By
Christopher Carlin
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Whether you are a new piano player or a full-time professional,
exams can be a strenuous and often daunting task. Each exam has its
separate
challenges. However, if you prepare for your exams
correctly, it could mean the difference between passing and failing.
For
this example, let us pretend that we are sitting for a Grade Six
piano exam. Let the record denote that I have sat and passed a Grade
Six exam. Although admittedly I did not pass it well - this was
caused by a severe lack of preparation leading up to the exam. I did
not put the time or effort into my preparation for this music exam.
I can assure you from first hand experience that you need more than
15 minutes practice three to four times a week to effectively
prepare for a Grade Six piano exam!
THREE
MONTHS BEFORE THE EXAM
At
this time you should be doing approximately one hour’s worth of
practice a day, five days a week. In your selected pieces you should
be able to at least press all of the right notes. This is the time
to start developing your pieces from a series of notes to a piano
masterpiece. Concentrate on things like expression, dynamics and
tempo. Put some feelings and emotion into your pieces.
You
should also profusely study all of your theory and scales. Too often
scales and theory are neglected at this time and are only revised
about a fortnight before the exam. This is a terrible mistake!
Remember the more you study now, the more you will retain this
information, thus having a better chance of recalling the required
knowledge during your exam.
ONE
MONTH BEFORE THE EXAM
It is
time to up the anti a bit. You should be spending one and a half to
two hours practicing a day, six days a week. This is the time to
smooth out all of the minor flaws in your pieces of music. Practice
things like getting that tricky triplet sounding fluent and making
sure you hit the F sharp with your fourth finger rather than the
fifth. These issues might seem minor, but it will help you immensely
with your exam.
Practice without the sheet music in front of you and see how well
you go. During your exam if you rely too heavily on your score, I
can guarantee you will stuff up. Learn your music off by heart.
Also,
make sure that your exam becomes your number one priority. Do not be
distracted by other issues in your life. Do not become distracted by
relationship, financial or other issues that might divert your
attention from your exam. You will become stressed and worn out, and
you will not perform at your potential.
ONE
WEEK BEFORE YOUR EXAM
Now
is the time to just practice, practice, practice! I would recommend
doing between two to three hours per day by now. You should have all
of the knowledge required for the exam. It is simply a matter of
revising it for your exam.
Whilst we are working and studying hard, we have to remain relaxed.
Put it into perspective; it is only an exam. There is no need to
worry about it 24/7.
DAY
BEFORE YOUR EXAM
Most
people on the night before an exam practice for 5-6 hours, studying
until some ungodly hour in the morning. This is a big no-no! At
maximum you should only play through your pieces once. What I like
to do is pretend I am actually sitting for the exam. So I would do
my scales first, then my pieces in order, and then do some sight
reading.
Don’t
try to do any last minute revision for your exam. Chances are that
you will only put unneeded pressure on yourself and more importantly
you will only have a small chance to remember it for your exam. Do
not get distracted by other things in your life. Your piano exam is
tomorrow – everything else can wait another day.
Relax! It is essential that you get a good night’s sleep. I would
recommend that you get 8 to 10 hours solid sleep if you can afford
the luxury.
MORNING BEFORE YOUR EXAM
Do
not do any work, whether it is piano related or not. Do something
fun that doesn’t require a lot of brain power. Watch a movie. Kick a
soccer ball. Do whatever that suits you.
Try
to eat a healthy breakfast. However, if you suffer from butterflies
in the stomach, which I suffer from immensely, don’t try to force
anything down. It will only comes straight back up! (Trust me!)
I
will say it again, RELAX! Try not to think about your exam. Don’t
try to think about your theory, scales, pieces, fingering etc. etc.
Don’t think about what you have and haven’t done for your exam. This
is only going to get you all frazzled and this will seriously hinder
your exam.
30
MINUTES BEFORE THE EXAM
By
now you should be at the venue where your exam is being held. Do
some ultra-light revision. Look through your music sheets and
visualize yourself playing it as you read the notes. Play some
‘air-piano.’ Test yourself with a couple of theory questions.
Do
not under any circumstances talk to other people about the exam. Do
not ask each other theory questions. Do not discuss your pieces. Do
not talk about previous exams or examiners. This is nothing more
than an unwanted hindrance. Take a few deep breaths, relax and focus
on your exam.
5
MINUTES BEFORE THE EXAM
Close
the books for a moment. Take three deep breaths and focus. Think to
yourself that this is just like any other piano practice session. Go
into the exam with positive thoughts. Whether you have prepared
yourself for the exam as I have discussed above or not, it does not
matter now. All you can do now is concentrate on the upcoming task
of your exam.
DURING THE EXAM
Two
things will be happening to you about now. Firstly, you think you
are doing well. Great! Ride on this wave of euphoria until the end
of the exam. But you must not slack off! You still have a couple of
pieces or a couple of scales or some theory to do. You must
concentrate until the end of the exam. A lot can happen between now
and then.
The
second thing that could be happening to you during your piano exam
is that you think you are performing badly. Forget about it! It
doesn’t matter what has happened. You still have the rest of the
exam to impress the examiner. A lot can change between now and the
end of the exam.
Another point worth thinking about is just because you think that
you have done a bad job, doesn’t mean that the examiner knows you’ve
done a bad job. He/She will not pick up every single mistake you
make. Just forget what has happened, clear your mind and start again
with your next task. Think about what is going to happen, not what
has just happened.
AFTER
THE EXAM
Congratulations! You have completed your exam! You can now breathe a
huge sigh of relief! It’s finally over!
Carefully analyse your exam. What did you do well? What do you do
badly? What could you have done to improve? Make notes so you can
use them as a reference for future exams.
Be
careful not to be too confident with your exam. You might be
disappointed when you see your results. Conversely, do not be too
negative with your exam and think that you have done badly. More
often than not you will get a nice surprise!
RECEIVING YOUR RESULTS
After
waiting one to two weeks for your results to come back, you would be
naturally excited, or at least inquisitive to see your results. Have
you done well and/or better than you expected? Have you done worse
than you have thought? Either way, read your examiner’s comments at
least three times. See what they liked about your piano examination
and what they didn’t. No matter how well you did, you can always
improve! Next year’s exams are guaranteed to be harder than this
year.
Take
the assessor’s comments on board, but also take your own thoughts on
board. Was your preparation leading up to the exam as good as it
could have been? Nine times out of ten, if you have done badly you
generally know why. Think about why you did badly and improve! Learn
from your mistakes. Do not get depressed! It is not the end of the
world. There is always next year.
I
hope this article was helpful for your preparations for your exam.
This is what I personally do when preparing for a piano exam.
Obviously, if you have your own routine that works, by all means
stick to it. However, if you do pick up one piece of advice from
this article and apply it successfully, I will consider this article
a success. Good Luck for your exams and most importantly, remember
you can only do your best.
Christopher Carlin is the founder of this website,
Free Piano Sheet Music.
TIPS FOR PREPARING FOR YOUR EXAM
