a couple of stressful days before last week's exam.

The exam is this afternoon, and my son was raging after school yesterday about hating music and giving up trumpet completely. I did the tactic of "you sound really frustrated about it all....you can make your own choices from now on, we'll support you...I understand what you're saying" etc etc.
I gave him an enourmous portion of cheesy pasta bake (his favourite), after which he played through all the exam requirements like an angel, sight read three studies perfectly and grandly announced he wants to do grade 6 next year. Sigh!

I guess it worked, then.

the cheesy bake, yes!

Would you care to share the recipe?

lol! clearly it has magical powers so is my duty to share.
cook some pasta. meanwhile, gently heat some milk with some cornflour, bit of salt/pepper/dried herbs, let it bubble gently. When thickened, switch off the heat and stir through a big heap of grated cheddar, a nice quality mature one. At the same time, sweat down some leaks and chopped peppers, big manly pieces, with some butter in a lidded pan. Mix the veg, pasta and cheesy sauce together and put in a dish (stir through some chopped ham if you like meat). Cover with more grated cheese, mixed with fresh breadcrumbs if you can be bothered with faffing with that. In the oven until the top is crunchy and almost burnt.
Not exactly weight watchers I'm afraid....

Sounds ideal for growing lads! Hopefully things will be better once the exam's over.

Really pleased to see that he's already thinking of grade 6 - not because I wish you more stress, but because it means that actually trumpet is quite important to your son. That's probably why he's been so angry at his inability to reach perfection in exam preparation. Once he can turn that anger into determination to improve, it will be a great driving force to help him achieve greater heights in his playing.

Do let us know how your son feels the exam went. Be prepared for him to think it was much worse than the results will reflect, as they are often quite self-critical at that age.

Hope it all went well. I look forward to trying the recipe on my Sonny Jim - sounds just up his street.

Well, after all the ups and downs of emotion, he did it on the day without a hitch, and seems satisfied with his performance.
what a rollercoaster!

Hurrah! Well done to your son! Awful as the run-up has been for you, it's another step along the road. Fingers crossed for a great result to encourage him to continue playing.

Oh that is good news. Well done for surviving the rollercoaster.

Being the parent of a musical child is one huge roller coaster. I hope your son gets a good result and well done to you for supporting him

So glad to hear it went well!!

Daughter had one of those great moments this morning - her pieces for piano grade 2 have come together at the last moment and she was positively glowing after her practice. First time she's really had the feeling she can play and that all the hard work (and wailing, grumping, tears etc) was worth it. Her teacher has gone from wavering whether to put her in for it, to saying she could even get a distinction if she has a good day...

Roll on Thursday!

Discovered this morning that son's horn exam clashes with his GCSE french speaking exam, so not he needs to see if school can swap him with someone else. Otherwise I will have to contact Trinity to see if they can juggle it around, but that will mean messing the teacher around who is accompanying him, so I'd rather move the french exam.

It is very reassuring to read everyone's sympathy and similar experiences. Thankyou. Andante, what a dilemma, I hope you can manage things ok. Dawnmc21, good luck to your daughter. Kids like to wait till the last moment!!!!

It's the silly way these GCSEs are done these days they are constantly doing modules and assessments. Hopefully they are phasing some of it out next year, so my youngest should have less of that. The next two weeks he has all sorts of assessments and exams and I suddenly realised that it might clash. Fortunately the speking exam they all do separately, so it shouldn't be too difficult to get him to swap, but they have assigned them so that the ones that do Italian and French don't do them on the same day, whuch won't help. I just hope they can be flexible, maybe he could do it before school.

Sounds like that went well then katemorrisviolin! Now it's our turn as last 3 nerve wracking days 'till daughter's grade 8 violin.....

She just had her last lesson this evening - was horrified to hear teach still pulling apart those scales - yikes! It's my intention to keep her so busy over the next two days that she won't have time to worry....

It seems very early to have a GCSE speaking exam - they're usually in April at the school where I worked. I hope the school will be able to swap him, but it's a bit stressful to have two exams of that nature on the same day. Best of luck.

I think they do the exams when they finish each module. They do three over the year I believe.

Well done on the exam and I hope he gets his result soon.

I discovered a couple of days ago that DS did not know any of his grade 5 singing pieces. He has had a lesson roughly every 2/3 weeks - 15 mins shared lesson with a chorister learning something else and he has had no practice due to the same old boarding problem we had last year. So today he managed to remember two out of four songs but he has not been taught how to "perform" the pieces. Why the teacher would give a boy a song about two lovers I have no idea. He doesn't get the context and now needs to remember the words and when to sound excited or dreamy. I'm really cross that the one exam he should have breezed may not even be graded if he can't remember the words.

All too soon, this problem will be solved! Meanwhile, what about hamming it up to help the words stick? Recite rather than sing the words, with all possible hammy expressions, gestures and weird voices, preferably in font of a mirror and preferably with somebody else (=Mum) being just as silly alongside...

I agree! I also find that when it's mostly there, writing out the words helps too....and when I walk anywhere just running them in my brain as I walk to iron out any sticky bits.

Daughter is taking Grade 3 singing next week. She seems ridiculously unconcerned - in spite of losing her voice for most of the last 7 days and now being on strict instructions not to overtax her voice.
I suspect she may be disappointed with her end result though - she seems to think that because it's 'only' Grade 3 it will be a doddle.

I don't know how her teacher went about choosing their pieces for them as she seems to use the same ones over and over again irrespective of the child.

And none of us have any idea what the Tom ta Tri ta song is meant to be about - apparently it's Ukrainian.

Daughter learned the words in chunks rather than suddenly trying to sing a whole song from memory. She kept the words in front of her and tried to avoid looking at them for a little longer each time. She also drew cartoons on bits where she needed to show a particular emotion. I think, MNW, that it's anathema to an 11 year old to show any emotion (except possibly bad temper) so it doesn't feel natural to them to express emotion when they sing. Younger children possibly find it easier.

So we had the last practice session this morning as he is now off to the Abbey for Advent all day and the exam is tomorrow. Didn't get one song right, and has now moved verses about. When he sings with conviction it sounds great but he doesn't know them well enough to relax. Oh well, he's leaving soon and we can try and put it all behind us...

The only other thing to remember is that I don't think the examiners know the songs as well as they do pieces for other instruments as there are many more to choose from. Unless it's famous they are unlikely to know if he turns verses around unless he makes it obvious. If he tries to look confident then he'll most likely get away with it.
Good luck to him!!

I think you may find that adrenalin will kick in and give him a performing edge. Ok, so he and his friends are underprepared compared to some candidates but they've got years of training and experience to fall back on. I would imagine a lot of children are entering these exams with only few terms of lessons under their belts and no performance experience at all.

[quote name='katemorrisviolin' date='Nov 25 2011, 02:19 PM' post='1108759']
[quote name='andante' post='1108745' date='Nov 25 2011, 01:33 PM']
Would you care to share the recipe?
[/quote]

Sounds delicious. Wonder what it does for organists

only grade 3! I've had to work blinking hard to get to grade 3. I feel your pain though, but most kids seem to rise to the occasion at the last moment. Good luck to her.

The 'only' is definitely in her head not mine. Kids (and parents ) can make too many comparisons - and taking group lessons in a Music Centre can make that 10 times worse.

Teenagers are hardwired to take risks. It is good for them. Taking exams aged 14-21 is perhaps the best time of life to take them. It is harder when you are older as one gets risk adverse. So as parents we must make sure we do not imprint our adult brain perceptions onto our adventurous teens and give them a chance to succeed.

Of course there will be those who find it harder, but if we as adults give them the best opportunity to succeed, to feel they can do it, they probably will.

They need good food, enough sleep and a chance to work things out for themselves. They need times away from exams to get things wrong on things that do not matter in a situation where they are safe. They need us to listen without us engaging our 'reptile brains'

It is hard to be a parent in that sort of situation. Give them space and listen and they will get it.

I've just let youngest son spectacularly fail at something as he just has not listened. He has two days to put it right with some help. It can either come from the school or from me, however this time he will have to listen and as I have put some money towards things - to a certain extent, so will the school.

It just happens to be an area where I know what I am doing, and quite frankly I've had enough of every one's arrogance. It will take me approximately 2hrs working with him to put it right, but they are now supplying me with the rest of the resources..

There are times it is good for our children to let them fail and this includes music exams. Other times when we as parents are the problem. The main problem, and I'm guilty as charged too, is as parents, it is too easy to get so involved that you can't see why you are now the cause of the problem.

Stand back, and ask a close friend for their viewpoint. Then take heed of their perspective.

I don't see how any of that is relevant to this thread. OP has said her son is on track for a pass, and the exam is now behind him. She also sounds like she is feeding him well and I am sure we all ensure that our children get enough sleep.

JoD, I am confused, but that's not unusual so I apologise if this isn't what you meant, but according to the above, you haven't actually let your child fail - it seems that you have let your child almost fail and then you will just step in at the last minute and rescue it and it will all be ok. I am not sure that this actually teaches anything other than that it's ok, mum will sort it out!

I don't know what Jod is referring to either. I think there are times as parents when we have to step in and prevent failure. I don't think though that learning to fail isn't a valuable experience and there are certainly times when children must learn from their own mistakes and profit from their work.

I'd always step in if the child was keen and putting in the effort and being failed either by the system or someone else. If it was lack of effort I'd talk to them about it but failure down to that wouldn't worry me.

There are times too when it's ok to say enough is enough we will move on.

I think you've summed it up better. Sorry folks, I've had a bad chest infection and have been battling a rather head-strong young man at the same time with little backing. Last night I was bashing my head up against a brick wall and was absolutely shattered.

Hard work, aren't they. We all do what we do out of love. Hope you feel better soon.

Yes Kate!

1) I've had my own music exam
2) I've got the Primary School to try to get to listen to me. Most of the time they are OK. The head teacher is a sweetie, but even he has periods of 'temporary deafness'.When the whole school is in 'Christmas Bazaar mode' and all acting like headless chickens, the mere fact I've been involved in things like this since I was 7 years old and might know a little about the subject doesn't 'cut the mustard'... because I'm only a mum and have not got QTS. (Younger Son is meant to be running a stall. The fact I'm providing the prize, and had set initial ground rules has passed him and his teachers by... apparently!)
3) Both my kids are at an age where 'Mum know nothing, and they are always right... even when they are wrong'
4) Sorry fellas, but being the only woman in an all male household is hard work. I've a husband, two sons and two neutered Tom Cats.
5) This was before I was ill.

At least the cats are neutered...

W

I don't think I'm allowed to send the rest of the household off for the same operation...

Better than having a household full of women though! Shudder at the thought!

I have one of each, a husband and female hamster so they all cancel each other out. Or rather it's like whack-a-mole. Put one in it's place and another one immediately pops up requiring attention!
Jod good luck with everything, busy lady!