Haha lolz im actualy shitty at sight singing and reading too
Hey! My name's Stephan Wells, and I'm a musician, mixing engineer, programmer, proofreader, gamer, aspiring game developer, audio moderator, and former host of the NGADM. Thanks to Youkos for the user image and profile icon!
Stephan Wells
@Step
Age 29, Male
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Utrecht University
Malta
Joined on 11/4/07
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Yeah it's really tough. I've gotten a little better at sight-reading ever since I started going to my new piano teacher since she prepares me very well for it, but I still find it tough. It's not easy properly playing a piece that you've never seen before, especially in an examination room. And don't get me started on sight-singing!
Good job dude! How long have you been studying/practicing for this? :0
Around a year! You can imagine my nervousness haha.
Well done on your exam step! Also, thanks for mentioning me in your post! :)
Thanks. Least I could do!
im noob and mexfag, how do i read that??
noob and mexfag
You're still graded as A+ sexy in my book, step
Thank god.
Cigarette juice!
Yes.
...Oh, I missed taking music exams... ;m;
Your brain must be forgetting the grueling hours of constant practising and the nerve-wrecking tension in the exam room ;_;.
*snuggles intently*
Yes.
Congrats man!
Thanks!
Except that I rarely practice. And I manage to barely pass the exams. I NEARLY got a "Merit" for my Grade 3 violin exam.
Dammit, past me.
Yeah it takes a lot of practice x_x. I'm not finding much time to practise now either, with university going on.
Congrats! You must be proud.
Pretty happy with the mark yes ^_^.
Congrats!
Thanks!
How long have you been practising the piano?
I passed my Grade 8 piano exam with distinction five years ago.
Took me three years to get to grade 8. <:)
Three years? Wow! o.o
I've been practising for around eight years now! Although in my defence, when I take my exams is not up to me but up to my teacher, and I've always been with a pretty slow teacher who takes her time to write me down for the exam, rather than allowing me to breeze through.
I don't mind personally; there's no rush, and in periods between exams there's still a lot to do, except in the form of learning pieces from piano study books rather than learning exam pieces and training for aural/sight-reading tests.
Congrats pianogod! Well done :D Now you have got EWQL Pianos you should try out more piano stuff!
That's the plan :3.
Congrats on your Grade 6 distinction!
It took me a while to get a distinction in any higher grade (I got a merit in Grade 6), so that you accomplished this is marvellous.
Thanks! Yeah my teacher said it's very hard to get a distinction in the later grades so I am quite proud of that mark. So you took piano exams as well or are you referring to another instrument?
I took piano exams, myself. I did my Grade 8 in 2004. ^_^
Oh cool. You must've started playing piano at an early age... or did you just breeze through the grades?
I started when I was 3, but took my first graded exam -- Grade 2, practical -- when I was 7. I skipped Grade 3, took Grade 4, and then never skipped an exam since.
Grades 7 and 8 were distinctions -- and after that bare pass in Grade 5 and merit in Grade 6, it really escaped me as to how I managed those. O_O
Wow, 3 is the youngest age to start an instrument I've ever heard of. Echo started at 4 and I thought he set the record but looks like that has been broken :p.
I started at the relatively late age of 11. Haven't skipped any grades and always got distinctions or missed a distinction by two or three marks and got a high merit instead. I love piano and I'm pretty dedicated to it, so it's really frustrating when that happens haha.
Out of curiosity, what board did you take your exams under? I'm with ABRSM.
ABRSM as well, but back then, if you took your piano exams, they were ALL Classical. You didn't have the Jazz option. The jazz pieces wound up in the C selection, most of the time. And yes, I am familiar with the AB grading system, which is why I was well chuffed when I saw you had your Grade 6 distinction. :D
Ah, I don't do the jazz course anyway. My teacher isn't really a fan of music from the modern era and even though I'd love to enroll into a jazz course, she wouldn't like the idea :p. That said, I always choose the jazz piece in the C selection haha.
Since Grade 6 I took the Impressionist-sounding pieces; I started laying off the jazz after Grade 5. I never got used to them... >_<
I wonder how your teacher would respond to folk music (Irish folk in particular)?
Hm, there was a Japanese folk tune in the most recent Grade 6 C selection list, and I think she was fairly fond of it, even though I ended up choosing the Jazz piece over it. Even when I do my sight-reading practice with her, whenever we come across a folk piece she does seem to enjoy it, so it seems like she does like that kind of music.
Waltzes and minuets and sonatas and inventions and that kind of stuff are what she really enjoys though.
steampianist
Nice one step! What pieces did you play?.
Step
I played three pieces - first one's a pleasant classical Rondo. Second is a super expressive Romantic piece by Schumann. Third, my favourite, is a fairly standard but enjoyable Jazz piece.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3MUl4CpJiQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei5nHtisj9g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIlSCQ5jsd0 (couldn't find a video which nailed the rhythm for the third piece but this is the closest I could find).
I'm fairly happy with my performance although I agree with most of the critique the examiner wrote down. He was actually quite merciful on me in the aural tests. He wrote down "There was some uncertainty singing the melody over a piano accompaniment", but "some uncertainty" puts it lightly! I was TERRIBLE in the sight-singing exercise he referred to. I'm really really crap at singing haha.
Thanks for the comment!