I’m taking my Grade 3 flute exam this Friday. (This after 15 months on the flute - I don’t know whether it’s good or bad.) Just my luck that I’ve picked up a nasty chesty cough, which started yesterday. And here I am, coughing and spluttering, finding it very hard to practice.
Anyway … Wish me luck, folks!
You doing it on wooden keyed flute?
May all go well, as sure it will!
cheers,
Hans
I have my fingers crossed for you , i have my toes crossed for you , i have my eyes crossed for you
if you don’t get an honourable mention , i’ll be cross with you.
try massaging the neck with Black Bush , or Jamesons , from the inside.
Best of luck!
Good luck, sir Ben! Let us know the result. We’ll still love you regardless. Well maybe not love, more like barely tolerate. 
And can someone explain to us benighted non-Brits what a Grade 3 exam is?
yeah, what he said!
funny how much it looks like English, innit
was thinkin’ it might be about their musician’s union…the web site was not any help
Ben,
Wish you the best. I would like to know what the grade 3 exam is also.
JeffG
Good luck, Ben (with the cough, of course!), you gurt overgrown anthropomorphist, you. 
Grade exams - the (mostly classical and jazz) instrumental (and music theory) exams set by one of (I think) two main Examination Boards in GB, (ABRSM, Trinity College) graded from 1 (beginners) to 8 (very high indeed - borderline pro competence, certainly uni entrance level) - above that one is talking diplomas (from the same boards) and then performance degrees at conservatoires and universities. I imagine you have much the same system in the US and elsewhere.
For child learners on piano and strings it is normal to work through every grade, but the woodwinds usually leapfrog - will do Grade 1, then 3, then 5, then maybe all of 6,7 and 8 (if they get that far).
Achievement in any given grade is marked by a points system where points are awarded or deducted from a possible total on various grounds in different aspects of the examination and the total is converted into a Distinction, Merit, Pass or Fail, marks which have fixed points boundaries - the standards are (supposedly/by intention at least) fixed/absolute, not moderated.
A Yank seeing the light at last? So soon after the health care thingummy? Strewth! 
Thanks, Jem. I’m not sure if there’s a national scheme. Back in my day there were state-level competitions and qualifications. The New York State School Music Association (NYSSMA) offered 6 levels, and Level 6 qualified one to audition for the annual national orchestra, wind ensemble, etc. offered by MENC (Music Educators National Conference). I held Level 6 on clarinet and saxophone and did the national thing for several years in high school.
“thingummy” is the correct term indeed. Let’s not go there …
I don’t think that link is the whole of the exam specs, David - it doesn’t mention the set pieces etc.
I’ve been very busy at work all day (despite dreadful cough [hack] [hack]) and it’s very very gratifying indeed to see all these well-wishes. Thank you chasps!
Yes, Hans, I’m doing it on an 8-key wooden R&R. With patent head. Rolly has been practising hard for this, so you’d better wish him luck as well.
Basically, I have my three set pieces - I’m doing a minuet by Sammartini, in G, a short piece by Shostakovic in Bb (both of those accompanied on piano) and a study in F, unaccompanied, by Demersseman, who was a 19c flute virtuoso who didn’t get a teaching job at the Paris Conservatoire because of his opposition to Boehm flutes (that’s why I picked that piece).
Then I have to do lots of scales and arpeggios, including a chromatic scale, and I have aural tests and sight-reading.
I’m quite nervous, actually … 
Thanks Jimmy, and Jim and Mr Guru Sir and all.
Don’t know how Jem can possibly call me an anthropomorphist though, although I suppose I am a bit man-shaped …
good luck with that, I’m dying to know what they make of the wooden flute and how they then mark in terms of the perceived difficulty of particular tunes and scales. I’ll be asking my Boehm flute teacher friends about it this evening…
Oh, I’m not expecting any special favours. After all, it’s my choice to play an 8-key. I’m expecting to be judged on the same basis as typewriter people.
Given that the touring examiners are not necessarily (save by chance, at least for the lower grades) even woodwind players, let alone fluters, and that even if the one you happen to get is a fluter the chances of them knowing anything about historic instruments or ever having tried to play one (let alone having any sympathy for so doing) are still (though significantly less so than of yore) pretty slim, then even with the best will in the world they would not be in any position of technical knowledge to make allowances for the nature of the instrument, even were it appropriate to do so (which in the nature of the exam it isn’t).
Notes per minute?
Yes, but apart from that do you think they might make allowances?
I should have known …
If you make that doe-eyed little boy face at them, cough a bit and introduce them ever so nicely to Rolly so they can see for themselves what a really nice but extra difficult person he is… I’m quite sure they’ll make appropriate allowances.
Ah, “appropriate” allowances. But … but …
I want BIG allowances! Want! Want! Want!
OK, I’ll do the doe-eyed little boy thing …