[The Exam]

Yesterday was my erhu exam, and it was a complete mess in my opinion.  After taking the exam I was really upset, but now I just chalk it up to a valuable experience. In short, it all came down to disorganization and inadequate preparation on the side of the organization in my opinion. The day of the exam I got up and made it over to the exam site.  Most of the people taking the exams were children, so that wasn’t anything I didn’t expect. I checked in and everything went smoothly. I was waiting outside the exam room with some young kids who were tuning their erhu and practicing what not. Then it became time for a group of us to go inside the exam room. There was a row of kids sitting down but when I walked in I just stood against the wall. The examiners looked at me and motioned for me to take a seat amongst the kids. So I walked over to where the kids were sitting, and then I looked down and saw what they were sitting on. They were all sitting on chairs that looked like what I would use as a foot stool. So I looked back at the examiners and just told them I’d rather stand. There was a chair in the middle of the room where we’d obviously have to sit when we performed. There was a girl that performed some song I didn’t recognize, but unfortunately she stopped in the middle and couldn’t go on. For whatever reason, although I was the last person to walk in the exam room, they told me I’d be going next. Since I’m only taking level 2, I’m allowed to read my sheet music for the exam. So I started looking around for a music stand, but didn’t see one. So I asked the examiners if they had a music stand here, they told me that they didn’t. So at that moment I already started to feel some type of way.  If the organization allows students to use sheet music to play during exam, why would you not set up at least one music stand in the exam rooms? Based on what I saw, I gathered that they separated the students by level. So at the very minimum why not place a music stand in the lower level exam rooms? Anyways, so in the end they told me to just grab a little chair and put my music on top of that, cool. Then I went ahead and sat down in the exam chair. It all went downhill from there. I didn’t notice it before I sat down, but, after I sat down in the exam chair, I noticed that it only slightly higher off the ground than the little foot stool chair. I am 190 cm (around 6 foot 3) tall, there’s no way in hell I’m going to be able to sit in this little ass chair and play well. It’s just impossible. My knees were almost up against my damn chest! I couldn’t even hold my erhu, let alone actually play it. Of course I asked the examiners if they had a bigger chair, they just looked at me crazy and apologized. So at that point I was already through with this exam. I already knew I wasn’t going to be able to play. But I went ahead and tried to find a position that I could at least hold my erhu with some stability.  So after I got into the best position I could, I looked at the examiners waiting for instruction. They looked at me and told me to play. I mean, I would love to play. But, what the hell am I supposed to be playing? Do you want me to play my etudes? Do you want me to play my pieces? What do you want me to play? So I asked them specifically what I should play. I suggested to play the etude I prepared. They’re just like, “okay”. So I started playing. I surprisingly was able to play through the piece without stopping, but my intonation was pretty off. Because of the position I was in, I didn’t have space to move my arm the way I needed to to shift positions. I finished playing, and then they were like okay, play your next piece. I’m like???? Do you mean the actual pieces? Or do you mean another etude? Then the male examiner told me to just play whatever other piece I prepared. So I played the required piece for the level I was taking. But that piece really requires a lot of shifting so it was really out of tune. Not only that, but, my bow kept brushing against my body because of how I had to hold my erhu. As a result, my tone was scratchy. I finished playing the first section and was going to go through to the next section but he stopped me. Then they thanked me and invited the next student. I don’t even know how to explain how aggravated I was with that whole damn experience. I registered for that exam months ago, and we had to provide information like our age and what not. There were a couple other adults there. So I don’t know why they didn’t prepare regular sized seats. This exam is supposed to be standardized. How can it be standardized if the rules and a process for the exam are not followed at all. The rules said I should play two etudes and two pieces. At least one of the etudes and one of the piece must be one of the two pieces marked as required. But there’s not point in even thinking about all of that know. After I told my teacher what happened, we just decided to change the organization that we take the exam from. All the organizations test you on the same material for the most part, and I’m sure the judges may be pulled from the same pool. But, from what I heard, the other organizations are much more professional. So, that’s what I’m going to do. Change the organization and move on. Although regardless of what happens, next time I’m going to bring one of those erhu straps so that I can play standing up.

[The Lesson]

[Overview]

After discussing what happened in the exam, we got back to the important stuff and got back to learning what’s necessary for the third level exam. We started off by playing the scale etude we’d been working on. Then we went over the first piece I learned from this level, 喜洋洋 (xi yang yang). The piece isn’t difficult I think, but the ornamentation on some notes really trips me up. For the rest of the lesson, we started a new piece called 花好月圓 (Hua Hao Yue Yuan) and got through half of it. My teacher chose this piece because he thinks I need to focus on improving my 快弓(kuai gong, fast bow) technique.

[Technique]

We spent a lot of time working on my 滑音 (Hua Yin, slide notes). That’s the kind of ornamentation that gets me caught up. I still haven’t mastered that technique but it shows up all over erhu repertoire so it’s something I need to work on. We also spent a lot of time working on 快弓(kuai gong, fast bow) technique. But this week I didn’t learn anything new.

[Repertoire]

1. 各調五聲音階練習 (Ge Diao Wu Sheng Yinjie Lianxiqu, Etude for Pentatonic Scales in Various Scales)

2. 喜洋洋 (Xi Yang Yang)

3. 花好月圓 (Hua Hao Yue Yuan)* 

[The Practice]

[This Week’s Goals]

1. 喜洋洋 measures 30 -34, work on the 滑音.

2. 喜洋洋 measures 43, 45-47, just work on playing this section up to tempo.

3. 花好月圓 measure 3, play 快弓 up to speed.

4. 花好月圓 measure 4, play the 頓弓 more clearly.

5. 花好月圓 measure 10-14, practice intonation.

6. 花好月圓 measure 35-36, work on those dynamic markings.

7. Practice working on the vibrato in each piece, start with 16 notes @ 110 bpm and make it up to 125 bpm.