Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Grade 8 exam in less than 24 hours!

Wow. You skipped a grade and just recently did your last exam. Thats even more amazing!

My first teacher had suggested I may skip the grade 5 exam and go straight to grade 6. But then I started working again and piano time has been extremely limited. I recently started with a new teacher and am sticking with grade 5. I have much to learn yet. No skipping for me!

Your comment about where you were looking throwing you off doesn't surprise me. I read somewhere after you memorize a piece you have to always play the same way and that includes where you look. I used to look out the window but no window throws me off. Then I just look down at my hands. And at first that really threw me off. Now it's fun for me to watch my hands!

I'm curious if you worked through any of the repertoire from grade 7 books? Or did you skip it entirely?

Thanks Wouter and Wisebuff.

Zoe, I did work on other pieces and went through all the sight reading materials for grade 7. I think the hardest transition from grade 6 to 8 was the technical work because in grade 8 (AMEB) I had to do the scales and chromatic in thirds and sixths (whereas before it has always been an octave apart) so that was challenging since each hand would have to be completely independent. It's almost like I was learning scales from scratch again.

I guess from now on I should practice looking at every single possible thing in the room.

lol. I think what you should take away is that when preparing for recitals and/or performances, you should simply aim to mimic the performance to come in terms of clothes, possible interruptions, possible memory lapses, and where your focus (in this case visual) will be during the performance(s)

I'm in no position to give any advice around here, but I will say you should be very proud of what you've achieved, I'm guessing its a dream/goal for a lot of peeps on the ABF to reach grade 8.
One thing I always tell myself is, no matter what, I'm in this for the enjoyment and because I love the piano.

Fingers crossed for a pass on your exam.

Neil.

Result just in. I got a B+!!!
Quite happy with that. If only I didn't stuff up that sonata... Oh well!

That sounds excellent to me! Onwards and upwards now. Wow you got your results fast. I had to wait a few months for mine. (RCM).

So are you starting the next level straight away or taking a break?

Yes I was surprised myself, my teacher just SMS-ed me the result a couple of minutes ago. I supposed it's all posted online these days. I'm going to start working straight away but not as rushed as before, I want to take a bit more time to learn other pieces and see if my teacher can help me get more performance opportunities because I felt my performance skill is very lacking. And apparently only 50% of students pass their diploma on their first go, so they expect a really really good performance. If I stuff up the sonata the way I did in grade 8 it would be instant fail for sure!

Wow, a huge achievement - you should be proud of yourself!

Congratulations. A B+ should be cause for celebration.

Cool beans, congrats to you!

Thank you Neil, WiseBuff, Ben!

That's amazing! Congratulations!

Funny how one can accomplish so many great things yet we seem to dwell on those occasional blunders-lol.

I do it to myself all the time.

Congrats! Nice to hear that all your hard work paid off!