if you are practising for a grade does anyone else find time to play or learn other pieces too? or does grade sutff take up all your time?...

Well you're working for the exam, you'd do well to try out at least one new tune a day. It'll work wonders for your sight-reading! I know mine has deteriorated because I have not been doing enough to familiarize myself with when to change positions in new pieces.

My grades feel 1000 years behind me, but I still remember the feeling that I was spending ridiculous numbers of weeks working towards them.

There comes a point when you can practise everything you can for your exam in a relatively short period of time - at least, I did. The stuff I could play was fine; the stuff I couldn't quite master, I just knew I was going to have to 'bluff-and-pray' my way through. Still do, as a matter of fact, and I am paid for playing

That was when learning extra repertoire was both a life and a sanity saver. Learn some new stuff, crazy_purple_piano_freak. You will gain much from doing so.

I know it sholudnt but yes it does

All of the Grade stuff takes up most of my time, especially when it is exam time. But when there's no exam (e.g. summer holidays), I try to learn other pieces at the same time.

on the grades up to really about 6, the pieces never seemed to take up so much time for me...even on grade 7 they didnt seem too technically demanding.

I think this year grade 8 seems to be much much harder! i mean, a bach prelude and fuga at grade 8!!! its insane. the fugue is IMPOSSIBLE!

And also scales take up much more time because there is so much more to do!

I play other pieces all the time, if I just stick to exam pieces I get bored

There is no better cure for exam piece boredom than playing Einaudi all day long!!

thats why im asking...i get so bored but at grade 8 i feel that i really should be practising more pieces scales and stuff but i dont. Pieces are ok but scales bore me to death...
also, who is Einaudi?

Einaudi - my knight and shining armour

*everyone sniggers*!!

He is a composer/pianist. Do a search on him - you'll find loads of stuff

Well maybe do a few scales then do something fun...then go back to scales etc

Yes, that's the same with me, so that's why I try and practice other pieces at the same time.

Yes, I think both Prelude and Fugues do seem rather impossible, but then you are luckier in scales because nowadays you don't have to play all 24 keys of the major and minor scales unlike when I was taking Grade 8. We kept getting more and more keys from Grade one onwards and none are taken away, unlike now. Also you do not have to do all 24 keys of 6ths and 3rd aparts now.

Sorry sl123451 - I've taught the grade 8 syllabus on a few occasions and there's often a Bach prelude and fugue somewhere on List A. Wonderful stuff though and well worth the blood, sweat and tears spent learning it. Good fingering and exceptional patience and discipline are definitely requirements for Bach's contrapuntal music - it's an art-form in itself!

im playing allemande for A not Bach Prelude and Fugue but i love those pieces. Question though, why do you have to play both for A, also applies for the Shoskanovich one...

i just did a google search, i wanted to hear some stuff and nothing came up! well some stuff...but in italian.
why do people snigger?

Because it's well known that I am obsessed with him, it's just a bit of a joke here that's all!

Well, i really find exan pieces from grade 1 - 7 really BORING, I cant stand them.. I always find other things to do...

However the Grade 8 syllabus rite now is harddd! there are so many pieces and all the nice sounding ones are more challenging than exam pieces have been in the passed...

Oh well i supoose tahts wat u get for grade 8

Yeah, quite alot of time is spent focusing on working towards Exam Pieces (I don't mean like working for 4 months on the Grade Pieces, I mean working on a General Music Grade Book of that standard) but some of the time is spent on playing other things like Scott Joplin or something totally different. It makes it so much more interesting to play something different other than just spending time on Grades.

Then again, I do want to focus on Grades as much as possible, before I get to Uni, because I fear as soon as I get to Uni, a) I won't have a piano, b ) I won't have time, c) I wouldn't have enough money for a piano, and d) Even if I can take the one from my house, I wouldn't have any space, unless I bought a cheap keyboard, but they never have enough keys, and an eletric piano takes the same amount of space as a real one. And after I finish Uni, I certainly wouldn't have time, I'd have to work, and it would definitely take a bit of time to buy a piano, as obviously, I'd have more important things to deal with first, e.g. getting a house, paying off student loans, etc. And what's more, with all these top-up fees, it will take me even longer! So basically, I want to get to as high a standard as I can before I finish A Levels, as once you've got a skill, you can't lose it, but chances are, it would be a very long time before I'd get the chance to pick it up again.

Wobby

By the way, do you think it would be possible to change the shorcut key for this smiley " " so that it is possible to write b ), Christine? It's not too important if it can't be done.

Thanks,
Wobby

I always like to play a variety of pieces when I practise but I do find that the closer an exam is, the more intense and time consuming practising becomes. The last exam I did I played the pieces so much that I was beginning to get bored of them and I'd noticed that my performance wasn't as good as it could be when this happened. My teacher suggested not playing them ALL the time and maybe lay off them for a while so that whenever I did play them they would sound 'fresh' and lively and not as though I was just playing them for the sake of it. This really helped even though I was worried that I was missing out on practise time so close to my exam as I didn't get bored and actually enjoyed playing them rather than playing them because I had to.

Lisa xxx

Apart from exam pieces, I've been playing my small 'repertoire' of pieces regularly, but otherwise I've been playing as much new stuff as I can find, for sight reading practice! It's not necessarily of the standard for the grade, but often more difficult things which I attempt - then it makes the grade stuff seem easier...

Yeah i pretty much do that too

i love einaudi too!
the i giorni album is gorgeous! and so is le onde!
i tend to buy some more music to play for fun in between practice, but i don't ever get round to learning it 'seriously' until after the exam!

oh wow! i just heard a sample of einaudi le onde, and its beautiful! i might buy it...

Just untick (uncross...) the box at the bottom of the replying box that says enable emoticons then you can type b) as much as you want (although you can't have any smilies...)

Excellent!