Grade 1 Violin failure

Violinist here. It does sound, from her exam report, like a big part of her problem is that she has trouble playing in tune, which may indeed mean the violin is not the best instrument for her. Would she consider playing an instrument like the clarinet where pitching correctly is not entirely up to the player?

I am now going to say something heretical.

Does it really matter all that much? It's nice if she enjoys playing. It is also not the end of the world if she fails. If it is the fact that the violin is not actually the instrument for her, there are other instruments. Or not doing music at all.

I speak as someone who has grade 8 on the violin (and grade 7 on the piano) and led the school orchestra. And hasn't played either instrument for decades, but does sing at a quite high chamber choir level. And has one not at all musical and one reasonably musical child. Neither of whom can sing in tune.

To pass at Grade 1 you need to play the right notes at the right time for the pieces - if the rhythm is 100% the examiner will be much more forgiving about less than perfect tuning.
Same for the sight reading - correct rhythm will guarantee a pass mark (14/21) even if there are loads of pitch errors.

I'd change teachers, find one who know how to teach your DD to feel the pulse as a regular, internal (to her) beat and not worry at ALL about her being left-handed - 2 of my DSs are lefthanded and this has been an asset to their violin playing.

I am a music teacher and I am really surprised they failed her - it is considered really bad form to fail a child on their first exam. Are you sure your child's teacher is not mistaken?
I really feel for your DD, but even if she has practised for hours on end, some people just find practical music exams, where you are put on the spot difficult - especially grade 1 as they don't know what to expect! Hope she is feeling better about it.

I'm sorry to be blunt but your teacher is incompetent to be putting her in for an exam like that, thinking she played really well and then finding she failed.

It would be different if he had SAID all along she was borderline, or had said she should pass but had then been wary after the exam because she made some surprising mistakes. But to be that far off in his estimation, he clearly doesn't know the exam requirements. This is not really forgivable given that they publish those requirements quite openly, and he shouldn't be entering kids for exams in this case.

There could be some fundamental underlying problem in her technique, with intonation or bow control or whatever, that has brought her down in everything.

I am not musical at all, but DS1 is and has taken exams up to grade 5, all with merit or distinction. I don't think I would be able to trust your teacher's judgement, because he said the pieces were very good, but they weren't if they got those marks. I'm really sorry to say that, but he should know if they were good (it's possible to get 29, DS has done). If I were you, I would change teacher.

Your poor DD - I'm sorry to hear that she didn't pass.

My view is that her sightreading was a long way off from the pass mark so she clearly didn't know what to expect. She should have been given sightreading to try during every lesson and it doesn't sound as if that happened.

Obviously, there is more to playing an instrument than graded exams but it's very important that children are fully prepared on the day.

I think you have to change her violin teacher after this. A really good teacher will expect to divide a half hour lesson up into a mixture of scales/technical work, pieces, sightreading, aural and/or improvisation whether an exam is looming or not.

I'm so sorry to hear that Honeymum. How discouraging for your dd. It sounds like you did everything suggested by posters on this thread except change teacher. She has had practice in sight reading by playing in a group - but hasn't been helped by the teacher working on her sight reading. Similarly the teacher hasn't given her the right support for her scales and arpeggios and aural.

My dd recently got a pass for Grade 2 when predicted a distinction and I have found this thread so helpful looking at what we need to work on.

Hope your dd doesn't give up, but you can find a teacher who she enjoys learning from!

This is bringing it all back to me. Goodness, music exams are character forming aren't they!

I think you need a new teacher.

To get higher marks on the pieces you need to show musical feeling and expression - the expression "text book" surprised me. Maybe your teacher is teaching your DD to play the notes but isn't helping her to understand how to play musically, to find that inside her?

After all what you are trying to do in a music exam is both to play correctly and well, but to create feeling in the examiner. Some people may say this is silly at grade one, but you can play even a grade one piece in musically beautiful way.

I had a great teacher who used to spend a lot of time getting me, even as a 6 year old, to think about how the music made me feel inside etc. Once you realise that you can then give expression to that.

Change teachers. He obviously has no idea what the examiners are looking for if he can say that about pieces she's sreaped a pass in.

were the examiner's comments helpful?

I read this thread the first time round and really hoped she was going to pass this time.

Pieces are out of 30 aren't they? If she is going to carry on having lessons I really would change teacher. She wasn't playing the pieces perfectly if she was around a pass for each one. And again sounds like she wasn't prepared properly.

Hopefully more experienced people will have comments to make (I did piano grades 5 and 6 and taught my sister some early piano. She did get 30 for one piece I think which was probably my major success in life ).

she failed then because of the sight-reading and the one piece she got 19 instead of 20 for? It all seems very complex. I wish she'd passed it this time round, I felt very sorry for her, she was really not prepared last time, was she?

How is she?

I think Honeymum has disappeared to brush up on her supportive violin mum skills

It was a throw away comment aimed to make the op feel better after being flamed for 'not doing her job properly'. And I didn't say if they weren't good enough they shouldn't bother. Jesus, if that was the case, I'd never have any children in my orchestra. Some of them slog away and hardly improve, some slog away until it suddenly clicks, many get by on the bare minimum and seem to make reasonable progress anyway, while a very very small minority just 'have it' irrespective of the amount of practice. They're all different. Hasn't this all been in the context of exams, anyway? OP's daughter has been failed by her teacher's inadequate preparation, not by OP letting her daughter do less than 30 mins 7 days a week. What I wanted was for the op to feel that she was fine, her daughter was fine, despite not doing the blasted 30 mins every day, and she'd carry on being fine if she stuck to her 15 mins 5 times a week ... for now. Of course, once she progresses, she'll have to up her practice time, and continue to do so with each step forward.
And you're assuming that I don't make ds play when he's bored and doesn't want to. Of course I do ... it's a rare child who jumps at the chance of practising scales! (Twice today - he hates me!) However, as he's only just 7, much of what we do is dependant on how tired he is at the end of the day. And I'm afraid I do bore the shit out of DS as I'm teaching him both violin and piano myself, so he can't escape - bang goes that theory!

TBH, no matter what our opinions are of what is right and proper in the world of practice time for grade 1, I just hope the teacher of OP's dd has sorted himself out and prepared her properly this time.

ImnotaCelebrity-

I was mainly contesting your point that if the child needs to do half an hour of practise, they're not good enough to learn music anyway, so they might as well not bother. Have I misunderstood? It just seems very unreasonable because, as I said, music is more about hard work if you want to reach the kind of standard that I expect the OP would want her son to reach- good and fluent but maybe not professional. I understand that 15 minutes is proportionally reasonable for young kids, but that wasn't so much what I was talking about.

Also Wellwisher said "god help your DCs if they grow up thinking everything is easy", which isn't too out of line- it will be hard for them if they have that mindset. It was a sketchy assumption, but on a basic value it was only conditional, not so heinous.

I also don't think that cases where children are discouraged by hard work and give up are necessarily unavoidable, I think they're more taught by example. In other words, who knows that you can't breed a love of music despite forcing a few unpleasant practising sessions at the start?
We know that kids at that age don't have that kind of perspective, so why do we pretend that they do, by pretending that they do know exactly what they want when they announce they're bored and want to stop?
They never need to be pandered to, and sometimes they need to be pushed. I don't think the word "never" is too strong- they're sitting down on a chair for a measly 30 minutes, not being strung upside down by their ankles. It's pretty much all within reason, and reason doesn't include "making sure they never have to experience a dull moment, the darlings". It's an important life lesson in itself, to learn how to stand being bored.

ImNotaCelebrity, I agree that Wellwisher's comments are harsh especially since the OP sounds like she is a supportive albeit musically untrained mum. Also, I think an enforced 30 min daily practice routine might turn some young children off.

I disagree with your comment though about a child not being up to scratch if a 30 min routine is required. A generalisation such as that is not helpful as depending on any number of factors a child may require more or less time and 30 mins, particularly for a 9 year old (age of OP's dd) cannot be considered excessive.

Sorry wellwisher and quirrel, we'll have to agree to disagree. (And how dare you say 'god help my dcs', wellwisher ... I haven't assumed anything about your parenting style, be polite enough not to make assumptions about mine.)

Young children of 6 and 7 don't have to be flogged to practice for 30 mins every day. I was a very lazy 'practiser', yet I have a music degree (1st instrument violin) and played professionally and taught violin and piano for a few years (many moons ago - am now a primary teacher).

Children who enjoy practising for 30 mins daily would be the ideal - of course they would - but it's not the norm at this age or standard and it's not generally necessary for beginners. If the children really did practice properly for 15 mins 5 times a week, with someone at home taking an interest and checking their practice notebooks, most of them would be absolutely fine. All the instrumental teachers I know (and there are many) tell their pupils to start off with 10-15 mins as often as they can manage. As time goes on, this can be increased. Lots of children will eventually find themselves doing half an hour without even realising. And quirrel - for young children, 10-15 mins often is 99% persperation.

DS is year 2, has grade 1 distinction and is doing grade 2 in a couple of weeks. He also plays piano at grade 1 standard. The amount of practice he does depends on his mood ... and he always has at least 1 day off during the week and 1 at the weekend. We don't have a practice timetable - I'm not anal enough for that, and it would be impossible to stick to, particularly on my working days when we get home late. Some days he just practices scales (takes 5 mins to run through them) or just plays his pieces (takes no more than 10 mins) or has a go at some new pieces for sight reading practice. Other days he's really keen and wants to keep going for ages on whatever happens to have taken his fancy! If I forced him to do 30 mins every day, chances are he'd have given up by now. Yes, he has to practise - he knows that is expected. Yes, he has to have more days practising than days off. And he knows that if he goes through a holiday without practising, it's bloody hard work when you pick it up again. (He hasn't made that mistake since!) He has a certain amount of natural ability, but he knows he has to put in the work too. He also knows he is entitled to a couple of days off.

I think that, unless you have the luxury of being a SAHM with the time to sit down and supervise practice at the end of each school day, this is the reality for many families ... you muddle through, fitting in as much as you can, feeling guilty when you don't. The last thing you need is someone telling you you've let your child down by not insisting they do more. Your comments to the OP, wellwisher, were very harsh and unfair, in my opinion. Sorry.

ImNotaCeleb- but music is one of the things that you don't need terrifying talent to work with! Living example right here :o Seriously, if everything isn't easy straight away, you shouldn't give anyone the opportunity to get up to scratch? Gosh. The aim of practising is to get up to scratch- 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration!!

Would be rather wary of the teacher taking her through the grades- sounds very unprofessional- and wouldn't be happy anyway because a good grounding in music is v. important. If he has lots of other good qualities (i.e. charismatic teacher, good at engaging her- although obvs. not if she's not concentrating well), then have another go of it. But I'd switch and make a clean break of it.

Good teachers go above and beyond and don't make a fuss about it. They might type up a checklist for practise i.e. all the scales, all the pieces, what the aural entails so the pupil knows exactly what they have to do. They go to seminars (if they're doing ABRSM) and refer to the syllabus regularly. They care about how much you practise at home and recognise the need for structure, especially with beginners. Don't be afraid to ask for a consultation/"probation" lesson which you can sit in on, ask for phone numbers of current pupils, really quiz them. If they're keepers, they'll be glad to tell you about them. It's not a cheap investment and it's best to have one teacher to grow a relationship with, so they've got to be worth it.

To push her confidence up, you could offer her Grade 1 on keyboard. It's not humiliating like a retake (although a retake isn't humiliating, failure is a part of life etc etc and if you're talented at music, it doesn't matter if you get average/below average) because it's on a different instrument, it's slightly easier and she'll know most of it. Chords are fun and useful when it comes to arpeggios later on and she might be attracted to the idea of all the different voice/electronica/rhythms etc. When she gets a good mark on that, she can move on to Grade 2 piano. Trinity Guildhall do keyboard exams.

10-15 minutes a day is good and regular, but you might want to consider making it a little longer. With scales, you just need to slog at them. Learn the first scale and the second, repeat, learn the third scale, repeat them all, then the fourth, repeat them all etc. To get stuck in takes more than 10 mins.

I haven't an ounce of musicality in me, but I somehow I manage to pass exams- mostly merits, but my Grade 5 theory was one mark above the pass cutoff :o v. lucky, I was getting 4/5 marks below in all the practise tests! I only did it so I could take G6, but I wish I'd done it sooner, as soon as I'd started playing. Lots of teachers in France insist on a year of pure theory for all prospective pupils, to test their enthusiasm and to give them a good grounding in music.
My first teacher tried to make everything fun, so neglected theory pretty much completely and gave me the books with the letter names printed next to the notes. When my dad found out he was shocked and switched me to a very theory full-on teacher, who couldn't believe I didn't know what a crotchet was after four years of playing and starting teaching me Grade 3 stuff...I still find it harder to read a bass clef now.

Anyway, do reassure your daughter, especially that it doesn't have to set a precedent.

I'm not saying practise only the exam pieces for 30 minutes x 7 days - you should mix things up with scales, sight reading, improvisation, revisiting old pieces, a bit of singing/conducting... it's OK for it to be fun!