Piano Exams!!!!!!!!

An entire year has gone by and the piano exams are here again. A higher grade to qualify, a tougher examination, and my nervousness knew no bounds. I've been practicing for days now, been shooting off the the music school after work to practice on the Bosendörfer grand at the school. And I've spent some really long nights working on my technique and pieces.

But I knew this wasn't enough. An hour a day for piano exam practice in grade 7 is almost a crime against the music. Some days Id simply not practice. Well, you gotta admit, balancing a full-time profession as an engineer and being a budding musician is not all that easy.

My teacher's been quite fed up of telling me to practice more each day. At the rate I was going, I was scared this is going to be my first failure in an exam. The day of the exam, I came in as early as I could to practice some scales and warm up. Honestly I was too nervous to even think! I don't know why but I shouldn't have been nervous given that I've been taking these exams for such a long time now; the last one was only last year and was a success! Something tells me that as one gets older, the fearless confidence of childhood transforms into a nervous insecurity at adulthood. Or something like that.

I was waiting for my turn outside the exam hall, I was second on the list. Before me was this confident "young" Korean kid - I'm guessing he was Korean from his appearance, and for all I knew "young" could have possibly been his name! He went in there, played his scales with immaculate precision and cake-walked through his pieces. I was outside biting my nails. When I got called in, I noticed the Korean kid was all smiles and hanging around in no hurry to leave. He must really like exam days!

When I was in, I made no effort to hide my nervousness - maybe the examiner would "understand" my nervousness and mark me more leniently. But no, she wasn't going to do that today! Well, I stumbled through the scales alright and made it quite well through the first two pieces. The first one, a Baroque period composition was a fast and lively jig. I never remember playing it as fast as I did it that day, and I must say, I was more listening to it than playing it. It's quite a weird feeling when you know you are not so sure of what you're doing, but you're very certain of the consequences... something like that. I had no clue of what I was laying that day, all I knew was the music I heard and I was pretty sure of that! My second piece was a classic Romantic period piece. I managed to bring out some fine subtleties in the piece which gave me a teeney-weeney bit of confidence. But the last piece was not going to need any confidence - it was my favorite, a Modern jazz composition. I loved it, knew it well and played it beautifully. Until today! I started with a gaffe, forcing me to restart and take another attempt at the opening sectionof the piece. That's bad for an exam, and even otherwise. Now my nervousness kicked up like a roaring tiger - I managed to make it through the tremolos and trills and ended with a slight punch! I did well enough I thought so far, but the remainder sections of the exam were far worse: aurals and sight-reading were a disaster.

After the rest of he exam, I walked out head down. Feeling totally defeated I was in no mood for any smart comments. And I see the Korean kid, gleaming with joy. Damn! I thought he was saying "Nyah nya nya-nya nyah". I wanted to pick the kid up and shut his smiling mouth up. But he just walked into the exam hall behind me with a violin in his hand. I overhead the examiner say "So are you ready for another one?" as she greeted him cheerfully for his second exam. The kid took two exams on the same day; in different instruments!

(Sigh) I noticed my teacher standing in one corner anxiously waiting to ask me how it went. I slowly walked up to her and managed to tell her the major parts of my performance. "Well, at least it's all over now" is all she managed to say. I don't know if that was her way of saying "It'll be alright".

Anyways, when my results did come out I was thrilled. I got a 112/150. I passed!!!! I think that day I told the whole wide world that I passed, even treated some of my colleagues at work to some ice-cream. I was more thrilled because I got more marks than my previous grade exam. Yipee! Now I'm preparing for grade 8. Wish me luck!