Grade 8 violin help!! How long should I practice?

I know what you mean - I did my Grade 7 piano recently alongside my year 10 exams (it could have been a lot worse though!) so I started neglecting practice sometimes! Ideally you should be doing about an hour or more a day at this level with the exam so soon, but you've got 8 weeks to get everything sorted so you should be ok. A good thing to do is to do bits and pieces - know what sections in your pieces you have to practise and in between pieces of homework and things, spend 5-10 minutes getting that one bar exactly right. You could easily clock up an hour every day by doing bits of practising like this - and get all the dodgy bars sorted out as well! Similarly, play a scale for 5 minutes continuously in between bits of homework. If you haven't got time to have a full practise session, i.e. playing everything through, don't waste those 5-10 minutes playing a piece through - that won't get you anywhere. Use them to work on the bits you're really not confident on. Remember to do some practise on the sight reading and aural as well if you have time, but you'll get more marks with good scales and pieces, so try to focus on those (particularly as with grade 8 you will have done sight reading and aural 7 times before!) Sorry for the long post but good luck, I'm sure it will be fine

Good luck! I have my grade 8 piano and violin this year so I know how you feel! I think it depends on how confident you are for the exam; I know for my grade 8 oboe I left it very last minute - like three weeks before the exam but I was really ready to take it and knew my scales anyway and had done grade 8 Aural tests before. I would really recommend getting a CD for Aural test practice as grade 8 is really difficult. Scales are a definite to get under your fingers, these should be easy marks. I always but names of the scales onto strips of paper and pull them out of a bag and go through them all each day. If I make a mistake I then come back to it at the end and practice until I can play it three times consecutively. And I agree with ChocolateMelody, practice the bits of the pieces you need to practice SLOWLY. I struggle so much with tuning on the violin so if there is a bar that goes out of tune just strip away the rhythm and bowing and play it one note at a time. Just don't panic - eight weeks is plenty of time. What pieces are you playing out of interest?

I think it is the quality of the practice rather than the quantity of it that matters. If you can make practicing enjoyable then that is even better. So how do you make the quality of your practicing count and be enjoyable?

1) Don't make your practice sessions too long. Shorter sessions more often, is better than a long single session. You will concentrate better and it won't seem like a long boring chore.

2) Don't do the same routine every time: i.e. exercises, then scales, then pieces, then sight-reading. Concentrate on a particular area i.e. a hard section of a piece, or the scales you have the most difficulty with.

3) Don't leave all your practicing to the last minute before the exam. You want to be in the position that you won't be nervous because you haven't practiced enough. Being nervous because you are performing is natural but being nervous because you have haven't practiced enough is destructive and it will almost lose you marks.

4) Perform your pieces in front of family, friends etc. Apart from giving you confidence, it will allow you to point out your weaknesses in a way that lone practicing doesn't.

Hey! Thanks for all of your help! My pieces are Haydn's Finale, Brahms Andante Tranquillo 2nd movt from sonata in A and Remembrances from Schindlers List what about you? It's ABRSM by the way


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Hi oh_life

If you are finding scales boring. make a load of labels and write a scale or arpeggio on each of them then put them in a bowl and pick one at a time to play. If you play a scale perfectly without mistakes put it on the 'good' pile. If you make a mistake practice the difficult scale aiming to play it three times in a row perfectly. Once you have done that put the scale back into the pot.

Don't just start practicing a piece from the beginning to the end. Start by playing the last bar first. Then play the penultimate bar then the last bar, the the third last bar, the penultimate bar then the last bar, and so on... You will gain better satisfaction by constantly repeating the music you have already practiced and recognise. Keep doing it until you reach the first bar and I guarantee your piece will sound much better. Don't go to the next bar before until you have mastered the current new bar. If you have played the bar after correcting it perfectly three times then continue to the end of the piece then add the new bar.

Hope this helps!

Hi, same here, I try to practise between one and two hours a day but scales don't seem to improve or only very slowly. I'm 69 nearly so that might be the reason...Pieces improving slowly but not good enough yet. I may take the exam as a dress rehearsal but the price! No time for studies as well. Have trouble with slurred arpeggios and top octaves. So you have a fellow sufferer.