Now is the month of maying, ABRSM Grade 3, Piece A2

[superrandom2898]

are you supposed to play it that fast! I SWEAR it's 88...

[aydanholliday1]

needs to be faster

[finlayh12]

Amazing playing

[rosarawr123]

this is played beautifully :-)

i am doing this piece for my grade three exam in july.

can i just ask, how long did it take you to learn this piece? i'm not sure if i'll be able to get it spot on by then.

thankyou :-)

[tfrost07]

Impressive (27/30)

Tempo spot on

It is nice to see a version on youtube that actually obeys the dynamics!

Comments:

Not much I can fault you on to be honest

Just that your p section and pp sections are played at the same volume (this is very minor though i.e -0 or -1 mark max)

A minor slip (incorrect note) played at 28 secs (-1)

Dramatic pause needed at 33/34 secs to exaggerate final phrasing (-1)

[tombofrog]

Why bother doing grade 2 when you are this good?

[Cianthfab]

im gay can istill do this?

[sharkstar3]

wow! i've just leart this piece,, im also doing top cat and study in F, im doing my exam in feburary,

i stared playing the piano when i was 6 and now im 13, you should try doing some of the jazz exams, i have done my grade 1& 3 jazz and i really enjoyed them, you get to make up your own solo

[trisnoon]

needs to be slower

[TheOrangelover123]

This is great! I'm learning this for school and it's quite hard. You play it great. XD

[Vendetta5246]

NOTICE: your playing is great but this to to other people... PIANO EXAM TUNE CHANGE FOR THIS SONG ITS ALL STACCO NOW DONT BELIVE ME???? CHECK!

[sebmoocj]

All stacatto for this song doesn't make sense - it's an old English folk song.  There should be some stacatto in it, but surely not all of it...

[Vendetta5246]

i mean almost al of it.... everything except for the slurs

[sebmoocj]

ahhh I see.  Cool - thanks for the post I'm sure that the people doing this piece appreciate it!

[DePianoViolinGirl]

@sebmoocj I think it's best for the pianists to discover the kind of articulation they should have by listening to the vocal performances of this madrigal because originally, Thomas Morley composed this for vocalists, and now I suppose they have transcribed that for piano. :)

[sebmoocj]

Hah - yep, just over a year ago.

[sebmoocj]

It's not like I started at 7 and am just a really, really slow learner!!! :0)

[Vendetta5246]

r u a man?

[sebmoocj]

Erm I think so - was last time I checked...

[xxiluvrockxx]

lol. how old are you?

[sebmoocj]

I'm 34...

[xxiluvrockxx]

aww did you just start playing?

[carmeno77]

im 12

and i just finished learning this song.

im doing part B and C and my exam is on SEPTEMBER!!!

im going to fail epically.

[Fatal548]

im on grade 8 now but i was 12 when i was doing grade 3. i was doing top cat (B2) and that was... bloody hard xD I was like.. shit im gonna fail but i got a distinction.. WTF

[xxbabicakezxx]

ive got the same book as u but a take private leesons and her name is lina does she teach u is well

[sebmoocj]

No - my teacher is a chap called Mark, he's a very good teacher and pianist

[Vendetta5246]

urm is this conversation only between you two?

[sebmoocj]

No, why?

[sebmoocj]

Wow! Grade 3 in 2 months is pretty bloody impressive!!! You must be gifted!

[sebmoocj]

I've been playing a year now, just sat my grade 2 a couple of weeks ago. I don't think I did very well on it though, I made a bunch of stupid nervous mistakes - kicking myself about it! I've never done any formal music exams before so it's all a bit of a new experience for me really - like going back to school!

[aries066]

I know what you mean, I only started piano about two months ago and my teacher has put me in for grade 3 already, if I get to sit the exam I'll be a nervous wreck.

[sebmoocj]

Have you posted any of your stuff?

[sebmoocj]

God - sorry; think I just accidentally removed your last comment. I know what you mean though - I think some teachers like to throw pupils in at the deep end; mine is more of the mind that he prefers it if you can play the pieces for the grade easily and have a good understanding of the associated theory/scales etc...otherwise if something is just too difficult, then sometimes students can get disillusioned.

[sebmoocj]

Grade 3 pieces are WAY hard compared to Grade 1 or 2, and I think that by 3 they're expecting you to have started developing a sense of "musicality" too - i.e. expressiveness in the way pieces are played; this is less important for 1 and 2 but becomes increasingly more the case as you go up. (At least that's my understanding...:0)

[aries066]

Yeah, true. Just out of curiosity; which pieces were you thinking of playing for grade 3?

[sebmoocj]

I *think* I'll do the Menuet in G, Petit Berger and then Quajira. I'm trying all the pieces in the book (it's taking me about 2 - 3 days to learn each one) and then choosing the ones I like best. I *won't* do "Top Cat" though, because I hate it. :P

[aries066]

Yeah, the Top Cat one is pretty awful, I'll be giving that one a miss too I think. lol

[sebmoocj]

The blue cat - "Benny" - in that cartoon always used to creep me out when I was iccle, so I think I've developed some kind of aversion to the theme toon. LOL.

[aries066]

Lol! I've just always hated Top Cat. I think the piece is a bit too 'jazzy', I really can't stand jaz. Classic ftw lol

[sebmoocj]

Heh. I quite like jazz, must admit - but I don't like the sucky basic arrangements that they tend to put into the early grades stuff. They always sound really cheesy to me. Classical is why I wanted to start learning the piano though...there's something about it that just blows me away.

[aries066]

Cool, me too. I have been a fan of Chopin, Beethoven etc for years and thwy are also the reason I started piano.

[sebmoocj]

Excellent. I started putting together an "aspirational" list of pieces that I want to learn to play - I'm never going to be *that* good - if I can get good enough to play at least some of them, then I'll be well pleased.

[aries066]

Lol, me too! All I want to do is be able to sit at the piano and play something by Chopin, that's all I want.

[sebmoocj]

Yeah! Just one nocturne would do me. :0)  How he managed to wrap up all that sorrow/joy/passion into his music is just beyond me. Truly a genius.

[aries066]

Yeah, I know what you mean; incredible. I love some of the nocturnes he did.

[aries066]

You have to forgive me for asking but, how do the repeats work on this piece if you can remember? where am I supposed to repeat from? You'd be helping me out a lot.

[sebmoocj]

Hiya, no problem at all! I think that I'd repeat it like this: play bars 1 - 8 (first repeat mark), then play bars 1 - 7 and then continue from bar 9 through to the end of the piece. So on the repeat, you miss out bar 8 (it's marked above as the 1st ending of the repeat) and continue from bar 9 (marked with a 2nd ending annotation above it). When you get to the second section there's a change in dynamic levels so if should be quieter than the first section to start with.

[aries066]

Thank's a lot! Really helped me out. It's been confusing me for a while and I couldn't ask my teacher since we finished for christmas. Thanks a million.

[sebmoocj]

No problem, glad to help.

[aries066]

I'm learning this now, good little tune you play it really well. How long have you been learning?

[7elem]

i chosed A1,B3,C3.

and now i learned them and im learning A2 now.

i really enjoyed watching this vid.i really think your gonna have a high distinction.

good luck for your exam.:>

[sebmoocj]

Thank you for your kind comment. I hoping to do the G3 exam in the spring, just waiting for my results for G2 which I sat a couple of weeks ago.

[LoveBallet2007]

WELL DONE! AGAIN, YOU WILL GET THE HIGHEST DISTINCTION EVER MADE FOR GRDADE 2! And bum notes happen to anyone, eh... And that's coming from me (I'm a total perfectionist... eek!)

X

[sebmoocj]

Hey - thanks for your kind comments. Really useful feedback and ideas as well; much appreciated. Have you posted any vids of your own playing?

[Ilovepiano123]

I have done grade 2 a while ago now - but am concentrating on the grade 3.

Have learned A1 + A2, B1, C2 + C3

Now have to choose for the exam!!

You'll sail through grade 2..

[sebmoocj]

I think I've got A1 pretty much nailed, will post that in a couple of days. The Mozart is a bit more tricky (with all those sixths in it) so still butchering that. The Top Cat arrangement is completely cheesy - have you learnt that one?

[Ilovepiano123]

That was brilliant - I am learning this piece too.

[sebmoocj]

Thanks! There's a couple of bum notes in there, but then it's to be played at a quite quick tempo I think. I'm going to work through the Grade 3 pieces (not just the ones for the exam) and see how I get on. I've got grade 2 in November, so won't be able to sit this one until March(?) I don't think...