Exam Summary

Now I've had some time to recover, let's see how much I can remember of my exam...

The day was rather busy. I had paperwork to print out and as always, this took longer than I expected. I was also playing in someone's 4th-year Composition final: good music, but sadly under-rehearsed and the rehearsal did not go well at all due to missing personnel and rather more set-up than had been anticipated.

I got back to Trinity in plenty of time for the exam, though, and had a good warm-up. I was getting a bit jittery and ended up playing piano for part of the warm-up; I'm not sure when I got into the habit of doing this but it is helpful.

Walking into the exam, I realised I hadn't actually played an exam for two years, due to taking a year out last year. Oh, there was an exam for my re-entry into studies, but that was less formal somehow, less frightening; this was my first real exam since 2006. Walking into the examination room was perhaps not the best time to remember this.

It's always the breathing that seems to go first with nerves, and Friday was no exception. I tried to slow down, tried to take my time, but it wasn't wonderful. Overall, I think I could have played better.

Strauss 1, first movement, was the first thing to play. I don't think this went too badly. I did stuff up one of the high bits, which is extremely annoying as my high range is normally pretty reliable. My accompanist did take a tempo rather slower than we had taken before, and it's not an easy piece for me to push on, so I was unhappy with that aspect of things... but there's not much I could do about it at the time.

Next came orchestral excerpts. These were possibly the worst bit of the exam, in terms of how well I can play them compared to how well I did. The extracts were:

Beethoven 'Fidelio' overture, 2nd horn
C. Franck Symphony (er, D minor I think)
Strauss Till Eulenspiegel's Lustige Streiche
Weber 'Oberon' overture
Mahler Symphony No. 7

Beethoven was patchy, I ended up playing more heavily than I'd like to just to get the notes to come out. Ugh. Franck was okay but not brilliant; probably sounded strained and inflexible. Strauss was rusty and I kept taking the damn thing too fast which is not going to help. Weber was okay but pitch and tone probably too tentative. Mahler was quite strong, I thought: not sure if I got the right tempo, I may have been a little slow, but the notes were all there (even the low-ish G's at the end that have a tendency to come out all fluffy) and I played musically.

Next: sight-reading. I did very well on the F sight-reading, one or two rhythmic inaccuracies but nothing awful. I was starting to relax by then and I guess it showed. The transposition sight-reading was a deceptively simple-looking passage which they wanted in B flat basso, I took it faster than I could play it and made rather a dog's dinner of the thing. I feel slightly consoled by the fact that it is very much not hand-horn writing and there are few situations where I would be asked to sightread something like that in such a key.

Scales were next on the agenda. My low-range tone was not what I would have liked, but other than one or two minor slips I think I did well on scales, arpeggios and so on.

They asked me some questions about the various extracts. For some I was able to answer and even elaborate a bit, for some my mind went completely blank, despite having studied the information.

That's it: the whole exam. Later in the day I did end up catching up with one of the examiners, who was my old teacher. It was good to have a chat with him again, I'd not been in touch for far too long.

After that I went to a rehearsal in Maida Vale and proceeded to play rather poorly, mostly through being mentally tired and spaced out rather than for any physical reason.

Hopefully the good bits convinced the examination panel that I was nervous, rather than woefully underprepared, for the less-good bits: I'm not going to say here which is actually the case, of course. ;)

Mostly, I'm glad to have the exam over with. I did try not to cram for it but I also found that even the amount of preparation I did was quite time-consuming, and interfered with working on more important things. As I said in a text message to my teacher on Friday afternoon, I'm really looking forward to having the time to get some solid technical work done over the summer without the interruptions of Performance Department projects and an exam to worry about. I'll have some interruptions and deadlines this summer, but they'll be my interruptions and deadlines: a week playing chamber music at Charterhouse playing chamber music, hopefully some lunchtime recitals in August playing the Brahms horn trio, and if I'm lucky and brave some jazz jam sessions, somewhere in London. I can deal with that, I think.

For now? I've taken a few days off. I'm not playing again until Wednesday afternoon, to warm-up for a rehearsal Wednesday evening, and I'm not going in to Trinity until Thursday. I'm using the sudden onslaught of free time to do desperately exciting things like catching up on laundry and tidying my bedroom. If I'm very, very lucky I'll get some sewing done, but I don't hold out much hope at this point.

Busy

It's been a particularly busy time recently. Classes and performance department rehearsals have stopped for the year, but there's still a lot to do.

I mentioned on Friday that I'd joined the tail end of an open-air concert. I didn't mention the horn lesson that morning, or the rehearsal of the Brahms horn trio with shiny new page-turner, or the coaching session. Nor did I mention that by hook or crook we managed to get a wind quintet together for the very last Arranging class of the year, so I got to hear my arrangement played by real alive players.

I've been getting along quite well with the Singer exercises, and am already noticing improvements in my playing as a result. It does take a fair old while to get through the ones I'm doing, though; I expect this time to shrink as I get more familiar with the exercises and also as my endurance increases (so I need fewer rests), but in the meantime it has been quite challenging to fit everything in.

Friday's horn lesson was a bit fraught, to be honest; too many orchestral excerpts to work on, not enough time, and I really wasn't playing my best. I've had better lessons. It was useful, though.

From there I went straight into Brahms rehearsal. This went well; Stephen Stirling was able to join us for some coaching in the second hour, and as usual it was amazing to have input from someone who knows so much about the piece and presents it so simply. We were working on the third movement, which is quite slow, so I'm afraid our page-turner didn't have much to do but it was still very good to have her there. Unfortunately we were stuck in a much-too-small room again, and it's very difficult to get the balance right in that situation. I'm hoping that after exams are done, we'll have more opportunity to rehearse in larger spaces.

Hearing others play my arrangement in class in the afternoon was very, very neat. They took the piece faster than I'd originally imagined it, but it worked better at that speed, I think, than it would have more slowly. There are still some things I'd like to change about the arrangement. I also renewed my dislike of Sibelius, the default style options are not wonderful for reading but I guess that just means I really need to concentrate this summer on learning LilyPond.

The long weekend was full of travel, practising and teaching.

Yesterday was another horn lesson; this one went much better than the previous one and I think I'm going to be okay in my exam this Friday. It won't be perfect, but I'm still not prepared to play a perfect exam at the cost of long-term progress.

This afternoon I have a Brahms rehearsal, then this evening a rehearsal with my accompanist followed by a rehearsal and mini-concert for a friend whose final I'm playing in this Friday. That will make for a long day. Tomorrow is quite a bit clearer, with nothing concrete except a physio appointment. Really, today is the last proper working-on-things day before my exam: tomorrow I will do a reasonable amount of playing, but I don't want to risk having a tired lip on Friday so I'll have to be quite gentle with myself.

Friday will be busy too; playing in my friend's final (not strenuous at all), then my own assessment, then I have time for a bite to eat before I head off to rehearse with a wind dectet I play in for a summer concert or two.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week I'm planning to take a break, stay home from Trinity and catch up on rest and various life-maintenance tasks. By Thursday I should be feeling sufficiently refreshed to start working on my summer plans, some of which are more exciting than others.

East London Cockney Awkestra

Last night on my way to meet a friend for dinner I ran into the East London Cockney Awkestra, playing a free open-air concert at St. John on Bethnal Green. Delightful fun! Apparently they'd been playing since about 6.30 so I got there rather late, but I bought some pineapple juice and sat and listened for a bit, then got to talking and got my horn out. They were tired, I was hungry, so we packed up after not very long, but it was good to join in. If my horn were lighter and more portable I'd do this sort of thing more often. I still find myself wishing I could play the harmonica, for the simple reason that I could make it part of perma-carry and play whenever I liked.

Open-air concerts are good; open-air concerts so near to lots of vehicular traffic are rather unfortunate, as I don't think most people heard much of the banjo at all (though the clarinet cut through beautifully).

I can't find the East London Cockney Awkestra online at all. I'm not sure if they put together a group just for this event, if I'm looking for the wrong search terms, or if I've happened upon that rarest of rare things, a group without a web presence. I suppose if I want to find them again I'll have to get in touch with the church and see if they have contact details.

Exam Countdown Time

Only ten sleeps until my Performance Assessment. Only one weekend between me and it.

The weighting is 50% on one solo piece, to be performed from memory, and 50% on everything else (technical exercises, orchestral extracts, sightreading and transposition). In addition there is a Pass/Fail Technical Portfolio which must be handed in: this will include details, analysis and evaluation of what I've been working on this year.

I'm in pretty good shape with the solo piece. I'll be playing the first movement of Strauss 1. I need to find some more testosterone from somewhere, but the technical and musical challenges of the work are not overwhelming. My memory is absolutely fine, as it always has been; I'm very lucky to be a quick-study as far as memorisation is concerned. I have a rehearsal with the pianist this afternoon, and I don't anticipate problems.

Orchestral extracts are less secure. I do have a plan for studying these, and I'll spend most of this Friday's horn lesson on them.

Sight-reading and transposition are fair to middling; my sight-reading on the horn has always been strong, and my transposition at sight is adequate for most orchestral work, but I remember well my second-year technical exam where the sightreading and transposition piece was seriously challenging atonal music, which I couldn't have sung, let alone played accurately. There's no promise the same won't happen again, and I'd like to have more skill in this area than I currently do.

While I can bootstrap the orchestral extracts to an extent, the technical exercises and sightreading are simply not the sort of thing where cramming will work. At this point, I'm better off focusing on general playing skills than trying to worry about whether my B Major scale is perfect at a given speed. Ten days is long enough that doing a bit of sight-reading each day, a bit of transposition each day, and some serious work on the scales will help, but only after I've laid good groundwork with an excellent warm-up and a thorough work-out. If I do those things, then the technical exercises required by the assessment board will be representative of my general skill, which is how things should be. If I don't, then no amount of work on specific scales or arpeggios between now and the exam will mask the deficiencies in my playing.

With this in mind, today's horn lesson consisted almost entirely of going through the Singer book, discussing and choosing exercises for me to work on. Most of them are things we've discussed previously, they can seem a bit dry, and writing them out seems ridiculous given the simplicity and repetition of them... but having the book, having a structure on the page to follow instead of remembering what to do 'in my head', has already made a difference. I don't know why it's easier to play repeated long notes, gradually rising chromatically, when they're written out on the page than when I'm just reminding myself to play long tone exercises, but it is. Scales I don't tend to find I need written out (it isn't as if I don't know what the notes are), but I've always found it easier to practise them systematically when I have some sort of checklist in front of me. I suppose it just makes it easier to divide things into chunks in my head, to convince myself to do just to the end of the page before I have a break. My dependence on a written structure is something I'd do well to remember, though, and apply in all of my learning.

This weekend my Singer exercise book, Embouchure Building for French Horn, finally arrived. Also, I broke down and bought the tiniest metronome ever. I'm not entirely sure I like it. It... well, it squeaks. A beep or tick or tock would be so much nicer for someone as frightened of mice as I am. I'm sure I'll get used to it, though.

It will be interesting to see what these two tools do for my playing. I've been missing having a metronome quite a lot in recent weeks, and it's absolutely necessary for some of the Singer exercises.

That is all: it is early and I'm not meant to be online at this time of day (the internet is a TRAP, folks).

Here comes the weekend again...

I have been rather tired since Tuesday night's performance.

Yesterday was quite good. I made some progress in my practising, which is always encouraging. I rehearsed the Brahms trio, and played a bit of jazz with the pianist when we had to switch rooms. I got an assignment handed in and had a useful horn lesson.

Then I went home and made cookies, because I'd promised a dozen cookies each to players who could come and make up a wind quintet for arranging class this afternoon.

Today was similarly useful. More practising, which went well; a meeting with student services, some bits of paperwork (oh why is there always more paperwork?), a brief chat with Angela Myles Beeching regarding career-related things (I will very likely end up buying her book, Beyond Talent; I had a flip through the reference-only library copy yesterday and it seems like a useful thing to have on hand), and then off to arranging class with the cookies.

I do, so I'm told, make very good cookies. Sadly even this level of temptation was not enough to coax a clarinet player away from a masterclass with Gervase de Peyer, and rightfully so. Result? I have a lot of cookies to give away, and we'll have to record wind quintets next week instead... which means next week I'll be making cookies again.

My plans for tomorrow are to rest a lot. I've had to skip out of some social things to do this, but it's a little too close to exam time to let myself get run-down.

As much as I'd like to be writing a 'serious' blog with serious articles about serious subjects, this is very much turning into a personal diary. I do have some ideas for more intellectual content, particularly on the subject of copyright, but I've been quite short on the time and energy to develop them.

TCM Soloists' Competition Final

Just got back from the Trinity College of Music Soloists' Competition final. I want to write up what I remember while it's fresh, so please excuse the late-night incoherence.

The programme was as follows:

Johannes Mnich, Piano
M Ravel - Piano Concerto in G major

Hari Eustice, Tenor Trombone
H Tomasi - Trombone Concerto

Tadasuke Lijima, Violin
J Brahms - Violin Concerto in D, Op. 77

All three candidates played extremely well.

I played 2nd horn in the Ravel and the Brahms, but did not play in the Tomasi, so it was extremely difficult for me to compare the various performances.

In both the Ravel and the Brahms, the tempo seemed to come slightly unglued at points. I didn't notice this in the Tomasi when I listened to it, but that could well be because I'm not as familiar with the piece. I thought Hari was not loud enough in some places; that or the orchestra was a bit too loud. In playing the Ravel I found it very difficult to hear the piano and strings, just because it's a different acoustic than the one we rehearsed in before this afternoon; the cor anglais solo was quite wonderful this evening, though. The Brahms had some major intonation problems in the wind section, probably due to the heat; I found it quite difficult to place some of my notes as a result.

The adjudicators had positive things to say about each performance, and limited themselves to one 'quibble' per soloist. The fault they found in the Ravel was that the second movement, which is achingly slow, was not lyrical enough in the piano. In the Brahms the complaint was that the violinist was not entirely drawing the orchestra into his performance, there didn't seem to be the same listening and awareness that was present in the other pieces. The imperfection in the Tomasi was the same one I had picked up when I listened to it: at times, more sound was needed from the trombone.

Having rehearsed with all three soloists, I think on a different night with slightly different circumstances any of the three of them could have won this competition. They are all fine musicians and they all worked extremely hard.

Tonight, though, Hari Eustice was the winner. Many congratulations to him!

Other notes:

The chairs at St. John's, Smith Square, are rather evil. The seats slope backward and the only way I could sit in them without getting backache was by perching on the very edge. Also, like almost all concert venues I've ever played in, there is not quite enough space for an entire orchestra to put their instrument cases and street clothes and assorted bits and pieces away during the performance. I'm not yet at the point where my concert dress packs flat into a pocket of my horn case but I'm getting closer and that is my eventual aim.

E. who was playing third horn in Brahms and first horn in Tomasi had a horrible time today with transport and various other things going wrong. He ended up missing most of the afternoon rehearsal, first by being late and then by having to go back to Greenwich to get his music for the Brahms.

It occurred to me that this might be one useful application of The Orchestra Musician's CD-ROM Library. They mostly market to people who need lots and lots of parts for learning orchestral extracts for exams and auditions, and they're a very good idea for that. But if any of us had had a copy of the third volume horn parts, then E. wouldn't have had to go back to Greenwich to get his music; we could have found an internet cafe with a printer and he'd have had his part again in however long that took. This is definitely faster!

Perhaps since the last two concerts I've been involved in have involved near scrapes with people, music or both not being in the right place at the right time, it would be a good idea to get the rest of those CDs (I have the first four or five, I think; they keep bringing out more!), and keep them with my horn music. Oh, there's plenty that isn't in those ten volumes and of course it's still always better to simply make sure that you, your music and all parts of your instrument (you don't want to know) are in the right place, but it can't hurt to have a little insurance.

While I have never been late for a concert, I have played in a concert without music. I was about 14 at the time, playing in the Mount Royal College Regional Senior Honour Band. We went up to Edmonton as guests of a concert band there, had a workshop at a school and then went on to play in a few music festival classes over the next day or so. I left my music behind at the school. I was too embarrassed and terrified to tell our conductor what I'd done, so I played all the music from memory. A few weeks later, she got the music in the post from the school we'd been at, and brought it to rehearsal for me. Words were had, not unkind ones, but I don't think I stopped blushing for quite some time.

That was then, and this is now; we'd worked on that concert band music every week for a few months, and I've always been quick at memory work. There is no way I would be happy to play either of the pieces I played tonight from memory, there simply hasn't been enough rehearsal time for me to gain that level of familiarity with them.

For my part, music I'm working on, in ensembles or as solo repertoire, lives in a music case that I attach to my horn case. If I don't have my horn with me, I have bigger problems than whether I can remember the part.