You could take part in the occasional Adult Learners' Concert. After all, you enjoyed the Stalybridge one, didn't you? And we enjoyed hearing you play.

Cheers

Katyjay

Yes, that helped and I will be going again . I'm thinking along the lines of something that happens more frequently, can't think of anything though.

im working on a Vivaldi bassoon concerto in E minor, 2nd movement of the Mozart Concerto and *trying* the Schumann Adagio and Allegro in A flat Op.70

I think so too. It's a bad habit that we won't polish a piece to our best if there's nothing to motivate us, like an exam or concert.

Now I think that the idea of playing a piece in front of an audience makes you remember it is probably right. Like, a few months ago I liked to play in front of my friends (show off, really) Liebestraum No.3 of Liszt's, and even though there were dozens of mistakes until now I still remember it well. Just need to play through it once more in order to really make it good. In fact, it's one of the pieces that I believe I won't easily forget because of nerves in a concert.

Now, after I've just finisihed doing my grade 8 exam, what should I do? My mother keeps giving me the idea of doing a solo recital in a short time.

Whilst this suggestion won't help AP, owing to her teacher situation, I've found preparing pieces for my piano teacher's evening adult 'play-through' sessions a great motivator. There's one tomorrow night, and I'm playing the Frank Bridge Impromptu that's on the Grade 6 syllabus.

All those who take part have found it helpful in counteracting exam nerves, and we all get to listen to an interesting array of pieces from Grade and Diploma syllabuses.

Does anyone else do anything similar?

Have you tried hypnosis? I have a good relaxation hypnosis tape which has totally convinced me that I really do "respond well to stressful situations". Might this be worth a try?

Interestingly (well to me anyway), as a side-effect of regular listening to the tape I suddenly stopped biting my nails (at the age of 32)!

this stuff's really come into its own in recent years, and a lot of people swear by it. sublimal messaging CD's are pretty easy to get a hold of and they're certainly worth a shot to see if you can get over your nerves.

also, visual sublimal messaging programs have cropped up to. based on the premise that if you flash up a message for a very short time on screen (100 milliseconds i think) it's not picked up consciously but is registered subconsciously, so bypassing the scrutiny of your conscious mind. there's no effort involved and these programs apparantly screen one message per second, while you're working on your computer. it's the lazy guy's alternative to self-hypnosis. you might want to try it, but keep in mind that i haven't and am guaranteeing nothing

Well since my piano lesson this afternoon, I have officially stopped learning 'The Heart Asks Pleasure First' from 'The Piano' as my teacher declared it an excellent performance and deemed no further work necessary. I'm delighted especially taking into account how much practise I have put in over the last few months, driving my family round the bend.

'The Piano' uses minimalism, doesn't it? I learnt that today in Music.

Car Expert

Not really what I would call minimalism, it consists of perpetual semiquavers in both hands without a single rest throughout the whole piece.

That's what it said in the CGP Revision Guide, uses minimalism.

Car Expert

Congratulations, Boo Radley! So, now that you can play it really well you can stop playing it, is that it?

So my family wish but no, I am going to subject them to it every day now I can play it properly, MWAHAHAHAHAH!!!! Actually my mum quite likes it (now she can finally work out which bit is the tune).

Back in 1996 I had to learn Rachmaninov 3rd concerto for a performance in Oldham. This monumental, massive, stupid work took me nine months of hard slog. After the performance, I heard my 9 year old son ask my wife plaintively, "Does that mean dad can learn a different piece now? Please?"