Some of you may noticed that Aggie has taken a little detour from her Suzuki Piano books in the past year, and focused on her piano grade 5 exam (Trinity) instead. These pieces have been a real step up for Aggie both technically and physically; and while we have never put that much emphasis on chasing certificates, the process of going deep on a small number of pieces over this period has been incredibly useful for Aggie's musical development (and a stiff test of her perseverance too at times!).
Being 2020/2021, the exam is done virtually of course - this means making a video of her playing everything (scales & arpeggios, technical exercises and all three pieces) in one continuous take. We may be missing some of the normal exam experience (e.g. having to play live in front of an examiner on an unfamiliar instrument/setting, as well as some of the exam elements such as aural tests), but the digital format also brings in some interesting new dynamics - for example, there's no definitive 'exam date' - you just submit the file when you are ready, and of course, you can record as many times as you want to 'get over the line'. That line is of course arbitrary, but we feel that Aggie has given a rather good shot and we are very proud of the end result (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXxHNt8icQY). Well done to Aggie, and as ever we are grateful for Larinda's (Aggie's teacher) wonderful guidance.
The inevitable result of having as many attempts as we wanted, is a rather full folder of videos of different attempts (each with its own assortments of surprises and fluffs). So we have shared some additional videos too - a standalone video of Scherzando (a cleaner version than the one in the single take) and Gavotte - both of these are taken in the last week of recording the grade 5 program. I'd like to share one more here (this one is unlisted to keep our published videos from being too repetitive): this one is recorded about a month and a half before we eventually submitted the video above. She has made a lot of progress especially with Scherzando (1:37) and technical exercises in the month or so since!
Lastly, we are now within touching distance of 100 trees on our virtual grove on Trees for Life after this latest milestone. There is more to come, hopefully very shortly - watch this space!
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