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Extra-curricular activities

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Original poster

Support group for parents of children taking music exams!

999 replies

Wafflenose · 14/11/2011 22:03

Hello, I'm feeling excited, nervous and wobbly because my daughter is taking her first music exam in three weeks. I'm a music teacher and am very used to getting children through the exams, keeping the parents informed, helping to focus practice, etc, but this is my first experience with my own child doing an exam and for some reason it's more scary than putting other people's children in! I think she will be OK (and the other thirteen I have entered this term) but I'm not!! Any tips for the 'other side' (parents rather than music teachers) for how to keep us both calm on the day would be gratefully received! Does it get easier as they become more experienced? Am thinking not...

She is taking part in the local music festival tomorrow, to gain performance experience. She's wildly excited, and I've got the jitters!!

OP posts:
lljkk · 25/06/2013 17:59

Hi, crashing the thread, Dd has violin G3 TGH in about 4 weeks (eek!). Her regular teacher went off sick so getting by with erratic supply. Wish her luck.

musicalfamily · 25/06/2013 21:42

Argh we have violin grade 1 (DS1) and violin grade 2 (DD1) this term.
I say argh because both children have loads of other things going on; DD1 has ballet rehearsals 4 nights a week (4 hours each session!) for a show which is the week after the exam, and DS1 also extra rehearsals for a gym show.

Luckily they are well prepared as they aren't practising much at all....I think doing exams at the end of the year is a bit rubbish because they are tired and they normally have so much else going on! Fingers crossed especially for DS1 as it is his very first music exam (and he's only 6 so I don't want it to be a bad experience!!!)

Lancelottie · 26/06/2013 13:01

Grade 6 Tuba just done here.

Thinks the pieces went well but the scales were predictably crap through lack of practice. (Even I was sitting outside thinking 'G sharp! G sharp!' --trouble with brass is you can always hear every mistake from the waiting room.)

MusicalF -- that's so true. DS is ricocheting from concerts to exams to end of term shows and the moment and looks rather wild-eyed. i vaguely hope he might be doing some schoolwork in the intervals.

Lancelottie · 26/06/2013 13:02

Good luck IIjkk's DD!

Theas18 · 26/06/2013 14:33

Good luck IIjkks DD and lancelotties . "the scales were predictably crap from lack of practice" is such a familiar phenomenon!

Agree everything,just everything is happening here at the moment. DS even went on a "drama geeks" reward trip to the globe yesterday!

lljkk · 27/06/2013 19:56

Thx. :) I was reminding DD about scales today. She's in y6 and "everything happening" is what we have, too.

CURIOUSMIND · 27/06/2013 21:11

I can't stop thinking Ds1's violin exam was bad today. I was listening in the corridor, could hardly hear a sound from violin, JUST piano banging about very LOUD! Everything else is fine, just these dreadful pieces. Teacher is a wonderful violinist , a conductor, but not a fine pianist.

Viewofthehills · 27/06/2013 21:29

DD1 has grade 7 flute tomorrow so have tested her on every single scale, arpeggio, dom and diminished 7th and chromatic which include some fairly unpleasant high notes.No wonder they don't want to practice them!

Theas18 · 27/06/2013 23:47

Well done view! good luck to her :)

busy week here as ever. ds did another audition ( for the orchestra that would have been the reserve if he didn't get symphony orchestra). bit odd he still did it though he probably won't be taking up the place- but he was honest with them. I'm glad he still did it-it's good experience.

bad mother of the evening goes to me though. I'm in Newcastle with ds for the uni open day tomorrow. I clean forgot dd2 has had an exam ( dean's award, from the parish choir she sings in rarely now). I'm not sure why she did it but I guess she said yes in a moment if weakness when she was asked lol. it went fine-as it should as she's working several levels above but it is part of a scheme where you have to start at the bottom and take each award in turn ( outs an rscm one)

MadeOfStarDust · 28/06/2013 09:27

my eldest DD 12 has her Grade 3 piano today, so woke up a bundle of nerves this morning... exam at 2.40 so picking her up at lunchtime so she can warm up..

Good luck to everyone who has their exams.....

Viewofthehills · 28/06/2013 13:56

Thanks Theas. Flute exam over and done with. Sounds like it all went extremely well except for the aural tests which were absolutely dire. Hmm Which is unusual because they're usually fine.

Viewofthehills · 28/06/2013 16:52

Sorry that sounds wrong, I just mean as well as it could for her. And hoping the aural isn't as bad as she thinks.
MadeOfStardust How did your dd find her piano exam?
Hope all went well.

MadeOfStarDust · 28/06/2013 19:21

She came out saying it was a great exam - the examiner was really nice - she made a few slips -minor one in scales, a biggy on rhythm in sight reading, forgot to start soft in her "excellent" piece and played a wrong note in her "good" piece.. her "OK" piece she did well in, but played it a bit slow (which is why she did it well - but try telling her to do that outside an exam!!) . Aural went "perfectly" apparently..

Sounds like at least a good pass though.... glad she came out happy, not looking all disappointed like the previous candidate...

Viewofthehills · 28/06/2013 19:52

That sounds goodSmile

Pythonesque · 30/06/2013 20:29

Well I'm waiting to see what kind of result my daughter got in her grade 5 violin last week. Accompanist came out and said she'd played her pieces well, which I expected to be honest. But when she came out at the end she was in tears and said everything was a disaster and I haven't managed to find out anything helpful about what actually happened. Her scales seemed well enough prepared to me and she's strong on aural, don't know about the sight reading. But she's a bundle of nerves - was home from school with a tummy upset 2 days before and I really can't untangle whether it was due to the worry or something else adding to it. She didn't want to postpone the exam though when given the chance!

We will have to have a chat, maybe with her teachers, about whether she should do more exams to get used to them, or as few as possible to minimise the stress! (this was her first violin exam, with a new teacher this year, but she did grade 1 piano last term).

MadeOfStarDust · 30/06/2013 20:33

Sounds like she found it quite stressful - I have one DD like that, she only took grade 1 piano and found it stressful - and no longer wants to do the exams - which we are fine with ...the other just did her piano grade3 and wants to do grade4 - which we are also fine with...

RaspberryLemonPavlova · 01/07/2013 17:55

She sounds like my DD - her Grade 5 sax was like that and she got a high merit. I'm never sure what to do for the best either.

Theas18 · 01/07/2013 20:53

Well dd2 recorder exam tomorrow and at 8.30am today I had to fetch her from school with a full blown vomiting not liking the light/noise migraine. She's been flat to most of the day.

Hope it gets better soon!

CinnamonAddict · 01/07/2013 21:04

Anyone else's kid going backwards just before the exam?

I'm starting to get slightly stressed about dd's (14) violin grade 7 exam. It's on Thursday and the teacher told me today, he is starting to get worried Shock
Normally kids pull themselves together and get a lot better the weeks before an exam. This time she didn't. But she wanted the exam and had only one merit so far, rest distinctions. She won't pull this one off, not a grade 7.

Honestly, I wish I hadn't put her down for the exam.
She has an extra lesson tomorrow, teacher suggested it. She has all the talent and skills, she just is so bloody lazy! Teenagers! Grr.

Theas18 · 01/07/2013 23:21

Cinnamon I won't evn say what I thought of Dds scales this evening ! She sounds so like your dd- also 14, also sailed through previous grades - yes she practices sometimes but really not enough ...

I have stopped going into the exam centre as well. I wait in the car.

singinggirl · 02/07/2013 07:56

Wish I could wait in the car! But DS likes me to accompany him - all I can say is I hope he plays better in two hours time than he has played just now (grade 4 violin). He is singing better - his whistling has no tuning! But he is finding it hard to push his new low voice to where he wants it for the sight singing in the aural - which upsets him because he is really good at this normally. Roll on ten o'clock - then I only have my piano students next week to worry about.....

RussiansOnTheSpree · 02/07/2013 08:52

Theas - how did it go? What grade was it - 6 or 7? Dd1 does trinity and thus she can avoid the scales (she has to do them all for her flute and piano though so not much of a saving really, ISTM). Dd2 has grade 3 flute today. I'm not hugely confident. Although she does generally speaking, know her scales - she's not beyond doing a nutty, though. Always a looming threat with her.

RussiansOnTheSpree · 02/07/2013 08:54

DD2 - completely unlike the other two, who ideally like me to be out of the country when they are doing exams - insists I 'come with'. :( I cannot see how it helps her, I really can't. My nerves are like a whole extra corporeal being in the room. And as for the sneezing.....

MadeOfStarDust · 02/07/2013 09:13

good luck to everybody.. hope those yesterday went well.... Friday seems so long ago now!! But the results here have only been taking a couple of weeks, so keeping fingers crossed.

Lancelottie · 02/07/2013 09:33

Singinggirl, I think they're pretty sympathetic to growly adolescent boys. Hope it goes well for him.

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