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Congratulations bSharp(c)yclist! It sounds like your exam went really well. It is nice that you had an examiner who was very friendly. For him to say "congratulations, well done" sounds like a definite pass!

Congratulations bSharp, you're doing great. Time to get a real piano!

Congratulations bSharp, sounds like you did great!

FANtastic! You did it Bsharp and you have every reason to feel exhilarated, happy, and proud. Way to go.

Congratulations bSharp! Now you can relax. I took ABRSM grade 6 last year and I remember the feeling. Waiting for the results is a pain. I am taking a break this year and possibly next year from preparing for exams. I am just practicing and learning the pieces for the level. Once I am ready, I am going to take the grade 8 exam and skip the grade 7.

Looks like I officially passed. 87. I'm a bit bummed it's not 100, but that's the perfectionist in me, haha ;0 The comments were very kind overall. One common piece of feedback is for me not to have the LH overshadow the RH. But there are some comments I don't quite understand. I'll have to work through them with my teacher and try not to repeat them the next time.

Congratulations bSharp(C)yclist! That is a very good score, especially for the first time in an exam! With an unfamiliar piano it is not uncommon to find the balance between the right hand and left hand more problematic. Even with that, it sounds like you did great overall. Now relax and enjoy the summer!

Wow that is an amazing mark! Way to go!

Well done, bSharp! Your hard work has paid off. Congratulations!

Congratulations, bSharp, we all want a perfect mark, but 87 isn't chopped liver. My exam (only RCM level 2) is next Monday. As I have
absolutely no talent for music, should I manage an 87 I will be over the moon. Once again Congratulations!

congratulations, 87 shows how much hard work you put in, it's a pretty good score in my opinion.

Thanks, everyone. I am happy with the score. I am excited to talk to my teacher about it, hopefully she'll be proud. I think a lot of credit has to go to her too. No matter how many times I run through a piece, she'll point out something that could be better. She wasn't quick to pass me. If I had done this on my own I probably would have been satisfied at the point of just learning the notes. This experience has shown me there is a lot more to it than that.

The stuff I missed isn't anything she hasn't told me. It just points out things I need to pay more attention to next time. For the most part, the reviewer's recommendations centered around dynamics, keeping it balanced or bringing out the melody more. Maybe that will help you Sara and Tone Deaf for your exam. There was no mention of missed notes or wrong notes, which did happen in the list B piece. There was a part that was supposed to be pp, but it was sounding loud so I tried to go softer, but went too soft and produced no sound. That threw me off and I flubbed a few things, but I didn't stop or repeat, I just keep going.

I do run scenarios through my head about if I had done this or that, maybe I would have squeezed out 3 more points. For example, the playback I got 3 out 4. I know I got the very last note wrong, but I didn't try to fix it. I could have, but then you would have heard that I was fixing it. So I probably wouldn't have gotten 4 points for it anyway, it would have just sounded worse.

Congratulations! 87 is a really good score! Hard work do pay off.

bSharp: Congrats! Well done to score an 87. What I think is really great is that you have thought about the experience and the comments and seemed to have really learned by the process. Like a piano lesson on steroids, right?

Tone Deaf: Good luck next week.

Congratulations for passing with first class honour (80-89)! At 87, you have achieved well above the national average for 2016 for piano level 3, which was 79. You should be very proud!

To inspire you for your next exam, 3 more marks and you will be placed at the national top 2%!

I wish AMEB publish these kinds of statistics.

Great result bSharp, congratulations!

Hi all I'm new to the forums and have started relearning piano as kids are interested in learning. I have always considered going back and finish my grades. I was studying grade 5 ameb years ago as a teenager. I have had a look at the syllabus and think I will work through from grade 1. I do feel grade 2-3 would be more of a challenge for me but I would struggle with the technical work but I guess I could just take longer and get the technical work solid. I will be self teaching at least to start with.

Gemma

just my two cents worth but you might find grade 1 too easy and therefore not very satisfying.

That's true I was considering just jumping up to grade 3 but am worried that would be too big a jump but I guess I could just take longer I was a bit of a lazy piano student when I was having lessons. I might go middle ground and do grade 2. My sight reading is terrible I always hated that part.

Well done bSharp.

As an aside I'll tell you all a little of my exam history and experiences. As I have mentioned in other posts I'm not primarily a 'classical' Pianist, but when I was in my late 20s (back in the late 80s) for reasons that are lost in the mists of time I decided to take up classical Guitar. I'd already been playing the Piano since I was about 8 and fancied trying something different.

So I found a Guitar teacher, who has become a longtime friend of mine, and took the ABRSM grade 2 and 4 guitar exams. These were the first I'd ever taken. It was a scary experience but I passed. I started working on Guitar grade 5, but my interest faded and so as my Teacher was an all-round musician who could play some Piano I asked him if he would enter me for some piano exams. He agreed and I took grade 5 theory and we decided that ABRSM grade 6 is where I should start. Looking back now this seems incredibly ambitious! Anyway I passed grade 6, which surprised me. I have no memory of the exam at all. Inbetween doing this I decided that as it was most unlikely that I would ever get a practical grade 8, I took and passed ABRSM grade 7 and grade 8 theory.

Then I/we decided I should attempt ABRSM grade 7. The exam was at a local school (as they nearly always were in my experience) and about 20 mins before I was due to go in I went into another room and warmed up, not by practicing my scales and arpeggios, but by playing my cross fertilisation of Jimmy Yancy and Prof Longhair on a blues in F. Stupid Boy. When I then walked back into the waiting area a young lad said to me something along the lines of "wow you won't have any trouble passing, playing like that". Little did he know or understand.....

Anyway I then took the exam and I have one memory, which sums up the entire exam. The examiner said play me the scale of Ab minor melodic, and I did, except what came out was a new version of the scale that I made up on the spot, blessed with a few mis-fingerings. Under pressure I couldn't remember the scale, if I actually knew it all. I failed grade 7! But, and this is a lesson to everyone, I would have passed if I had learnt my scales and arpeggios properly. I did well enough on the pieces and most of the other bits, and was only about 6 marks short of a pass. Then (this exam was 1992), and maybe still now ABRSM grades were/are marked out of 150 and to pass you need 100. I got ninety something, and failed through laziness.

If I ever get to retire its my intention to try grade 7 again, as I play far more now than I did in those days. Perhaps I'll even attempt grade 8. Or maybe I'll just stick to playing blues. The joy of music!!

Cheers