Grade 1 Violin failure

[Honeymum]

I've just had a text from my DD's violin teacher to say she's failed grade 1.

She has been with him for almost 2 years and has practiced regularly, particularly since we've been preparing for the exam (since last September). To my untrained ear the pieces sounded fine. After the exam the teacher (who accompanied her on the piano) said she had done well and he was pleased.

The scales and sight reading are done with the examiner only so he didn't hear these.

By text he said she talked through the pieces but I will get full story tomorrow.

I wanted to know how common it is to fail grade 1? Is it DD or the teacher? Should I try to switch?

Thanks

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.

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.

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

Hello I am back.

Just a quick post as it's lunchtime at work.
DD took grade 1 again earlier this month and.....she failed again with 94/100.

We were with the same teacher and had decided to give it another go with some provisos. The main one being he wanted me to sit in lessons so she would fully concentrate. He agreed to spend more time on sight reading. See my earlier post.

She spent the weeks in between the two exams practising hard. To my untrained ear the pieces improve A LOT. She's also joined Music School (playing with a little orchestra) which she attended for the last half of the summer term.

In the exam the teacher (who accompanied her) was very pleased with the pieces to the point where he was using phrases like "text book". In the exam itself he said she made one mistake across all three pieces and played really well.

In the end when we got the mark sheet back she got 19/20/20 for the pieces (pass mark 20), compared with 18/22/18 last time.

Scales and Arpeggios: 14/21 (pass = 14)
Aural 13/18 (pass = 12)
Sightreading 8/21 (pass = 12)

She also said that she was asked to play an arpeggio that she hadn't been taught. Can't remember which but I have no reason to doubt her. She also was unclear on the fact that she wasn't allowed to refer to her book. Her teacher hadn't made that clear.

I'll post more later this evening on where we go from here but I thought some of you might be interested.

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?

She was 6 marks short. 94/100, ZZZ.
She is ok now she knows that she almost passed. She was distraught at the time. Especially since she answered the call from the teacher (I was upstairs hoovering!).
She wasn't fully prepared either time IMHO. I mean, she'd not been drilled on the aural or sightreading. Almost all of her lesson time was spent on pieces and scales. I expected more from the exam for those, however. Especially given the teacher's comments on the pieces in particular and how much she had improved.
Will post a bit more on her teacher's comments later on this evening - must dash.

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 ).

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?

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.

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!

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 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.

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 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.

We are definitely changing teacher now. DD is keen to carry on. She's been enjoying music school and is much, much happier to practice now than in the early days.

Comments on her pieces:
(1) "You produced a powerful sound but the pulse was somewhat unsettled and there was a tendency towards flatness. Expressive detail was noticed. 19/30
(2) The rhythm was more closely felt, but pitch was still very much an issue and most of the detail passed you by. 20/30
(3) In spite of some clipped values, rhythm was mostly steady, but pitch was very hit and miss and it was all too loud for the mood.

When we saw the teacher yesterday he suggested that if she wished to continue DD should find another teacher. He also wondered if her left-handedness was an issue (he's never mentioned this before) and suggested she might try the piano .

All of which suggests that she's ineducable when it comes to the violin, I wonder?? Only a new teacher can reveal whether that's the case.

Thank you for all of your comments and suggestions. With hindsight I wish we had ditched the teacher after the first attempt but DD loves him (she cried when I said she'd have to have a new teacher, and said he's her friend as well as her teacher) and I guess my inexperience in these matters showed.

I feel like I've been through the mill a bit but we will try a new teacher in September and see how we get on and hope the experience is a happier one all round from now on.

Cross posts!
Puglet - it's the 2nd time she's failed grade 1! The teacher must be diabolical - I know no one fails grade 1!!

Confidence, I agree. I was astonished at her low marks for the pieces, after all of his recent comments and his comments on the day.

I missed out the mark for the final piece - it was 20/30

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 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.

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?

a good teacher can teach any kid to play in tune on the violin!

God, some of these comments are really bringing back the sensation of being forced to practise every damn day. It made me intensely miserable.

motherinferior, I kind of agree with you (and I am a music teacher!). Exams aren't the be all and end all. It often seems to be parents who want their children to sit them, and peer pressure from friends is also a factor. However, it is obviously important to the OP and her daughter.

The teacher is clearly not very clued up about the ABRSM exams, and hasn't prepped the pupil properly. It is really quite difficult to fail grade 1, assuming the teacher has done their job.

Motherinferior - I know, I agree (kind of).

I have two children. My younger DD is very musical - I think. She's not playing an instrument (yet) - she's almost 8. But her singing is great. She sings along with Adele on the radio and follows her perfectly. DD1 (the violinist) couldn't do that. She's inclined to drone on and never seems to follow a tune!! Maybe we are flogging a dead horse after all .

I would like her to try another teacher though and get a second opinion.

I agree about peer pressure ihearthuckabees. DD has several friends who are learning violin and they all do the exams. I guess it is important to me as it shows she's making progress (or not, in this case).