I restarted learning the piano after a 10 year break last year from about grade 5 standard. After a few months of lessons with a brilliant teacher I made some progress and decided that it would be a good idea to take an exam to improve my skills.

I spread the practice out over a few months so that I wouldn't have to compromise my work and stress myself out from too much intensive practice. Although my aural remains hopeless and my sight reading "comes and goes" (depending on how tired I have been from work!), I found the pieces and scales for grade 7 not too difficult. It all went as planned and I really thought I felt ready for this challenge.....until

until this week- when I suddenly realise the exam is next week! Oh my God, I am feeling absolutely awful! All of a sudden I feel I have lost all my confidence. I keep on having visions of messing things up and failing.

I have done many many many exams in my life. I sailed through some of the most difficult postgradute exams related to my career.

But with music exams?!...I just feel I cannot cope.

Help!

Well I know it is important to you, but in all reality how important is it to life etc.

Is passing the exam part of your life plan (do you want to teach in due course?) or is it a "nice to have". Maybe you can take the pressure off yourself by putting it into context more.

Have you played your pieces for an audience already, if not gather together some friends and relatives and give a concert. That way you will be more relaxed about performing.

And on the day ...have a banana!

OK, you know what this is? It's plain old-fashioned nerves. And, as Dacapo helpfully reminded me, it's a perfectly normal thing to happen.

I'll say it again: NERVES ARE NORMAL.

So what's the worst thing that can happen? The exam centre be struck by lightning and the piano go up in smoke? The examiner run out of the room screaming at the sheer dreadfulness of your aural test responses? You play so badly that the examiner tells you never to darken the doors of an exam room again? The steward at the exams turns out to be a Martian who eats the examiner as an hors-d'oeuvre and has the piano as an entree?

None of those is going to happen. You might end up playing your pieces a little less beautifully on the day than you do at home, the scales might not be perfection. But the chances are (honestly) that you'll do OK. And if the exam centre piano does go up in smoke or you have a seriously off-day, you can always try again in December. But I'd bet you won't need to!

Good luck.

And remember again: NERVES ARE NORMAL!

Cheers

Katyjay

Well said Katyjay, you summed everything I was going to put perfectly!

Hehehe, and your bit about what is the worst that can happen, just makes anyone want to laugh! It even momentarily made me forget about my Science exam

Thank you



Good - that's the object of the exercise!

Cheers

Katyjay

Well at least I'm not the only one feeling like this ..
Thanks Katyjay & Janexx for the dose of commonsense. Just got to keep repeating to myself "nerves are normal. The world will not end if this doesn't go very well..."

Yes, this sounds like a case of plain old nerves. Maybe this is something on the syllabus that you don't feel totally confident about? If you have total belief in your ability then that will help alleviate the nerves.
I've got my Grade 8 in under 3 weeks and I'm not bothered at all. Its my money I'm wasting after all, no-one else's! I might feel a bit different on the day, strange place, strange piano etc.
One of the problems of Exams is the actual psychological set-up in the room on the exam day which is imbalanced. The usual scenario is.....Examiner is a Superior musician, concert pianist etc etc and the examinee is going in to gain the approval of said person. I intend my scenario to be different to this... i.e. I am going in confident of the syllabus and I see it as giving the examiner, an equal, the privelege of hearing me perform for them personally. Getting a certificate is the icing on the cake and a thank you from them for entertaining them in such a pleasing way! Reverse psychology!

It might sound arrogant but it gets rid of the nerves!!

Gae

Dear Shy-Pianist,

I too have my grade 7 in just over a week. I am also nervous about it and no matter how much I have practiced before hand, I still feel anxious about the result. So, you are not alone.

However, what is encouraging is the fact that I have been nervous about all my previous grades and I passed all of those, so hopefully the same will happen this time.

I have also taken many exams in my life but they were mostly written exams where nervous have less of an effect. Doing a performance exam is much more nerve provoking!

I wish you luck and don't forget to less us know how you get on.

Shelton

I wish you the best of everything in taking your exam and I'm sure you will play beautifully.

They say that Helen Hayes always suffered from stage firight, but what performances she was able to give once the curtain went up.

Since I can't speak from actual experience, I think if you read and re-read the avice giving on this board, you'll be fine and I hope you'll get back to us and let us now how things went. I have a feeling that once you enter the room and sit down at the piano and start to play, your nerves will go out the door and you'll become involved with the music you are playing rather than trying to get to a certain grade level. GO FOR IT!!!

While on this subject what do the different grade levels mean?

Rest assured - even experienced concert pianists feel nervous before a concert, and some of them even well into their career can experience panic attacks, and sudden losses of confidence. The most famous pianists of all feel nervous before going on stage! (Well all excepting one Chinese guy I've heard of but that's not normal!) Nerves are not bad in themselves - it's learning how to control and use them. (Difficult, but possible)

They refer to the graded exams offered by this (and other similar) examining board.

Hi,

Have you taken the exam yet and how did it go - I'm sure you've gotten through it and passed with flying colors.

Let us know when you get the chance.

Got my results today- I passed with merit despite a terrible performance! I was really nervous on the day and my hands did not stop shaking!

Thank you everyone for the encouragement.

Congratulations, you must be really pleased. It quite obviously wasn't terrible or you wouldn't have got such a good result!
BTW what date did you do your exam on?

Well done, a merit is a really good mark

So the exam centre didn't suffer an invasion of Martians, then?

See - I told you that you'd be OK.

Very well done!

Cheers

Katyjay

Well done! You should be proud!