Q. Is anyone doing their grade 8 piano this year? if so, what pieces are you playing? have you learnt all the scales yet? are your pieces bad/good/excellent? how is your aural?
i'm sooooooooo scared =S x
A. I did it last winter, I did pretty well. My pieces were: sonata in D minor by cimarosa, Sonata in E by beethoven, and Prelude in C sharp minor by Chopin, I got 29/30, 28/30, and 30/30 for my pieces. Aural was terrible, I guessed my chords, but others were great, I ended up with 14/18. Scales- knowing them weren't a concern, I was able to play them fluently. I had a few slips in my arpeggios and that was it, 19/21. Sight-reading was extremely easy (in my opinion) i got 20/21.. I don't know where he took off the one mark.. maybe my dynamics were a little off. So I wound up with 140/150.
You really shouldn't be scared, I thought I was going to get just a pass until I knew my result. Don't sound too confident in your aural answers-they hate that! Try to be conservative. When you know that you don't know, don't guess-- say you don't know, they take off less marks (my teacher was a chief examiner)
Good luck on your exam!
i feel like i lost my musical ability and talent (can't sight reading, bad at reading music)?
Q. Hi, I'm just this 14-year-old asian kid who had a great love and feel for music. I started teaching myself the piano starting 2 1/2 years ago (later, having a private teacher), and I started teaching myself finger-picking guitar starting 8 months ago. I always learned things by ear really easily unless I could find sheet music.
Although I didn't play piano for long, I already play and my teacher is teaching me pretty difficult pieces such as revolutionary etude, fantaise impromptu, winter wind etude, la campenalla, flight of the bumblebee, moonlight 3rd mov etc. (and a lot of other easier/slower ones). I have big hands so that could be a big advantage. For the past year, I felt like i was on a roll. I could learn hard pieces really quickly and play with great technique (took me 3 weeks to learn and play fantaise impromptu w/o any mistakes (this was the first hard song i learned, which was 1 year after starting piano) while mainly focusing on other pieces, 1 week to master flight of the bumblebee perfectly, revolutionary etude and moonlight 3rd mov each took me 2 weeks to learn and master perfectly, other easier pieces like sun flowers by wang and beethoven pathetique sonata took me less than a week to learn and master perfectly). I'm a student and I also spend a lot of hours drawing and playing guitar, so the max I can get out of a day of piano practice is ~1-2 hours.
Then 2 months ago, I felt like I hit a wall. my previous teacher had assigned me the winter wind etude to play for a concert. I was starting it off really well, but then my mom decided to switch teachers. I got a different teacher, an old korean lady, which was a lot better experienced and was even very famous. At first I felt like I was getting better really quickly, pieces like black keys and winter wind felt way easier and almost effortless. My teacher and my parents also say my technique was getting so much better so quickly.
But then 2 months ago, I felt as if my piano motivation and "touch" suddenly ended. I didn't finish learning the winter wind etude, nor any of the other pieces my teacher gave me, but I felt like I "couldn't" learn it. Even a really easy slow piece of chords and scales, sightreading suddenly became extremely difficult, it became impossible for me to play anything without having many mistakes. I also forgot all the pieces that I used to know, even though I keep on practicing them, I just couldn't play them anymore.
I also got really nervous and lost a lot of confidence in music. My teacher encouraged me to perform winter wind at this pre-concert festival, with me in her top 2 students among a hundred of all ages. I went, it was really crowded in a small room, i performed, but I did horrible. So many mistakes the first time, then 2nd time encore I did worst, and worst, until I felt like I couldn't show my face anymore. My parents used to have hope in me becoming a professional pianist. But seems after that day my parents would say "you cannot be a musician, if you would get this nervous when you play in front of people."
They say its cuz of lack of basic training. My hand movements are too big, so my hand gets tired and I start messing up. But I think its much more than that. I can't play like I used to, with that "free, confident, happy" way of playing. I was so relaxed then. Now, sometimes I get SO frustrated I start having mental breakdowns. What should I do?
Opinions? Help???
HELP!
A. As a teacher and performer I feel your pain. Over the 12 years I've been playing I have had times when I just felt burnt out with piano. I even came to the point were I didn't touch the piano for about 6 months. Sometimes you just need a break. Give yourself some time to relax. Listen to some music that helps to inspire you, whatever that may be. Some of the pieces you mentioned are quite difficult. I did the winter wind and revolutionary, but it was several years into my training before I tried those. As regards the sight-reading issue, I've had the same struggle with it. Until I read this book Piano Guided Sight-Reading (By Leonhard Deutsch) (1950). It had a lot of good suggestions about sight-reading and technique. Its a little dated but interesting none the less. I found a nice free midi program that helps with sight-reading called Jalmus. If you have a keyboard you can connect it via midi cables to your PC and play some good sight-reading games. If you've ever seen the Rock Band Games, this is a similar idea. Instead of notes scrolling from top to bottom. You have notes coming at you from right to left on a staff and you must play them before they get to the other side of the screen. You can adjust what key, tempo, altered notes and so forth. You might give that a try.
Hope this helps
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Title : ABRSM Grade 8 piano.. this november/december?
Description : Q. Is anyone doing their grade 8 piano this year? if so, what pieces are you playing? have you learnt all the scales yet? are your pieces b...