Last night, I went to see Happy Go Lucky, Mike Leigh’s new movie. It was excellent and not nearly as sombre as his other movies. If you have never seen a Mike Leigh movie, I recommend you check him out. He does plain, good cinema. Nothing fancy, just good script and good acting.
The exams continue. I have had three more crying girls, two guys who wanted to shake my hand, two nervous breakdowns and have been informed of three bereavements, four broken bones and a cut hand. I have had depressingly few foreign nationals.
Out of the 500+ students I will have examined by Saturday, there have been six who were truly musically talented. 1.2%. I have to admit that makes me feel sort of good about myself… but at the same time that means 98.8% of students I have heard have been unmusical in varying degrees. That is a lot of unmusic to listen to. 113 hours, actually.
Gosh, I miss my knitting! 16 down, 2 days to go.
At some point when you have a minute (and if you’re interested), could you explain what it is that you’re doing? I don’t think the States have a version, unless it’s very very high level music. I distinctly remember the trauma of “recitals,” but those didn’t have an examiner, even one who knits (so is clearly a good human being)!
Sounds like an awful lot of bad music. Good luck with the last few days!
whilst you sound tortured, i am laughing out loud!
as several of your other readers have observed you have taken us vividly back to our days of abrsm music exams.
for us in deepest darkest africa, it was a grand event when the examiner , usually pushing 90, would arrive each september from exotic britain – we were obviously easily impressed! they were all old men, some more kindly and some more frightening, and whilst they probably had lives outside of examining children – some more musically inclined than others (hopefully more than 1.2%!) – i cannot imagine that any of them made socks between takes. then again, i could be wrong.
as a student, i never saw the examiner’s side of proceedings, but i did see a lot of the parenting side, and it was indeed as you have described – clearly a universal truth.
there were lots of pushy stage mothers, but the most memorable was a family from some country town who rolled up to the exam venue en masse in their sparkly sunday best with scarcely a word of english between them – a small handicap when the examiner was english. they had not come empty handed – the pushy mother was equipped with a magnum of red wine which she tried to push upon the protesting examiner as a persuasive gift. (i’m not sure if i need to add that the poor child hadn’t a hope of passing the exam!)
Whilst I sympathise with you over your ordeal, I love reading your account of it!
Ouch! Nearly there though 🙂
In the meantime, to fix the music in your ears, put this in them instead 😀
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUUj4BjY-VM
I found a bunch of tiny spiders today and thought of you.
I’m glad I dropped out of the music scene before it was too late. My mom and sister are musical. My dad and I are music aficionados, but with the playing? Not so much. Kind of like when I sing (in the car): I’ll hit the notes, but I’m not promising anyone will live through it.