i started this topic to know if anyofyou have made any mistakes in your exam due to your teacher telling you to play the song a way that it wasn't meant to be played? last year when i did grade one(i'm on g3 now) in the 2003-4 sylabus i chose a song from the b list called "the quiet wood" and i played it fine but my teacher kept saying "don't rush, play slowly, it's meant to be played really slowly with a singing kind of tone" Ok i would't doubt my teacher would i? he seemed to know what he was talking about? and every time i played it he was always like "too fast, play slower"
Exam day arrives i play it fine and "slowly" just like he said, but when i got results back i only got 23 for that piece and guess what the comment was?? "good playing but a shade too(underlined) slow". i was soo annoyed as if i had played it at the correct tempo those extra marks could have got me my distintion as i got 125/150 and i got 27 for peice 1(tempo di minuetto something or other) and 26 for piece 3(reign). has any thing like this happened to you lot?
i always buy the CD now to hear how a proffesionl would play it.

Is this really a teacher messing up? Teachers do their best but their method invariably reflects their own approach.

Don't forget that examiners are as subjective as teachers in things like tempi and expression and you must not rule out that the examiner 'got it wrong', being too pernickerty about that piece.

Don't rely on CDs. You would have to buy many CDs to hear representative professional performances of anything. Pollini isn't Zimerman isn't Richter isn't YOU etc. And, reading threads here before I joined, the ABRSM example CDs are themselves sometimes suspect regards tempi. You can't win by going along with what the other guy has done, teacher or CD. And what, when there isn't a CD? What if youre performing a premiere? In the end it's your performance.

So be forgiving here. Worry not about merits and distinctions - you don't get a medal ribbon for your chest. But you DO know you passed at that grade and that you had a difference of opinion with the examiner. By the sound of it your teacher got you basically a good pass.

yeah, your probably right thanks

I would agree that it really is down to interpretation.
Too bad the examiner didn't agree that your speed was a good way to convey the mood of that piece.

Also consider that if your teacher really had fault in the way he told you to play then it would have shown in poor marks on ALL sections of the exam and not just bad luck on one piece.

And the CDs are good as a guide, but NOT the only way to play those pieces.
They sometimes are too fast in the opinion of a lot of people. One of the grade 8 pieces in particular runs for a whole minute less than the same piece on a comercial recording.....

I agree with the comments made. It illustrates the whole challenge of examining something as subjective as a piece of music-there is always going to be an element of interpretation that is harder to measure. I agree with Sbhoa about tempo on the CDs-I remember one year the performance on the CD was considerably faster than the metronome marking in the book.

I don't think that it is the teacher's fault either.

Getting 23 for a piece is still quite respectable and 125/150 overall is an excellent mark - 25 above the pass mark!

David

HI

On my first exam for piano the examiner asked me to do the aural test which came as a bit of a shock to me as my teacher didn't tell me about the aural part of the test and I hadn't worked on anything reguarding the aural test, on my next lesson after the exam I told my teacher about the aural part and all he could say was sorry and that he forgot all about the aural test.

I got full marks on that part of the exam which was a bit of a shock but a pleasant surprise.

As for exam pieces being to slow one of the pieces I am working on is Bagatelle No.1 for grade 5 piano. In the notes at the bottom of the page it suggests the tempo is a bit slow at c.84 and recommends 92, which in my opinion is way of the mark.

I am learning the piece with a very very slow adagio feel and I'm really stretching the note out with rubato which I think sounds better and has more of an impact and can be played with more feeling.

I hope I get an examiner that can hear what I am trying to do with the piece and not someone who is to pernickerty

didn't u read the grade requirements printed on the second page of the pieces book? and wow full marks on something u didnt know thats really good!

A winsey bit off the topic here but along the same lines. When doing my grade 7 Guildhall drama exam I did a poem called 'After Death' by Christina Rossini. I did in fine on the day and after you do all the performing you chat about the pieces and meaning (like a Viva voce). She told me she didn't agree with my interpretation at all and that the poem meant something else entirely, therefore affecting how it would be performed. Absolutely terrified my teacher had got it all wrong I began to backtrack and then thought 'hang on, I'm not having this!' and stood my ground, pointing out exactly why I did it the way I had and totally contradicting her.

I left in a real panic and told my teacher waiting outside, she showed it to my mum (who has a B ed) and another experienced teacher and they all agreed with me.

In the end I got a good mark and she respected my right to interpret it my way, since I argued it coherently.

My point is, examiners are not always right! My teacher was astonished she completely changed the meaning of the poem and I stand by her judgement.

In any case, 125 is a grand wee mark and you should be proud of a great achievement.

But a teacher forgetting about aurals mack4.... yeouch... I would die of shame if I did something like that to one of my pupils!

exactly jazzywench, how can u "forget" something like that. bet he felt really embarrased about it afterwards lol

I do now

I think because it was my first exam I was putting all my faith in my teacher as I didn't know how the whole exam process worked

well u do now lol. what was your mark and what grade are u on now?

Having just looked it up, i'm curious: what did you think it meant and what did the examiner think?

Liz

Jazzy Wench has it spot on here - so long as you can justify your interpretation of a piece/text coherently then that interpretation should be valid, provided nothing obviously contradicts it. It is a pity that for a lot of music exams there is no viva voce or dialogue between examiner and candidate re. why a particular piece was played in a certain way. On the other hand, music is a subjective and aural phenomenon and you will not often get a chance to share with your audience the reasoning behind an interpretation - your music has to be performed in a convincing and confident manner to get your 'reasoning' across!

Well done, anyway k_pianodude on getting a very good merit. All the best for your future exams.

I caused a pupil to fail once - entirely my fault. She was borderline anyway but one of the pieces consisted of two movements and I had totally missed that so we only did one ... and the marks lost would have been enough to pass her. That was the worst one. But there was another nasty in a grade 7 exam where it was one of those slow movements in a handel recorder sonata that is all dotted quavers and semiquavers and somehow or other I had got it into my head in compound time so we had the triplet rhythm going throughout the movement instead of the dotted quaver semiquaver - and I didn't notice until the exam mark came back. Fortunately that error didn't affect the overall grade - she still passed and wouldn't have got a merit anyway. In my defence I must say that exactly the same thing happened with the first movement of the Telemann viola concerto once for one of my LTCL attempts - and my teacher, who had a GRSM no less, didn't notice until the result came through. It's amazing what errors can slip through unnoticed if the playing is otherwise confident.

Liz

I have my certificates framed on the wall and I keep the examiners notes in the back of the frame so I had to go and get it.

Looking at the examiners comments all he had to say about the aural test was " excellent" the overall mark was 124 (a pass with merit).

The main thing that brought my grade down was my sight reading which I have never been any good at.

I am at grade 5 but I think I am really about grade 6 or 7 , I have been holding back on doing the exams because after grade 5 I have to do the theory exam which needs alot of work as I don't know much about the theory yet

well done mack4 and thanks dangermouse, i feel silly about being so picky and at the bottom for additional comments, it did say "a promising start" which made me feel really pleased

I would probably put all my faith in my teacher. I didn't check the syllabus once for my G7 clarinet.

A girl I know was taking G8 flute last session and her teacher made her learn a piece off the G7 syllabus because he hadn't checked and decided he was right. Her mum's a flute teacher and checked it and told her that he'd made a mistake and helped her with the piece she was supposed to be learning. The teacher turned around a week before her exam, told her that she hadn't checked like he'd asked her too (even though he hadn't) and said she'd learned the wrong piece and it was her fault. She was not impressed but said actually she had checked and she'd learned the right piece.

She came out with distinction, so she doesn't care, and has stopped having lessons woth that teacher!

i agree that if its something like a missed out part of the exam then it probably IS the teachers fault, but in some cases an examiner may interpret a piece in a weird way and mark you down for it when really we all interpret it in our own ways ...i think we should get credit for that at least!

OMG! I cant believe your teacher forgot that whole section of the exam! That really is quite something! I always make sure my pupils know exactly what happens in an AB exam and the structure of the exam itself - it wasnt THAT long ago since I did my exams so I remember how they work (unless of course theyve changed....I did my last Grade 8 exam almost 10 years ago!)
thats rather odd they forgot but WELL DONE for passing them with full marks thats amazing!

My teacher messed up for me in my Grade 7 clarinet exam. It was Guildhall and for the scales on note centre Eb I was supposed to extend it up and down as it was only a 2 octave scale. She forgot to teach me that and also forgot to teach me both versions of the diminished scale! Thankfully I did okay and ended up with an honours.

She actually did a worse thing though for another pupil when she gave him the wrong piece that wasn't even on the syllabus and he went into the exam and played the wrong thing!!!

Yeah, similarly just 10 minutes before my grade 5, flicking nervously through I notived that I had never been taught contrary chromatic and although I was considering having a blind go in the exam, in the end I just told the examiner that I had never been taught them.

What did he reply to that?

He gave me a very surprised 'Oh' and gave me a face like but didnt dock me too many marks.

My friend said to the examiner after 2 scales in G6 she messed up "Scales were never really my strong point", so the examiner misses the rest out and passes her with distinction!

Any comments on the mark sheet about it?

No fortunately, I was worried he'd think I was lying just to get out of them, but he didn't mention it in his comments and I still got 15/21

my friend did grade 5 piano guildhall and passed by one mark, the second time round her teacher completely forgot to teach her the aural so she had to miss it all out...and failed

What about when the examiner gets it wrong?

My daughter was doing Grade 7, and when it came to the aurals, the examiner said "I want you to sing the upper part of this melody" - my daughter objected and told him that "actually" at Grade 7 you have to sing the LOWER part - the examiner was quite taken aback, and said he would have to look in the syllabus and check - he did, and daughter was right! (She got merit! Really pleased!)

Examiner forgot to ask me broken chords in grade 4 piano! I didn't remind her but she remembered!

My examiner said "ok I'd like you to clap this melody". And I said "actually i put down to do the extemporisation! and she said "ah yes, that why you look like that".

Pardon?! The what?!

Yes in my same exam he said 'Right now sing this melody back to me after I play it'. I was horrified (as you would have all been if you have ever heard me sing) and I said 'I'm sure there's an option to play it back instead'. He said he'd forgotten that because so few people play it back. What are they like?

heh. I guess if you had examined 20 people already that day or however many that week, your brain might be a little fried also...

Hiya Liz,
It was a few years ago now so I barely remember it! My gist (along with my tutor) was that it was a really poignant piece about a recently dead woman whose unrequited love finally pities her in death but despite all this tragedy she's still glad he's alive. In retrospect the last few lines could be a little bit bitter with a hint of irony but I was 17 and romantic.

her interpreation was that it was a joke she was playing on him to see if he was bothered by her dying and in fact she was very much still alive! So the whole thing was a tongue in check mocking of his existence. Or something like that.

Please bear in mind this is Christina Rossini. I doubt she was going for the comedy vibe with a poem called 'After Death'....

I would hope that , in this instance, at least some of my students might have kept quiet, as they find singing the upper part considerably easier!

lol I would've kept quiet! I can hear it perfectly fine, it's just remembering it and being able to pitch it that's the problem! I tend to make up a part which fits instead of the part that's there.

In a viva voce an examiner spent ages hinting that I'd pointed out a cadence incorrectly. I kept saying "Are you sure?" and I kept replying "It's an imperfect cadence because" and pointing out the proigression and where it resolves. Then he did a double take and went "my dear you are right!".

As a teacher, if a pupil is struggling with clarity and evenness of playing, I would tell him/her to play it slightly under the recommended tempo in order to get the detail and expression right. There's no point in playing a piece up to the correct tempo if the fingers are stumbling and uneven, and if the staccato/slur details are missing because the pupil hasn't got enough strength and control over the fingers/wrists/arms etc. In my opinion if all the detail is there it helps the piece to dance/sing/come across in a musical way where pure speed won't.

It might be just me and if so I apologise for the rant but that last post by chocolatedog sounds like a perfect example of a teacher mistake.


shurly if a pupil is struggling with the speed of a piece or bringing out the clarity or expression it means that they are not really ready for the exam?

Is it not better to give the pupil more time to bring the piece up to speed and give the pupil some exercises to help build strength in their fingers and wrists than just telling them to play the piece slower to get them through an exam.

With more time to develop and strengthen the skills needed from an exam the pupil stands a better chance of getting a higher mark and in the long run make them a better player.

In my opinion there should never be any hurry to do exams making shure you have all the skills needed for the exam first is far more important.

For Grade 3, I got asked to do the second pattern for broken chords by the examiner when you're only meant to be doing one OR the other. I wasn't even aware that there were different patterns at all. So I kind of froze, and said I didn't know it. Though I can understand how they might be confused with the number of exams they have to sit through each day.

Thank you for shedding doubts on my abilities - you must be the perfect pupil. In my job I have a lot of lower ability pupils who I have no choice about teaching. I RARELY put pupils in for exams anyway, and unless you understand the pressures a teacher can be under to prepare a pupil for an exam you should refrain from making such comments. There are occasions when a pupil is progressing very well and then they can be ill/have a school field trip/ I can be ill and before you know it you're behind anyway. I have nearly 20 years teaching experience, and in these cases I am merely choosing the lesser of two evils. (In any case the tempo marking is often editorial only, which then means you have some amount of leeway in your choice of tempo. And did you notice I said SLIGHTLY under tempo - I mean SLIGHTLY. And I have NEVER HAD A COMMENT FROM AN EXAMINER TO SAY THAT THE PIECE WAS UNDER TEMPO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) I try to always teach down to an exam, I do NOT believe in flogging pieces for months on end, and if you had read my other posts in this forum you would know what kind of teaching I do believe in, and remarks like yours are definitely NOT helpful.

Yes, but...

You have to book in for the exam months before you will actually take it. So you start a pupil learning the pieces, everything is going well, you book the exam, but a fortnight before the exam one of the pieces is still lagging behind the others, with a slightly uneven tempo or haphazard dynamics at full speed. Myabe the pupil just has a mental block on this piece, maybe it's exam nerves and stress, maybe they've just gone off it and aren't practising properly. There is no predicting this, and very little a teacher can do about it, it is just one of those things. What is a teacher to do? Withdraw the pupil from the exam?

Forgive me, I speak as a pupil not a teacher. But this happened to me, as a pupil, I had been working on grade 6 and 7 level pieces successfully for a year before my grade 6 exam. But one of my exam pieces - which had been fine - suddenly went downhill in the last weeks before the exam. Under the circumstance, play it a little slower was the best advice my teacher could give me. I certainly wasn't going to lose my fee and wait until the next session!

Playing a piece a little under the expected tempo will tend to lose one or two marks at most, and is likely to result in a higher mark overall than in playing it slightly too fast for the technical level of the performer.

Most of my Grade 8 college students have ended up with a piece which is slightly below tempo, because the second year of sixth form doesn't lend itself to long sessions of working on double tonguing - there's too much else going on. In each case the student has ended up with a mark slightly below the other two pieces: eg 25,27,28/30 in one case and 17,18,18/20 (Trinity) in the other.

Yes, if you're waiting for full marks, delay until the piece is up to speed. But students have their own targets, and delaying a Grade 8 beyond the end of sixth form is often counter-productive, and in my opinion daft, just because of a slightly slow tempo in one piece.

My teacher marked some of my grade five theory practise paper questions wrong!!!!!

What, and miss out on the opportunity to prove an Authority Figure wrong?

Dream on

You should have heard my grade 8 flute performance of "tempesta de la mare", "gentle breeze over the paddling pool" would have described my tempo better. I still got a merit. Goodness knows why!

Liz

Examiner in my grade 6 piano gave me the sight singing piece to look at in the aural & then played the tonic triad & starting note but it didn't sound right. So I said that it didn't sound like the right starting note & which one was i supposed to be doing & he said "oh sorry I was playing the wrong one. I'll play the right one now".

Thank goodness you were on the ball and noticed, that could have been amazingly confusing! (I mean, probably was a bit anyway, but even more so if you had tried to sing it from his starting note...)

I just had to add this reply to the origianl posting of this thread.
What a pity if pianodude `s teacher isn `t a professional. Would that not be a classic case of those who can `t do teach. I just wondered, pianodude (sorry to hear about your problem btw) do you see your teacher as professional pianist or only a teacher?

cheers