anyone ever failed a music grade exam?

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7 and piano again. :rollyey:

taa for the rep

You doing any grades now?

I've not done any for years, had lessons for a bit after that, but decided to put them on hold for a bit. Having my first lesson in about 2 years or so next week, wouldn't mind giving grade 6 piano a shot next year sometime, I'm probably pretty rusty so just learning a few random bits and bobs for now. Also just taken up clarinet so might give grade 1 clarinet a go, depending on how I go with that over the summer :smile:

Reply 22

Ducklighter

hah nicee =)
I'm doing clarinet, started a few years ago and enjoy it muchly =)

Reply 23

-G-a-v-

Clarinet is good fun so far. Not got as much time for music as I'd like at the moment, damn uni getting in the way haha - should have lots of time over the summer though hopefully! :smile:

Reply 24

Fletch

Why do people get so hung up about aurals tho'? I often find it very difficult to persuade my students to sing at all but surely to any musician this is the most natural form of expression. How else can you tell people what you're hearing in your head? Playing it on an instrument is like a translation.

Reply 25

-G-a-v-

Fletch

Hmm maybe I'm alone on this one, but I really liked the aural tests. Probably because they were, in general, easy marks in the exam and helped (in part) to make up for my atrocious scales :p:

not done any grade 6+ though yet, lol.

Reply 26

Doublereedfreak

I <3 aurals it's free marks tbh.
I'm really looking forward to doing my grade 1 violin :biggrin:

Only like 5 scales haha. It's going to be mintttt.

Reply 27

beautifulbigmacs

Doublereedfreak

I <3 aurals it's free marks tbh.
I'm really looking forward to doing my grade 1 violin :biggrin:

Only like 5 scales haha. It's going to be mintttt.

oooh you've took up violin! wow! you are sooo gonna be a one man band one day lol :smile:

the violin scales are nice. There are also repeats in the higher grades. For e.g you use G Major again right up to grade 2, possible beyond hehe.

I too am in the pro aural camp. I always feel it's a chance to make up for my poor sightreading. well, i'm better at sight reading than i was, but i found it particularly hard in piano exams

Reply 28

dreamyeyed

I failed Grade 5 piano a few months a go - got 97. Got so nervous that i was looking at the page and thinking i don't know what any of this means. Then i started scales and couldn't remember any key signatures. It was a bit of a disaster really.

Reply 29

Doublereedfreak

laurakate1988

oooh you've took up violin! wow! you are sooo gonna be a one man band one day lol :smile:

Yeah, I want to really play the fiddle but I'm getting a bit of classical technique first.
my friends teaching me so it's mintttt :biggrin:

I'm way better at strings than I am brass which I think is dead weird haha.

Reply 30

beautifulbigmacs

i can relate...i'm more comfortable on woodwind but strings feels far more doable than brass

maybe it's because too many different mouth positions to master would be too much for one musician

its weird, out of all the instruments i want to play, not many are brass and that high up on the list..strange that coz it sounds ace to listen to

Reply 31

Doublereedfreak

Brass are reallly strange.
The only one I can do is tuba really.. :/
I reallllly want to learn cello but it's just not happening at the moment haha.
I think my instrument cravings will have to stop one day.. haha.

Reply 32

The_Lonely_Goatherd

I failed my DipABRSM by four marks coz my sight-reading was atrocious and I didn't have enough stage presence :no:

I scraped passes for my Grade 3 and Grade 5 piano exams :eek:

Reply 33

beautifulbigmacs

The_Lonely_Goatherd

I failed my DipABRSM by four marks coz my sight-reading was atrocious and I didn't have enough stage presence :no:

I scraped passes for my Grade 3 and Grade 5 piano exams :eek:

yowsers! that sounds really harsh because i'm not sure how "stage presence" can be marked as exactly as something like the music itself. that almost makes it sound like you lost marks for not playing the instrument in a daft outfit...no fair!!

Reply 34

beautifulbigmacs

Doublereedfreak

ditto...i can't see my addiction ending anytime soon. got clarinet flute viola guitar etc cravings lol

Reply 35

Doublereedfreak

laurakate1988

ditto...i can't see my addiction ending anytime soon. got clarinet flute viola guitar etc cravings lol

Well the ones I want to learn are violin (fiddle really) viola, cello, flute and think thats it actually.
Lol not too many :p:

Reply 36

The_Lonely_Goatherd

laurakate1988

Well they kinda had a point and they were very nice about it. Wrote lots of negative things about my playing but ended by saying something like "this is perfectly within your reach", which was nice. At least they saw some potential!

The sight reading/quick study was sooooo bad that I left exam room laughing hysterically :rofl: