Lilypie

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Road Map

Has anyone ever played the piano in really cold conditions? Last evening when I was at the music school, the air-conditioning was on at full blast, and before I stepped into the studio, my fingers were freezing. When I came in contact with the piano, the keys were even colder than my fingers!

I wonder how professional performers are able to play so well in a cold concert hall. But then, the concert hall has lots of lights, so the lights will warm up the keys, thus will not be that cold. But in a normal music studio, with the air-conditioning at full blast, it gets rather hard to play a tune properly.

Which is why I was not able to play well last night. There were quite a number of jerky notes and the running notes were not smooth at all. Reminds me of the time when I had to do the Hanon finger dynamics. It was so bad that my teacher made me re-do all the scales again!

Anyway, she did up a kind of road map for me. For performance level, most do ATCL, the Associate of the Trinity College of London, as the performance certificate is better and more established. The syllabus is geared more towards performance, whereas the DipABRSM (Diploma of the Associated Board of the Royal School of Music) is geared more towards music theory and teaching.

So I will be taking my practical examinations next year. I am playing songs for Grade 5 level now, and if possible, re-take the Grade 5 examinations with the theory, then jump right to Grade 8, before proceeding with the diploma level. Hopefully I can get this done in the next couple of years or so!

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