Hi,

I have been on violin grade 4 for one and a half years, and i would like to do my exam this christmas, but my teacher doesn't think im good enough to be put in the exam.... He says I need to work on my scales and sight reading..... What do I do???

Manpreet Pangli

Practise your scales and sightreading!

Heh.

One of my teachers thought I was only good enough for Grade 1 or 2 and I went and passed Grade 4!

Hmm, just practise, practise, practise! Build up you repertoire, and also, also, just play anything and everything that you can - it really helps.

I hope by "being on Grade 4" for one and a half years you don't mean you've only been playing the Grade 4 repertoire for all that time!!!

Three pieces, the scales & arpeggios, appropriate sight-reading and aural practice wouldn't be giving you enough variety for such a long period, so I hope your teacher is giving you other things to play as well..

Violinia

A good way to learn your scales is to write the name of each scale on separate scraps of paper, fold them up and put the pieces of paper into a hat or bag. Shake the bag and pick a scale at random. Then see if you can play the scale. This method helps cos in the exam you wont know what scale your going to get and when practicing people tend to play the scales they remember (i know i do!) For sight reading see if you can borrow some music from other violinists of similar standard as you and have a go at playing that. Good luck!!