After going through turmoil the whole damn year, the day arrived – the Grade 8 exam was today and to be honest, it wasn’t the greatest, but fine anyway. Grade 8 happens to be the last in the list of grade examinations after which one can take the diploma exams, and passing grade 8 is no piece of cake, its the whole bakery.
Pieces in Grade 8 become too classical with a whole lot of stress given to the technical aspect. My selection of pieces:
Praeambulum (from Partita no. 5 BWV 829) – Bach
Classical to the limit, this piece was more like a finger exercise, going up, going down, scale change, back to square one. There wasn’t a lot of dynamic change to this one, but definitely had a shape to it.
Vogelflug (op. 127) – Sigfrid Karg-Elert
Now this was pure mean stuff, mean to the core. The piece was modern and thus lacked a basic melody to it. A mismash of notes, scaleless, terror. The title “Bird Flight” just gave the impression that its got to be light, fast. And the german instructions given in the piece just added to the misery. THIS was the piece that took me ages to work out and finished two days before the actual thing.
Take the ‘A’ Train – Billy Strayhorn
Mr Billy was the arranger for Duke Ellington, a jazz specialist who was, in one word, Legendary. Duke sat there, expressionless, but his fingers brought out the true FEEL through his works. This was my selection because I had this liking for the piece, but who knew that it would beat the hell out of all my fingers since 4 fingered tetrachords weren’t my cup of tea at all! But towards the end of preparations, I thought I stood a chance only with this piece because for one, I enjoyed playing this one, and secondly, this was the only piece I was confident with.
My preparations for the whole thing had been disastrous to the effect that I completed my last piece two days before the D-day, and that too only the notes. Scales, Arpeggios and exercises were to be played by memory/sight reading because I had NO time to actually practice these! And there was sight reading, which even after practicing gave no results. Sight reading is a common method of torture made compulsory for all students of the higher grades (6-8) wherein one must read a piece within 30 seconds and play it out. Usually, pieces given to grade 8 students are a page long and I have always avoided the reading bit by improvising my way out of it (Caution: highly inadvisable to do so). Pieces are marked in three categories – Notational Fluency, Technical Ability and Playing to an Audience. I solely relied on the last category to make the cut.
The exam. 4.16. And I walked in. The examiner was an old uncle Mr. Evans, who had called me one of his ‘victim’ the evening before. Started with the scales and arpeggios – played through but arpeggios were a disaster. The nervousness had started getting to a high when I played my exercises, messing the last one completely. And now came the time to play the pieces.
Praeambulum started well, till the second page, after which I just lost control over the whole friggin piece. Finger exercises at a fast pace, that too on an acoustic piano for beginner keyboardists is capital punishment. Surprisingly I played through will enough confidence to give it a big, definite ending. Bach sucks.
Vogelflug began with creepiness, soft, nimble, quick. A few slip ups, too many sustained notes, and half a page later, managed to get a grip to the whole thing and ended on a light, very soft roll.
Take the ‘A’ Train. Now before I began this piece, I had royally messed up more than 60% of my exam, with the Torturous Sight Reading still to follow. And I said, “lets play as if I’m practicing, with full flow. This doofus is a one time visitor. ” And I played, sang the notes, swayed as if I’m playing live in a jazz concert, getting that feel into every note I played. Ofcourse, there were slipups, but concert pianists never let the audience know that there were slipups and I followed suit. Managed the dynamics fairly well, emphasis on alternate beats with a low walking bass on the left hand, overall it was sweet.
Additional tests began. Sight reading, to be honest, was a major disaster. I couldn’t read beyond the first two bars, just knew that the scale was a B flat major. And the rest was just improvised. Got the last bar in place but the rest was just…there. Ear tests were good, apart from pointing out mistakes in the second question, got one on three I guess. The first question asks us to talk about the piece in general, structure, texture, dynamics, time signature etc. I talked for like 15 min JUST about the piece, baroque period, sarabande type of a piece, with a 6/8 time signature to it, like a waltz. Dunno what the examiner thought once I left. 
Got a message from my teacher the same night. I had *PASSED*. Not by a big margin, 4 marks, but I PASSED. She couldn’t believe it, she said she’d be pretty unhappy with Trinity if I passed. But, I *still* passed, and that fact gives me enough happiness because I know, I could have gotten more marks with more practice, but with the amount of practice I put in, 5 -6 hours a day for a week and a half, I’m satisfied. 
