Double Bass, Grade 8

Exam today... scary. Quite nervous in the morning, then read Candide and calmed down a bit. Got to United Square by 2:20 or so... was trying not to collapse into a pile of nerves. Tuned up outside Mandelville like the way we had to last year, then this guy came and showed me into a studio. Phew. Did last minute practising... the room was rather (acoustically) wet and sounded good (cos the echoes create a full sound). Went in at about 2:50 (10 minutes ahead of schedule).


Woah... there were 2 people in the room! Gosh... panicked for a split second then I remembered the These Music Exams thing... basically one guy assesses you and the other one assesses the assessor.

I did all i could to enjoy Keyper. If you're nervous you should try enjoying your piece. Indulge in it. Bathe in the sound. Do like a soloist. So it sounded pretty decent. Ridout was *phew* pretty good too except for one or two late entries cos i was enjoying it too much (lol). Then Zhaohan left and i did Britten's YPGO and Verdi's Otello, both of which were quite good. Heh I think I wasn't tense at all. Sort of enjoy performing.

Scales. Ouch... (lol) When he asked for E major separate bows i thought "this guy's easy" but he went on to Bb minor harmonic 1 octave per bow (ouch!). 5 scales, 2 chromatics (E pizz. and Bb slurred i think) one arpeggio (oh this was a toughie: C major pizz. I overshot the top C heh), one dominant 7th, one diminished.

Breezed through sight reading... since i'm so used to doing it during orchestra/ensemble heh. No slips! But i suppose i could have done more for dynamics. Aural was great. Except (lol) i told the examiner that "This piece is contemporary, probably French". He almost laughed... asked me why I thought French. "Sounds like satie and poulenc".