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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!!

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FiveHoursSleep · 01/12/2011 15:55

I always tell mine that 'butterflies' are normal and are their bodies' way of making sure they do their best.

relaxitllbeok · 01/12/2011 19:09

Just to update, my DS got a high merit - which seems about what I'd expect, really, but apparently the school are very disgruntled about this examiner, feeling that overall she marked very hard. Word is that she took 3 marks off the scales of a Grade 1 pianist who played note-perfectly, but with the scales not adequately "shaped" for example! I told DS that the moral is, if you want a distinction you have to practise so well that not even the toughest examiner in the world would have an excuse for not giving you one :-) He seems fairly equanimous.

mel38 · 01/12/2011 20:07

My daughter 8 years old moved schools in sept so started a new school had to settle in and make friends and get used to new music teachers in both piano and violin !! she took her grade 1 violin in june and passed with a merit 124 points . After a new teacher it became clear she had a few sight reading issues but she has worked really hard in the last 10 weeks and sat her grade 1 piano 2 weeks ago. She had her result today 118 points and a pass , sight reading was the area that let her down ,we are soooo pleased for her and have to told her to achieve this with all the changes going on is great , But she is so dissapointed to miss out on a merit by 2 marks , any advice on how to make her feel better about her result other than lots of praise . She is currently working on violin grade 2 and says she is going to work extra hard to get that distinction !!

ByTheWay1 · 01/12/2011 20:22

WOW - just got my DDs mark - ALSO 118!!!! Spooky...... She is over the moon to be a grade 1 pianist.... we never pressed the pass/merit/distinction thing, so she is pleased as punch she passed. Won't know what she was good/bad at til her teacher gives us the feedback sheet.... but SHE PASSED!!! woooohooooo!!

Original poster
Wafflenose · 01/12/2011 20:23

Well done both! :o

18/21 for perfect scales lacking shape is exactly what they're meant to award, relax - have seen it many times. Same goes for perfect sight reading without the expressive details. I tell my pupils they have to include both of these things if they want to be marked out of the full 21, as it were. It's all covered in 'These Music Exams' - free little book with the marking criteria from ABRSM. I use it to give them mock exams and usually find the marks are fairly close to what they get in the end. Haven't had too many surprises with ABRSM (over a decade and 200 exam entries!) although once they did come back all 10-15 marks lower than I'd expected. I was young and thought it was me - until lots of other teachers started saying the same thing, by which time it was too late to do anything about it. A high merit is brilliant btw!

And 118 with dodgy sight reading sounds good to me too! You could tell her that the average mark awarded by the Board is 117 (a few years ago, it was 116). Also, well over 50% of pupils achieve a pass, depending on the grade it's around 30% that get merits and 12% distinctions, so not that many. The rest either don't pass, or are withdrawn, or disqualified for offering the wrong syllabus, etc. Well done to her anyway, glad it's made her even more determined.

My first lot (eleven doing Trinity) are on Tuesday. Have three ABRSM the following week.

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Original poster
Wafflenose · 01/12/2011 20:24

Forgot to say, the AB mark from the pass mark and add on/ deduct from there, rather than starting from the maximum and taking marks off. So it's very hard to get full marks for a section. For scales, a pass is 14, so 18 is really good. Mine seem to generally hover around the 15-17 mark!

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Original poster
Wafflenose · 01/12/2011 20:26

x-post with BTW!

Well done to your DD! That's fantastic! :o

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MorningPurples · 01/12/2011 20:29

What do they want in terms of 'shape' for scales then? I'm working towards an exam myself. Hoping to get my scales even and smooth, but that's about it.

Some of these marks seem to be coming back really fast, which is great. A week or so?

Original poster
Wafflenose · 01/12/2011 20:32

A bit of a crescendo on the way up, mainly. Perhaps a slight dimenuendo when you start coming down. Also really fluent and effortless. Once a pupil of mine was asked to "try to make your scales really sparkling now"!

OK - teacher hat off. Parent hat back on! DD is getting really fed up of practising her pieces now - hope it will all be worthwhile. We've bought a book of Christmas carols to break things up a bit.

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MorningPurples · 01/12/2011 20:39

I don't think mine sparkle, for sure. I'm aiming not to get stuck, with my fingers just not quite being as smooth as they normally can - the curse of being an adult with stiffer joints I expect.

I can understand about being bored with pieces, even when you have non-exam pieces in there. The exam ones just get jittery with me somehow, so playing them through never seems to do much good.

My piano teacher as a child used to give us a book of Xmas carols to work on each year, which I really liked - good sightreading practice, too. The rest of the time we had one book of songs from a musical as well as the classical stuff. She wouldn't go as far as pop music, but things like Sound of Music or Mary Poppins.

relaxitllbeok · 01/12/2011 20:41

Ah, makes sense, thanks. Well done to all :-)

Original poster
Wafflenose · 01/12/2011 20:48

When is your exam, MorningPurples? Sounds like you had a nice teacher when you were younger. I make sure all my pupils play hundreds of pieces (including lots of fun, easier stuff, and sight reading, carols, etc) between grades, because after all it's about learning a skill and enjoying music really isn't it?

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CURIOUSMIND · 01/12/2011 22:39

I don't think we should moan about the strict examiner.As far as I know, those people are hightly trained.It's incredibly diffiuclty to become an examiner.Believe me they know what they are talking about.
The scales is not just about get the right notes.It should be played as if it's the most beautiful piece in the whole world,logato, even, with dynamic shaping etc.
Then that 's something I don't like about my teacher .He asked (this time again!)who is the examiner see if he knows him. I am not expecting any special treatment , in a good or bad way from an examiner or is he a nice person or not.I just tell my DS to face the professional in a professional way.

FiveHoursSleep · 01/12/2011 23:25

Well done everyone ( and the DC's of course!). Our results came back in 10 days!
Interesting about the scales Wafflenose. My girls both got full marks for their scales so I'm now feeling grateful to our rather old fashioned and sometimes picky teacher. Grin I'd better get her something nice for Xmas.
Goodluck for your exam MorningPurples.

RaspberryLemonPavlova · 01/12/2011 23:25

How do Trinity mark Wafflenose - do they mark the same way?

Original poster
Wafflenose · 02/12/2011 09:38

They publish the criteria for fail/ pass/ merit/ distinction for each section (as do AB). It's on their website, although I had to hunt for it. If you manage to include all the criteria at a level (e.g. merit level), you would get the highest merit mark. If you had some elements of a distinction, and some elements of a pass, that would be a merit too (best fit). I haven't read this anywhere, but when I'm assessing someone for a TG exam, I listen to them and look at the pass criteria first, then above and below as appropriate. I will investigate to find out if they mark from a pass like AB! The points system is different though:

3 pieces x 22 marks
Technical work x 14 marks
2 supporting tests x 10 marks
Total = 100

Pass = 60, Merit = 75, Distinction = 87.

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Timetraveller · 02/12/2011 23:42

Hi, I have 3 DCs playing 2 instruments each; I worked out that between them have taken 26 grade exams! But I still get nervous for them.
My youngest DD is taking grade 4 oboe on the 15th. She had a different teacher for her last lesson, who asked her to play 'Air and Hornpipe.' My DD replied, 'I'm only playing 'Air'. The teacher said, 'But you have to play both, they count as one piece'! That was news to us, so she's now learning a new piece, with a week and a half to go until the exam!

tammygirl · 03/12/2011 05:41

Oh I can relate to the nerves...I was nervous when my DD sat G1 piano recently, I had to remind myself to play it down so she wouldn't pick up on my nerves. She had no such nerves, infact was excited, wore special hairclip and reported that it was "great and he liked my shoes".

She had been bored silly with her pieces in the lead-up to the exam and not overly keen to practice but as soon as exam was over and she had fresh pieces to play, she was full of excitement again and rushes down to practice each morning.

Exam wasn't mentioned again until results were out; she was busy with Brownie camp and colouring competitions and I tried to pretend I'd forgotten about it.

Merit result 122 points with some lovely comments "a fine musical performance, well done" and she was delighted.
So will continue lessons but won't do an exam next year.

I think the way kids handle these things has a lot to do with parents' and teachers' attitudes - I vividly remember scoring 101 for grade 5 cello and being thrilled to have passed and everyone being very positive. Infact it was only recently I re-framed this from adult perspective and realised I hadn't done well at all!

CURIOUSMIND · 03/12/2011 22:10

'I think the way kids handle these things has a lot to do with parents' and teachers' attitudes '--Totally agree!
That's why I don't like our teacher teaching my Ds1 the tips to overcome the nerves, like doing scales first when my boy repeated I don't mind, twice.Because my Ds1 is not nervous at all! I told him:Some people are nurvous because they can't do it perfectly, but you can , you are fearless.My boy ,so, is fearless!
I suggest as parents we should change our attitude.

ByTheWay1 · 04/12/2011 16:22

tammygirl - 101 for GRADE 5 - that is brilliant - you passed - many don't - and many, many more don't bother getting that far - so from any perspective I would take that as a positive result!!!

my girls got 111 and 118 for their piano grade 1 - both passes and both had a whole heap of fun getting them - I am in no way at all concerned for them - they do their music for fun not for bits of paper - they wanted to go for the exam since no one else in their class at school had, so I said yes, so long as they practised.....

Original poster
Wafflenose · 04/12/2011 17:19

Well done everyone! :o

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Original poster
Wafflenose · 05/12/2011 21:26

Well tomorrow's the big day! Am accompanying eleven of my pupils in the morning, including DD1 for her first ever music exam. Now that she's performed and practised so much, she's actually the least of my worries, but I need to make sure it's a happy experience for her!

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FiveHoursSleep · 05/12/2011 21:50

Good luck to all your pupils, esp your DD and also to you! Aren't you just a little terrified?

maggiethecat · 06/12/2011 09:42

Hope it goes well for all of you!

singinggirl · 06/12/2011 09:49

Never put down a pass of any sort - there are always more people who couldn't pass an exam than can! Am bursting with pride over DS2, who woke up with earache on the day of his Grade 1 viola, went straight from the doctors to the exam, then got spooked in the waiting room because a tramp had wandered in off the street. He didn't play his best (unsurprisingly) which I know as I was accompanying him. His teacher just phoned to say he passed with 107!