OK. My Grade VI flute exam is a fortnight today at 11:58 am. I’ll be taking it on my c 1840 8-key Rudall and Rose with patent head.
I’m sure it was the good wishes expressed on this forum that helped me through my Grade III about 18 months ago, and got me a mark which I was very pleased with for my Grade V in Spring this year.
Not that you have to wish me good luck … it wouldn’t be that I’m pleading or anything … 
Yeah! 
Luck
?
GO!! Relax and Win! 
Yes, luck. I’m trying to take care of the bits that are in my control, but disease, famine and flute blight are outwith my purview.
Really? But you’re a Mod.
I sent you some anyway, didn’t I?
True. True. I shall invoke my alter ego, Modin (or “Motan”). That should do the trick.
Yes, you did. Thank you. And you Othannen. And you Radcliff. I can sense my luck building up already.
Good luck!
Forgive me my complete ignorance, but who gives grades to flute players and why?
I never heard of music exams until I came to Canada - the Royal Conservatory organizes them here so they must be a British tradition. My two daughters, who are fine musicians (one cellist, one pianist) and have always loved performing, both hated the pressure of playing for a single examiner alone in a room. They gave up taking exams, while continuing to compete and excel in music festivals, and between them they have three music degrees. Today they work in other careers, but still perform when they can, and it gives me joy to hear them.
I know some other adults who are masochistic enough to want to measure their progress through exams 
- break a leg!
Good Luck Ben!
I’ll bet you’ll breeze right on through it.
Tell us all about it right after!
Ah, not just to measure progress, Peewit, but to stimulate it. Well, it helps me, anyway.
What pieces are you performing this time?
Best of luck. Sounds like you’ll do great if past success is any indication.
Cheers,
Jason
I’m doing a Baroque piece by Hasse, followed by two movements from a beautiful 20c Sonata by Járdányi and then a jazz piece, which uses almost all the range of the flute, going from bottom C to third octave G. It tickles me to be playing a jazz piece on an instrument which is 170 years old! 
It’s the scales which are the hard bit this time, especially two octaves B minor, both melodic and harmonic forms. I’m getting there with that one …
Buena Suerte!
It’s a British thing. That’s all I really know.
It’s all you really need to know.
more’n enough fer me
In Canada: The Royal Conservatory of Music.
In the USA: The Carnegie Hall Royal Conservatory Achievement Program, formerly the National Music Certificate Program.
Good luck, Ben.
B minor scales don’t seem too terrible compared to when I think of Dflat major on a simple-system 8-key–garrrgh!!! 