Doctor Who: This car's a sod to drive

A nice Jon Pertwee out-take from the Five Doctors. "Oh ****! Sorry this car's a sod to drive at the moment"

I just did piano grade 2!

Well I just sat my grade 2 piano exam today. I've been playing for almost exactly 1 year, and did my grade 1 approximately 6 months ago. I was feeling that I'd bit off a bit more than I could chew.

Grade 2 was MUCH harder than grade 1. One of the most difficult things about grade 2 is the scales, you have to play them simultaneously with both hands. I thought I'd mastered this, but my nerves got the better of me in the exam and I butchered the very first scale I was asked to do. This was F Major, and about 3 or 4 notes into it I realised that I'd run out of fingers on my left hand. I forced myself to bodge my way through the rest of the scale.

I made a few more silly errors on my scales and arpeggios, and there were two instances where I stopped and asked the examiner if I could do it again. Hopefully that didn't cost me too many marks. Fortunately B minor harmonic (which is a sod to play with both hands) went really well.

I was then asked to play the 3 pieces. I started with A:3 "Bouree" (L. Mozart). That generally went OK apart from a few notes I mangled up in the first couple of phrases.

The next piece B:3 "The Bee" actually went remarkably well. I find this a very difficult piece to play because it is fast and the ending is a bit fiddly. I always thought that if I messed up a piece it would be this one, but amazingly it turned out to be Bouree I messed up - the piece I was most comfortable with.

The final piece was C:3 "Garage Sale". This is a piece that does nothing at all for me, but I chose it because it's easy. Why are the "C" examination pieces always so naff? I wonder if anyone ever chose the godawful "The Temple by the Sea".

The sight reading went pretty smoothly this time. I didn't have any problems with it. It was in a simple key signature and was in 2:4. The aural test was pretty straightforward too.

On the whole I think definitely a pass. I'd be pleased with a merit, but I think that a distinction is totally out of the question primarily due to my massacre of F major at the beginning.

Below are some vids of me playing the 3 pieces. They were recorded on the same day of the exam. The dynamics aren't too clear in these videos. Please rest assured that I was giving the piano a good bash in all the "forte" bits, but the piano's volume is turned quite low so it's hard to get much light and shade across.


Bouree


The Bee


Garage Sale

Jamaican Doctor Who

"It looks to me like big trouble for Dr Who". This video featuring a Jamaican dubbed version of Doctor Who is really funny:

"You don't look like no Dalek to me" gets me every time.

Bungle's Twanger?!?

Oh my giddy aunt! I can't believe this video. That's my childhood ruined. The things you can find on YouTube. This video is very funny, yet slightly disturbing at the same time.