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Original poster

Grade 1 piano exam help

36 replies

thekarlie · 14/11/2018 17:38

My 9 year old daughter took her grade 1 piano exam today and is now very upset and panicking.

She said her scales were perfect apart from 1 note she hit incorrect in the broken chords.
Sight reading was easy (her words) she played the sharp, tempo and dynamics.
Aural she was very happy with.
La Donna e mobile and when the saints she played very well and was very happy with.
Dans la forget lointaine She said was going fine until half way through she hit a wrong note and then she said she panicked and played it terrible, she just couldn’t get it back. Played most wrong thereafter. She said that was the worst she has ever played that one

So she has been very emotional and thinks she has failed - she is so frustrated as the rest of it was almost perfect.
Does anyone know if she’s still could pass? I’m not musical and have never experienced music exams so am unsure how strict or perfect you need to play. Any help or advice on this would be much appreciated.

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Original poster
thekarlie · 04/12/2018 19:13

I am so pleased for her Alsoplayspiccolo - she really does work hard and finally she has a mark that reflects that as she was very disappointed with her practical results even though I thought that was amazing as well.

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Alsoplayspiccolo · 04/12/2018 19:02

That's a FANTASTIC result, thekarlie!!

Original poster
thekarlie · 04/12/2018 19:00

Just got an email from her music teacher and she passed yay! With 99 marks - amazing, so proud of her.
How did you get on trumpetboysmum?
Thanks again for all the advice and help, much appreciated x

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Alsoplayspiccolo · 04/12/2018 14:41

Theory results are available online now. Your teacher may not have had an email ( I haven't), so she needs to log in on the ABRSM online site.

Trumpetboysmum · 04/12/2018 14:40

We haven’t had an email but the results are in . I entered ds myself for theory so was able to look his up online today

Original poster
thekarlie · 04/12/2018 14:36

Hi all
I have a quick question for those that know the process clearly better than I do.
I have just been online to see if there was any indication as to when we would get theory results and I have seen on the ABRSM results and certificates page that it says - Results available to view online between 4th - 21st of December. Does this mean that they could come in at any point during this time? or should they have been email today? (piano teacher booked exams so results are going to her email)

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Alsoplayspiccolo · 03/12/2018 19:42

Those are all good marks - no obvious signs of anything going drastically wrong. Maybe it felt a lot worse to her than it sounded to the examiner?
Pleased she did so well and it hasn't put her off.

Original poster
thekarlie · 03/12/2018 14:09

Hi Alsoplayspiccolo
Breakdown as follows
List A03 - 24
List B03 - 23 (this is the one she thought she played very bad)
List C03 - 25
Scales - 17
Sight reading - 19
Aural - 17
I did say when the marks came in that it couldn't have been as bad as she thought but she still insists that it was and doesn't know how they have been marked them almost the same.

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Original poster
thekarlie · 03/12/2018 13:58

Just waiting on the theory results now - its 4 weeks this week from when she sat the exam.
do ABRSM post somewhere when results are out?

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Alsoplayspiccolo · 01/12/2018 11:25

That's a great result, thekarlie - bravo to your DD.
Did you get a breakdown of the marks in each part? Was the piece she felt went wrong as bad as she feared?

Original poster
thekarlie · 22/11/2018 20:24

Well I was a little disappointed with the reaction
Me - “SUMMER! You passed your piano exam with a merit!!
Summer - “oh cool”
Me “what? You’ve been so worried, and you did it! I’m so proud of you”
Summer - “thanks. Can I watch the end of my show now”
Hahaha! all that worry and stress for nothing.
Thank you so much to everyone for all your help and advice, I feel a little more prepared for the future exams now.

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HoHol · 22/11/2018 19:52

That is fantastic news, well done her 🤩

keiratwiceknightly · 22/11/2018 19:51

Good news

MeltingWax · 22/11/2018 19:45

Yay! Well done to your DD! Smile Star

Hopefully she's pleased?

Original poster
thekarlie · 22/11/2018 19:29

My Daughter passed with a Merit score of 125 yay!!

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Original poster
thekarlie · 22/11/2018 13:44

still waiting on the results - will post as soon as I find out.
She is a lot better in herself now as well. xx

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highby · 22/11/2018 11:24

Did she pass?

Original poster
thekarlie · 15/11/2018 14:58

thank you all - my mind is a little more at ease now.

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happylilac · 15/11/2018 13:30

DS even skipped a whole line (a few bars) and still got a distinction for his grade 1 piano. Shock DS was cheerfully happy but I still suspect the examiner may have been day-dreaming or sleeping for a moment (!). After all they are all humans... I also hear they don't mark grade 1 harshly so you really have to do extremely badly to fail.

Sounds like a definite pass or as PP said more than just a pass to me. Smile

Violinboymum · 15/11/2018 13:00

She will definitely pass, might even get a merit. DS froze during his exam in the middle of one piece and still got a high merit for it. Good luck!

Original poster
thekarlie · 15/11/2018 10:27

Wow! Thank you so much for all the info and the time you have taken to write this - I really appreciate it.
Have a great day :)

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MeltingWax · 15/11/2018 10:15

Ah poor thing, it's easy to fixate on the tricky parts of an exam & forget about all the bits that went really well. You will receive the examiner's mark sheet with commentary on each section and a breakdown of the marks. The mark sheet will be in the post after the online result but the breakdown (but not the detailed commentary) will also be available online. Each piece is marked out of 30, scales/arpeggios are out of 21, sight-reading is out of 21 and aural is out of 18. Each section is marked independently so a mess-up on one area only affects the mark for that area. The total is out of 150, you need 100 to pass, 120 for a merit, 130 for a distinction.

Original poster
thekarlie · 15/11/2018 10:01

Thank you for all the information that’s very helpful, she is doing it though a teacher but she didn’t tell us when to expect the results. I will let her know after school that fingers crossed we won’t have to wait to long.
She was so upset, crying again this morning about it. I feel so bad for her. It’s just hard to know how bad it was, as I wasn’t in there and I know that she is so tough on herself. But she keeps telling me it was that bad, so bad that she couldn’t even mess up that much at home to show me what she did on our piano

I thought I had heard the last of those pieces as well but there she was this morning drilling over them again.

Could I ask you another question meltingwax?
Do you get a break down on the marks you get in each section or is it just an overall mark?
I think if she see that she did well in the other section and her other pieces she could put it behind her.

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Wafflenose · 15/11/2018 09:27

Wow, if 5/6 sections went as well as she thinks, you are looking at a merit or possibly distinction I think.

MeltingWax · 15/11/2018 05:36

The results of the theory papers are released at the same time for everyone sitting ABRSM papers on that Tuesday evening. For the spring & summer sessions in 2018 and last year's autumn session results were released 4 weeks after the exam date. ABRSM put a message on their Twitter & Facebook pages on the afternoon the results come out telling people they can check their online accounts from 5pm ish onwards for results (or your DD's teacher can if it was the teacher who made the exam entry). Each time our results have been available from about 17.10.

Hopefully you should get your practical results more quickly than that but that's more difficult to predict. The quickest we have had practical results has been 8 days and the longest wait we have had has been 2 weeks. But some people wait much longer. I think it depends on whether anyone in your batch of exams reports an issue with the exam itself - that can then hold up the results for the whole batch.

Good luck for your DD - am sure she will do fab Smile