DONE AND DUSTED!
This is what it consisted of:
- Technical Assessment: only had to do one song not two (thanks Jane, grrrr...), major, harmonic and melodic minor scales (fine!) and dreading sight singing which was quite a good song (so that was fine), and stupid questions, which I hope I answered ok :/
- Business Presentation: one word, pointless.
- Business Presentation Peer Assessment: three words, even more pointless.
- Duet Assessment: oh flipping heck, I can't believe I pulled this off! What on earth was I thinking when I agreed to singing Wicked?? Thank god to karaoke for I know him so well, and well done to Sam for learning Panis Angelicus in a day!
Well, I'll follow on from my last blog now;
So I had done all these competitions and now it was time to start my grades, whoopdeedoo!
I had never ever ever done a music grade before, even though I started singing many years before. I started by taking my grade 6 on the trinity exam board as I couldn't do ABRSM without my grade 5 theory, so I had no choice.
Ok, if you haven't done trinity board singing, you have an Italian vocal exercise (might exercise semitones, or jumping 6ths or something like that but with italian words), 4 songs, unaccompanied sight reading and then an aural exam.
I can hear the ABRSM people wincing now about the unaccompanied sight singing, it really isn't that bad, you literally just have to roll with it. (Exact quote from my teacher.) The vocal exercise was literally a vaccai and basically just another song you had to learn, easy? The aural exam actually was a bout music things, cadences, keys, chord stuff, so I couldn't argue with that. The song choices aren't that bad either, they are sightly harder than grade 6 ABRSM but the aural's harder to make up for it.
Well, I did that not knowing what was going to happen. Worked with Richard Lea from the Metropolitan Cathedral in Liverpool as my pianist and then turned up for my exam sang a bit, muffled my way through my aural and sight reading and got a really good grade! :)
So grade 7 couldn't come sooner, better songs, bigger challenges!
I stuck with trinity as I had was taking my grade 5 theory in the spring term, but doing my grade 7 and didn't want to push my luck!
But I taught myself grade 5 theory with the fab little red book, first steps in music theory grade 1 to 5. I swear by it even now, and when I taught it was a god sent!
So I got a distinction! Get in! I was, in my eyes, officially a music geek after teaching myself it all from 1 to 5 the proper way and not my how can I read the music to help my singing from when I was about 10! This made my life!
Well, choosing my songs was again my teacher going do you like this (her singing it) me going, no, next.
Then finding the 4 I wanted. Then tackling the vaccai, ooh leaps of 6ths, wonderful! And doing some aural practice! Cool, sorted!
So I took the exam went well and got 7 off full marks damn! all in my sight reading.
BUT.... this would not have been the case if someone hadn't checked the examiners sheet. Ooooh the silly examiner forgot to add one of my song scores onto my overall mark only giving me a merit! It had to be sent to London to be changed and checked and signed by a big boss with a letter of apology! Brilliant thank you!
hmmmm Grade 8. After discussing the whole snobbery thing with my teacher, we thought it was best to go with ABRSM on this one.
So here we go, with a totally different approach as they want different things from your singing, they have a stupid folk song part of the exam which is pointless, the aural exam is just horrific?! why oh why do I have to learn to sing against a tune? why do I have to do this absolute rubbish, but ok the sight singing was accompanied ok!
well great, one of my songs that I did for my grade 7 Trinity was on grade 8 ABRSM great there's one song, but I was so shocked to find that I did domine deus for my grade 7 and it's on diploma ABRSM?? woah! A song that I had to learn for something else on the ABRSM syllabus, great two down, a terrible song my teacher convinced me to have and then green finch which is a pretty cool song! :)
Then the folk song, 'do you know any folk song's?' said my teacher.
'Do I look like I know any?' was my answer!
Pointless I tell thee pointless.
Well, I was working when I did my singing exam, great moral support from people in work.
'Your a classical, aww that's fab' 'haha! I bet your crap!' 'Eeee what do you do that for?'
Lovely!
So the day before I would sit in the office listening to my songs to myself practising to have Sally Ann (one of the students) ask me about everyday. This was the day it went horribly wrong.
'What happens if you go wrong? What happens if you fail or your rubbish?'
I don't how or why, but I seriously felt the urge to vomit. So I politely excused myself and legged it and literally threw every up, I'm sure I forced up my stomach while I was there! Eurgh, every time someone talked to me about it I just vomited! Not good.
That evening I had a lesson, no singing happened just aural work! I don't think I would have got through an hour of singing!
The exam came, walked in, got it over and done with and walked out.
flipping heck, it was over and done.
I got home after being all cool and calm and as soon as I walked into the utility room completely broke down on the floor between the wall and the washing machine knowing that everything I'd put into this was over in half an hour. I sobbed for about an hour with my mum trying to calm me down after finding me half an hour after I'd started. I knew I had failed.
Couple of weeks later I was at my singing competition in Crosby (just on the outskirts of Liverpool), had four classes. This is one of the strictest places I know for festivals. Coming first in three classes! Yay! but the best was coming 2nd in the German lieder class (beaten by someone actually german so I kinda see it as a win) and beating a 60 year old woman who beat me in Liverpool the previous year saying how she was an expert on german lieder and how amazing it is etc etc, and then for her to come up to me and go, 'wow, Hope, I can call you you Hope, you've come on so well, since last year, oh it's great fantastic.' For me to go 'thanks so much it means so much beating you. I was sick of her!
So a little celebratory meal and Lynne texts me saying hey, you've got your grade 8, for me to answer piss off!
NO JOKE!
I had done it, at that point I realised if you try your hardest you can surprise yourself!
Hope Mc xxxx
hmmmm Grade 8. After discussing the whole snobbery thing with my teacher, we thought it was best to go with ABRSM on this one.
So here we go, with a totally different approach as they want different things from your singing, they have a stupid folk song part of the exam which is pointless, the aural exam is just horrific?! why oh why do I have to learn to sing against a tune? why do I have to do this absolute rubbish, but ok the sight singing was accompanied ok!
well great, one of my songs that I did for my grade 7 Trinity was on grade 8 ABRSM great there's one song, but I was so shocked to find that I did domine deus for my grade 7 and it's on diploma ABRSM?? woah! A song that I had to learn for something else on the ABRSM syllabus, great two down, a terrible song my teacher convinced me to have and then green finch which is a pretty cool song! :)
Then the folk song, 'do you know any folk song's?' said my teacher.
'Do I look like I know any?' was my answer!
Pointless I tell thee pointless.
Well, I was working when I did my singing exam, great moral support from people in work.
'Your a classical, aww that's fab' 'haha! I bet your crap!' 'Eeee what do you do that for?'
Lovely!
So the day before I would sit in the office listening to my songs to myself practising to have Sally Ann (one of the students) ask me about everyday. This was the day it went horribly wrong.
'What happens if you go wrong? What happens if you fail or your rubbish?'
I don't how or why, but I seriously felt the urge to vomit. So I politely excused myself and legged it and literally threw every up, I'm sure I forced up my stomach while I was there! Eurgh, every time someone talked to me about it I just vomited! Not good.
That evening I had a lesson, no singing happened just aural work! I don't think I would have got through an hour of singing!
The exam came, walked in, got it over and done with and walked out.
flipping heck, it was over and done.
I got home after being all cool and calm and as soon as I walked into the utility room completely broke down on the floor between the wall and the washing machine knowing that everything I'd put into this was over in half an hour. I sobbed for about an hour with my mum trying to calm me down after finding me half an hour after I'd started. I knew I had failed.
Couple of weeks later I was at my singing competition in Crosby (just on the outskirts of Liverpool), had four classes. This is one of the strictest places I know for festivals. Coming first in three classes! Yay! but the best was coming 2nd in the German lieder class (beaten by someone actually german so I kinda see it as a win) and beating a 60 year old woman who beat me in Liverpool the previous year saying how she was an expert on german lieder and how amazing it is etc etc, and then for her to come up to me and go, 'wow, Hope, I can call you you Hope, you've come on so well, since last year, oh it's great fantastic.' For me to go 'thanks so much it means so much beating you. I was sick of her!
So a little celebratory meal and Lynne texts me saying hey, you've got your grade 8, for me to answer piss off!
NO JOKE!
I had done it, at that point I realised if you try your hardest you can surprise yourself!
Hope Mc xxxx
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