Well.......that was kind of embarrassing.
I feel like Liu Xiang at the London 2012 Olympics (but slightly less fit). I'd been training two years for that moment - pouring my heart and soul into my music. Even when I went 3 months without practice, I was still thinking about playing it. If that isn't dedication, I don't know what is. And because it's not painful enough that I had to live through it, I'm going to recap what happened today so you guys can share in my humiliation. Or you could just laugh at me.
I woke up at 7:30 (7:45 to be exact - god bless the snooze button) and left the house at 8:20. I wore professional looking clothes because I was thinking that would create a better first impression (it didn't - the examiner barely looked at the my clothes). My parents took the train with me to Wynyard. They said they wanted to come along for moral support but honestly, I think my mum just wanted to go shopping.
We walked to 117 Clarence Street and whilst getting there, passed a lot of people in professional-looking business suits. On a side note, what type of job would I have to do to get to work in a tall, shiny skyscraper? It seems like such a cool lifestyle. I totally should've done business, guys.
The waiting room at the AMEB place was the same as last time. In fact, I'm pretty sure the receptionist lady hadn't changed a bit. She was really friendly though and told me that since I was in 8th grade, I was entitled to a 5 minute warm up in the adjoining music room. I spent those five minutes working on my scales. They weren't too bad.
At about 10:15, the examiner came out and called my name. At that point, I was still feeling cool as a cucumber. It's not that I was confident though, I think I was just happy that after two years, this exam was finally going to be done and dusted within the next 45 minutes. He led me to studio 8. It was a pretty small room with white-washed walls and a little desk in the corner. A black piano dominated the other corner, direct within the desk's line of vision. I sat there and once again, got time to warm up while the examiner finalized some paperwork. Then the exam started:
Scales
Examiner: "Please play E flat harmonic minor, right hand only, crescendo ascending and decrescendo descending."
Me: "Um... harmonic minor?"
Examiner: "Yes, harmonic minor."
Me: "Okay, yep."
*commence the worst scale-playing in the entire history of scale playing before finishing clumsily on the wrong note*
Examiner: "..............................Right."
Piano Pieces
General Knowledge
To be honest, I think I nailed this section. What country is Villa-Lobos from? How many nocturnes did Chopin compose? Which keys did my pieces modulate to? I KNOW IT ALL.
Trust me to perform the best in the section that matters the least.
Aural tests
HAHAHHAHA......no.
No I do not know what chord you just played and what inversion it's in.
No I do not know whether that is a perfect, imperfect, plagal or interrupted cadence.
No I don't think I can sing the lower part of that piece you just played.
No I don't think I will pass this exam.
No. Just no.
Sight-reading
Let's not talk about this section, 'kay?
Memory test
And the less I say about this too, the better.
********
Welllllllllllllllllll..................... *cue tumbleweed*
That could've gone better.
And I could tell the examiner thought so too. There were numerous moments in there where I could tell he was internally laughing at me. After a particularly bad scale, he would pause a bit, scribble something down on his paper and then say, "...That's okay, just do the next one." If that doesn't scream, LOL BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME, I don't know what does. Furthermore, before I walked out the door at the end of the exam, he said, "See you next time."
"See you next time."
It seems like a innocuous statement but when you think about it, the only reason I would be seeing him again was if I failed and had to redo the exam. Uuuggghhhh.
Even though I'm joking about the experience right now, inside, I'm actually still dying, bit by bit. How embarrassing is this? I was all set on finally finishing piano after ten years, saying goodbye to my teacher, putting it all behind me and getting on with the next chapter of my life. Failing wasn't an option. Retaking the test at a later time and forking out another $130 was NOT an option. I don't have the time, I don't have the money and to be honest, I don't have the drive.
So yeah. I am the packet of Milk Duds in this scenario. And what a fitting name that is for me.
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