I was amused to read Hugh Muir's account of failing grade two piano in the Guardian yesterday.
When my boys were a bit younger I decided that it would encourage them to practice for their music exams if Dad set an appropriate example by taking some more clarinet exams.
As a consequence I well remember sitting with one son as we both waited for an exam, with him asking with both concern and amusement 'Why are you going to the loo so often Dad?'
And although, unlike Hugh, I did pass the couple of exams I took I found the whole process petrifying. I could face Paxman, Humphries and Neil without apparent fear, but put me in a room alone with a clarinet and a music examiner and I promise you, I rediscovered just what being nervous really meant, even though literally nothing hung on the outcome.
My sons are still taking their exams. I gave up again a while ago: I can play as well as I want and did not need to prove it, I said. Actually, I just couldn't face the stress again.
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I always think it is good to put oneself in a position outside a familiar zone of activity. When my son was about 6 or 7 and starting rugby (tag at that point!) I decided to support him by becoming a rugby referee, knowing little of the game’s laws in detail. i was determined to referee at least one adult match. So I did my studying of the law book ( almost Talmudic and labyrinthine) and eventually took my Entry level Referee Award , passed that and ordered my referee’s shirt from Twickenham. When my first game cam along ( a local veterans game), my nerves were terrible and I felt like crying ( it was one of those ‘I want my mummy moments!). Rugby is full of ribald camaraderie an the blokes sense my nervousness and there was a lot of mickey taking in the Rugby tradition (all good natured) . The game was a nightmare for me, as everything seemed to happen too quickly as I strained to remember the laws as things happened and I attempted to give the appropriate hand signs. My special ref’s watch went wrong and my pencil broke so I couldn’t write on my score card, it was a riot of sod’s law. I blew the final whistle like the Angel blowing the trumpet to announce the end of time! What relief! As the players formed their ‘tunnel to express appreciation of each other, I ran through and they showered me with their water bottles. After the game many came up to me and shook my hand to express appreciation that I’d survived my first game. i was high for days after.
Unfortunately I only refereed for a year before health issues got in the way. But I still look back on it as a significant achievement well out of any comfort zone and widening my perspective on life.
Good one!
As a rugby Dad I did much the same – I also coached. You get a lot out of stuff like that. And the best way to learn is to ‘do it’.
When my son stopped playing, I started to run the Mini Festival instead – once a year – to raise money for the Youth Section.
As for my son he recently passed his Level 1 in piano with flying colours. It’s lovely to hear him playing his tunes (he’s playing Lord of the Rings music at the moment and also learning a Bach piece). Level 2 beckons and his tutor reckons he can do it. We know he likes it because he tinkles away on his own a lot.
As for me I will stick with the guitar that has been a life long companion.
I always wish I’d learned the guitar and now my fingers just won’t do the muscle memory
I still have nightmares about my exams twenty years later. This time of year the dreams and fear still goes through my mind. I think if I had done a little more work it would have been okay. Like everything in life, preparation is the key to everything.
I prepared for those exams
It made no difference
As an ex-secondary school music teacher, I am aware that learning music, because it is a subtle co-ordination of mind and body requiring balance of the two, it is prone to easy destabilisation. I’ve experienced myself, preparing pieces only to fins a slight hand shake completely undermining me. I had to give up ideas of being a performer due to nerves and lack of psychological security. Luckily, I found a role as a classroom teacher where I functioned well, ironically, despite the stress.
A hat tip should go to you Richard for giving it a go and clearly being successful with it in that you got through the exams. There can be something very raw and exposing about playing music in front of someone -we are deprived of the use of our usual defences with no recourse to skillful use of language and other sophistries, everything is paired down. One can feel rather naked – a bit like May in the Neil interview! If May had been playing the clarinet in front of Neil she would have had a wobbly embouchure!
π
The clarinet is a wonderful instrument, it was one up from the recorder at my primary school 30 years ago. The enjoyment you get from blowing that ebony shaft is fantastic. Some great shows on the internet of that as well.
I agree: I do play, quite often, but no band right now….
And mine is definitely not ebony!
It’s a worthwhile investment, as my clarinet teacher would tell me “once you’ve had black you’ll never go back!”
Maybe
But my Yamaha has done me well for many years
I once dated a girl who played a pink oboe, which I thought was quite racy at the time.
Did it go faster?
I can well remember the quizzical looks I received from the examiner during one trumpet exam as I somehow effected a vibrato sound due to shaking so much! Funny thing is that I was always pretty calm before the exam but as soon as I stepped in the room, that was it! In the end, I stopped after grade 5 because I was too embarrassed with my reactions in the exam room though I continued to play in a band for a few years afterwards.
Five is respectable!
Not when your sisters both take music degrees (one of them at Masters level) and have a full complement of Grade 8 passes at distinction between them!
That said, I suppose that they were both rubbish at maths and football so I can’t complain about ceding the musical side of things to them! π
I’m currently deciding whether to sit the three hour JLPT5 this December – the lowest level Japanese language proficiency exam – as it seemed like a great way of focusing learning and revision, after three years of J evening classes.
I was all set to sign up, when I spoke to someone who did it last year, and she described not only the various tests (only one chance at the listening piece, compared to three in class, the propensity for trick questions to catch you out, and the scarily high 75% pass mark required in each paper), but also the sitting and waiting silently for an improbable amount of time while papers are collected and counted; the ten minute breaks while nervously awaiting the next paper, and the regimented discipline imposed by a stern invigilator.
A cold sweat and a wave of revulsion hit me, compressing the last forty years into nothing; the throwback memory of that sterile examination room atmosphere, the fear of finishing either too early or too late, and when discussing it later with peers, the realisation that you’d completely messed up something that everyone else had got right.
It was (almost??) enough to put me right off. I’m only doing it for fun, right…?
I have the rest of the summer to decide….
And this is what we put young people through….
It amazes me that there still exists at least one university (Oxford) with courses where the entire award is based on the final year exams. I thought this barbarism had gone out years ago.
If ever there was an ineffective way of assessing the capabilities of students this has to be it, rewarding an ability to cram the brain with short term ‘knowledge’ and maximising the stress.
I agree
It happened to work for me when I sat my finals but it is wholly unjust
It is remarkable that no matter what happens anywhere in the world, you are able to comment on it by bringing the subject back to yourself and to make sure everyone is aware of your achievements, no matter how trivial they are.
I was talking about my experience of music exams on my blog
What a remarkably silly and ungracious comment, Mr Smith!
Richard is not talking OF the personal, but THROUGH the personal, using what may not indeed be a trivial personal experience to initiate a discussion on a larger point, which I would judge to have been about the need to stretch ourselves, and move outside our comfort zone, if we are to develop and grow – a perfectly sound proposition that can really only ve explored from a personal starting point if the discussion is not to be irredeemably bloodless and etiolated.
This starting point then stimulated other contributions based on personal experience, then focusing down on the fact that the stress involved is, I would say savagely, visited upon our youth in the form of “be all and end all” exams deriving from the Kenneth Baker produced “Gradgrind” education of his appalling “Geriact”.
I have to say, that seems a pretty good discussion trajectory to me, OK?
I can assure you Mr Smith’s comment was politer than some that did not get on here over the last day or two
The nasty party are out in force
“may be a trivial”, rather than ” may not be a trivial personal experience”. Apologies for lack of clarity.
This has been deeply saddening for all to process. ‘This is the place’ is a tribute to Manchester unity at this time.
You’re in good company as an economist with musical skills Richard:
Alan Greenspan was a Jazz Clarinettist
Michael Hudson is a pianist
Bill Mitchell plays Guitar in a Reggae influenced band
Wynne Godley played the Oboe
Anyone know of any more?
I bet they were / are all a lot better than me!
I don’t wish anyone to think I can play well, even if I enjoy it
Luckily for me I have always played the types of music that don’t require outside certification technical ability – namely, rock’n’roll, and electronic music. I play guitar, drums and keyboard to what seems to be a reasonable standard for what I do, but there’s no way I’d ever step into an exam room to have my ability on those instruments tested. Big respect to those who do!
Yours might be the better route for well-being