Hi
just wondered if anyone on here could tell me if you can fail grade 1. DS1 went in for the exam today. Got to the church and was told there's no warm up room and the previous candidate cancelled so please go straight in. We'd arrived early to compose ourselves but DS seemed happy to get straight on with it, so he went in. Completely messed up his broken chords which he's been faultless on for months. Completely messed up one of his set pieces, I mean ended in wrong key, restarted piece three times. Other two pieces absolutely fine. Other scales fine. I'm hoping they'll see from how polished the other pieces were that it's a blip. He also told the examiner that he hadn't been taught any LH broken chords. It was a mental meltdown - he plays them all the time. His mind just went blank.
Now he feels very foolish. I said, don't worry - treat it as a mock - the point of an exam is for you personally to gauge what you know and don't know - for no other reason at this stage, so no shame in needing to resit, but he's good at piano, loves it, practises a lot and just absolutely went to pieces in there.
Sorry - just needed to get all that off my chest. I've been told it's almost impossible to fail Grade 1 but I think he may have set a precedent.
Any advice?