My Service Playing Exam

On May 22nd, I did my Service Playing Exam through the Royal Canadian College of Organists. It was my first exam with them.
I attended a Hymn Playing Workshop with Thomas Fitches in preparation for the exam and I think it really helped.

My exam was at St. Clement's Anglican Church and I was allowed some practice time before.

Here are a few pictures from inside the church.

The RCCO exam was different from RCM (Royal Conservatory of Music) exams.
The RCCO examiner was behind a screen, so I wasn't able to see him or her and the examiner never spoke directly to me. Someone meets you before the exam and takes you to the organ and he was the person who gave me the sight reading and told me which hymn I would be playing.

I also didn't need to provide copies of my music for the examiner. I guess the examiner might see my name on the music if I had to provide copies.


Here are some videos of some of the pieces I prepared for the exam.

Rigaudon
(Processional for a wedding)

Anthems:
God Be In My Head

God In My Eternity

Hymns:
I chose "Lord Jesus Think On Me" for the hymn that I would definitely play and this is the one I worked on at the workshop.

Lord Jesus Think On Me

The hymn that the examiner selected was "Forth In Thy Name O Christ We Go"
I accidentally hit an extra note at the end of this video, but that didn't happen in the exam.

Forth In Thy Name O Christ We Go

Holy, Holy, Holy (Nicaea) was on the list of hymns that we could play. I had no idea that this was my Grandma's favourite. My Mom didn't tell me until after the exam as she didn't want to influence my choice of hymns. She also didn't want me to get emotional considering how much this piece meant to Grandma.

Holy, Holy, Holy (Nicaea)

Most of these videos are 'unlisted' on youtube and are a special treat here for people who read my blog.

I am still waiting for my results. I'm hoping I did well.

My Grade 9 Piano RCM Exam

This weekend we had a horrible ice storm but I recorded my Grade 9 Piano Royal Conservatory Examination pieces. What you can't see is that I spent lots of time shovelling the snow/ice mix outside and we have a blower drying the basement downstairs from the flooding. 

My exam was last week, on a much nicer day than what we had this weekend. 

In the exam, I made a mistake with one of my scales. I started playing the harmonic scale instead of the melodic, but I switched when I noticed. And I fumbled in one of my Etudes... I continued playing but I stopped playing the left hand for a short while while I recovered from the fumble. I hope they don't mark me down too hard for that. 

My sight reading went really well, and everything else seemed fine. 

Here are the pieces that I did:

Etudes

Restless (op. 77, no. 4) by Moritz Moszkowski

Etude in D Major (op. 45, no. 3) by Stephen Heller

Repertoire

List A (Baroque)

Prelude and Fugue in C Minor (BWV 847) by J. S. Bach

List B (Classical)

Fantasie in D Minor (K 397/385g) by W. A. Mozart

List C (Romantic)

June (Barcarole) (op. 37a, no. 6) by P. I. Tchaikovsky

List D (Modern)

Sonatina for Piano, 3rd Movement (1959) by A. Katchaturian

My Grade 7 Piano Exam

I did my RCM grade 7 piano exam this week.  I'm not very happy about it.
I'm not very confident with the Ear Training segment because they changed the format of the Four Star books.  You have to have a computer with internet access to do the Ear Training exercises at home. There is no internet or computer where my piano is.

Anyway, here are the songs that I did:

Kabaleveky - Etude, Opus 27, Number 3

Hoffmann - Elegie

Bach - Invention Number 1 in C Major

Albeniz - Sonata in D Major

Rebikov - Waltz