just curious to know, how long do you guys need to prepare for your exams? how many months before would you start practising?

Around 6 months for me

That greatly depends on the grade, and if it is your first instrument or not - it can take between 3 and 18 months really!

Yes, same here. If it's one I need to just work a bit more on then (around Grades 4-6) 6 months. If it's Grade 8, up to a year I think!

Dear me, how awful! Do you play various other pieces as well just to lighten things up during the 6 months or just the exam pieces, by the way?

Does it really take a year for grade 8???

Tess

It depends on the standard that one is when one takes the exam: I'm not a violinist but would guess that the same thing applies. If one is willing to spend two years working on nothing but the grade 8 exam requirements then one doesn't need to be anywhere near as good as someone who is only willing to, and only needs to, spend six months to do the same thing. An exam in itself cannot really describe the standard of a player: there is a clear difference in the standard of someone who takes two years on just three pieces and someone who can learn the same pieces to the same standard in a much shorter time due to experience of other things yet both are grade 8 and could well end up with the same mark. Thus is the way of exams....

Very true i agree completely, For my Grade 7 i was concerntrating very hard for 6 months, but as it is a hard time for me musically at the moment (i am learning F horn as it is what i have to play for my chosen career) I have been looking at my grade 8 pieces for about 9 months now and am no where near where i need to be to get a good grade. So it also depends on how much time you spend on it.

Jenni

so do you play other pieces as well during that period of time? or simply the 3 boring pieces for months?

Yes, that was my question, too! Do you guys/gals play only the 3 exam pieces in those 6 months? Just being nosy...

Probably irrelevent as this is the strings forum but I did grade 5 in March & did grade 7 13 weeks later - & no I hadn't looked at the grade 7 pieces before the grade 5 exams. I guess 13 weeks for 2 pieces, 1 study & masses more scales/arpeggios/dom & dim 7ths was a bit mad but then maybe I am Didn't have time to get bored with any of it!!

This year I got my exam pieces at the start of the year and my exam is in October. For the last 7 months all I have played are my exam pieces and I am getting really bored of them. But I think that if you get your book earlier you have enough time to cahnge a piece if you don't like it. It also gives you more time to perfect them.

I think that's crazy - 7 months on the same set of pieces (and we're still a month away from the closing date for the exam, let alone the actual exam dates) is way too long, especially if that's all you're doing in the time. Being bored with your pieces is not the best way to be facing an exam anyway. If you start that early you need to have your pieces mixed in with lots of other stuff; if it takes that long to get the pieces up to standard then you probably shouldn't be doing the exam. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but January-October is way too long a time to be working exclusively on exam pieces... 6 months or a little more would be the upper limit I would suggest, and even then I wouldn't think it's a great idea to be exclusively doing exam stuff.

If 6 months is an upper limit, how long is the average for your violin students, Sarah? My daughter used up 2 months but she was still terribly bored in the end. Poor child. So we have "gone off" exam till grade 8 though she now says maybe she'll go for grade 7 some day. How long is it, then? Sorry this sounds like a how-long-is-a-piece-of-string question but as a novice, I have to ask it.

I don't teach it, Tess, (though I was taught it for many years) I just know that 6 months is the upper limit I could stand or would expect anyone else to stand just learning 3 pieces - on any instrument! At the higher grades sometimes you might start earlier than with lower grades, but then you'd mix it with non-exam rep. I simply wouldn't expect anyone, much less a child, to do just 3 pieces with no other input for that long! Even doing pieces for 6 months or less I would suggest that one should do other pieces too, and sight-read not just sight-reading examples but fun things.

In fact I don't think I've ever JUST studied exam pieces and been happy about it, though I seem to recall that some of my teachers worked that way (my old piano teacher for one...) . Now that I'm largely choosing my own repertoire for flute I always have several pieces in varying stages of preparedness alongside my exam pieces, both easier and more difficult stuff, have a bunch of things to do for fun or sight-reading, and don't just learn one piece of each of the lists, and it's so much better. Towards the exam I'll concentrate more on exam material, but even then I doubt I'll completely stop playing other things. And for scales etc if they're studied alongside pieces as a habit, you never have to stop and gen up on them for months at a time.

With my piano teacher, anything that it challenging enough to me to be lasting for more than a month or so (I have lessons once a fortnight) will always be being learned alongside a few pieces that I can polish off rather more quickly. I study a mixture of pieces that are well within my abilities that I can practice playing as musically and expression-fully(!?) as I can right up to pieces which I have to really practice to get anywhere with... only once have I given up on a piece as being just simply too hard, and that was "too hard right now". When I am a bit more advanced I'll have another go because it was a lovely piece and I could manage it, just about, just couldn't play it confidently or musically! No doubt if I'd've struggled on I would have eventually learned it by rote, but I'd've hated it by then I think!

If a piece takes 6 months to learn even though it's the only thing you're doing then it's probably too hard, and you'll be bored to tears...

Yes, I need about six months to prepare, but I only learn one new scale each week and work on parts of my pieces as well as sight-read anything I can get my hands on as well as enjoy some other pieces which I dig out without my teacher knowing alongside the exam material. It's only the during last three months before the exam that I play all the exam material exclusively. And yes, I DO need a year to work on Grade 8 at least. Even if I don't do the exam material for the whole year, I would expect I would need to improve on technique tremendously and also get the feel of various styles.
I guess being a piano teacher has helped somewhat in deciding how to practice. If I were to follow instructions, I'd play only 2 new pieces a week, or a difficult study the whole week and the next because it's not perfect!

Good for you. I think 6 months solid on one set of pieces would fry my brain!


I think that preparation time is slightly different from "how long you work on the pieces". Grade 8 pieces would take longer i would assume anyway (though i still wouldn't fancy working on them exclusively for months and months ) but definitely just to get to the technical standard required would take a long while, and some of the grade 8 violin scales are pretty evil. I'd still want to learn other pieces alongside my exam pieces till I got to a few months before the exam, I just know how much you can end up hating exam pieces if you study them too intensively for too long.

Time between exams can be anytime from a few weeks (like Andrea did recently!) to a few years... but actuall prep time of pieces for the exam doesn't (obviously!) have to take up that entire time - shouldn't, in fact, IMO!

I suspect I COULD get to grade 8 standard if I worked really hard on the violin but it would take me a lot of time and I'd have to work through a lot of discouragements. One day maybe I will do the violin or viola formally and get a bit better but at the moment I'm happy faffing. I know I would have to work SO hard (I'm just not a "natural" at violin at all) and I think I'd give up through frustration and end up not playing the instrument for years - again!

6 months? 7 months? All these posts scare me. So much time taken and both VN and her teacher are perfectionists, too. So, it'll take ages and ages and ages, and she'll be crying boredom.

I tell you, I'm certain I will definitely NOT encourage VN if she brings up the subject of taking grade 7 some day "for points". She got this idea from a friend who encouraged her to follow suit. But I've just told her - Why on earth would you want UK university points? I thought you said you were heading for a conservatory, maybe even a Russian one? Oh, I forgot! She shrieked.

Silly woman! *laughs* She's still very much a child.

Judging by how long it *hasn't* taken your daughter to get as far as she's got, she may not take as long as a dunderhead like me!

I wouldn't worry about that if I were you, Sarah. She's actually surprisingly unassuming. JUST like a child - very simple and childlike. She thinks the world of Stefan Grapelli and my deceased uncle both of whom were completely self-taught musicians (so what is she? how can she ever compare with them even if she wants to?). Thus THIS MORNING, when the head suddenly came up to me just before a general parents meeting in the school hall and suddenly whispered to me - She's a genius, she is! VN thought she was nuts! VN said - I felt like rolling my eyes. But stopped herself or otherwise she'll get in trouble!!! How could she be so nutty!

I think knowing people like Grapelli humbles not just her but me, too. I honestly do. He was simply too wonderful for words and so humble!

lol... no I didn't mean she was full of herself tess! it's just that she's obviously got a good deal of natural talent on the violin (which I don't!) so it may not take her as many months as it would take some people...

Hey, you've got humility there, Sarah. You will make a fine musician and a fine teacher, too. Honestly, *crosses my heart* it's no big deal - it's just sheer hard work plus a fantastic teacher though we did applaud her for her self-discipline. I won't name names but I was, only seconds ago, chuckliing over the recollection of someone who keeps saying (bless her honesty) on this forum she failed exams for lack of preparation/practice. Just my frankness in expression here and no offence meant, please. If I hurt anyone's feelings there, please blame it on my weariness - it's almost 3 (2.59 to be exact!) in the morning now *yawn* so I'm off to bed!

Still, what I don't quite get is this - why do people pay for exams when they have no time to prepare for them?

Tess
PS. Please don't put yourself down, Sarah. Nat/Saxlover has just said she has stopped doing it. Good for her! Saxl doesn't need a successor!

I won't, I promise! I know I'm by no means a terrible musician. I just know I am not and never have been a natural violinist - I'm bold enough to say I'm pretty good at the flute despite having had relatively few regular lessons over the years. Just know my limitations when it comes to the violin *grin*

A year? For one exam? I can't stick with studying an exam length piece for a month, let alone a year!!
I don't spend anywhere near as long as most people on exam preparation time, so it would seem! I generally decide to have a go about 3 months in advance, and leave applications til the last possible moment. Then if I don't think I'm going to be ready, I just wait another term, play some new pieces to keep myself practicing daily, and go for it the term after. I tend to leave some things to the last minute, but my strength in exam preparation is being able to learn things very quickly, just by practicing for longer sessions, say 3 hours a day for a week to have all my scales finished from scratch. It might seem like a strange method, but it's because I'm more interested in being a good violinist than being great at taking exams. Having said that, I've always got distinctions so far...and I'm probably taking grade 8 this term!