Today was my Certificate of Merit piano test. It was literally a disaster.
When I walked into the room, I had a really bad feeling. When I sat down, I glanced up at the technical requirements sheet (scales, etcetera), and it was totally different than the sheet that my piano teacher had passed out. I started panicking, and I glanced at the judge.
"Is this the right sheet? The sheet I used had different scales, arpeggios, etc."
I started naming the scales that I had on my sheet, and the judge told me that the sheet I was talking about was from 2003. My eyes popped out of my head. The judge seemed pretty annoyed with me, and I glanced back up at the sheet again, and I felt a hollow pit in my stomach.
"Well, here goes," I thought to myself.
I fumbled through the major scales, and when I got to the minor scales, it was already a lost cause. On my sheet, we only had to play the harmonic scales, but on this one, we had to play both harmonic and melodic. Normally, I would have just played the scales, but there was one problem -- I couldn't remember how. Do you honestly expect me to remember how to play the minor scales that I learned two years ago?
So, I went to the polyrhythms -- that was the same, at least. I fumbled my way through arpeggios that I had learned three-years ago, and when I came to the chord progressions, I was just about to give up. It took me two weeks to figure out how to play the chord progressions, and now, you're asking me to learn to play
new chord progressions on-the-spot?
My four pieces went alright. I stumbled on some long sixteenth note runs, but they were decent. After about thirty-minutes, hell was over. I glanced up at the judge, and he just gave me a weird look, and told me it was over. I quickly grabbed my books and ran out of the room. I wanted to make a good last impression, but I tripped over the rug, and I could hear the judge sigh.
When I got home, I immediately when to call one of my friends, who was all taking Certificate of Merit this year.
"Was the technical requirements sheet supposed to be the same?"
"Yeah, the one your piano teacher gave you is supposed to have '2007' in the bottom right-hand corner."
I was seething with anger. My piano teacher had given me the wrong sheet -- the one from 2003. I called her:
"You gave me the wrong sheet."
"It can't have been that different, could it?"
"Yes, it was."
"Well, I didn't go to the Certificate of Merit meeting this year, so I didn't know! You were supposed to remember how to play your scales and arpeggios!"
"THAT WAS THREE-YEARS AGO! YOU EXPECT ME TO REMEMBER SOME TECHNICAL CRAP I LEARNED THAT LONG AGO?"
I probably shouldn't have yelled at her like that, but I was infuriated. I spent the last three months, spending every day practicing my songs and scales, just to fail miserably? My mom decided to call the piano teacher back and complain to her:
"How could you give my son the wrong sheet?"
"I didn't go to the Certificate of Merit meeting!"
"So, you're just going to let Alex fail his test?"
"Don't worry. I'll pull some strings and let him make it up."
My parents didn't understand why I was so upset though. They couldn't comprehend the fact that I had worked so hard for the past few months, just to have it all go down like the Titanic. They couldn't comprehend the fact that I was embarrassed in front of someone I didn't know, and they couldn't comprehend that their son looked like an idiot in front of the piano judge. I really wanted to impress the judges with my hard work, but it turned out to be the opposite.
Well, it looks like the month of March has begun with a great start.
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