Music

Niamh-17

I am in 5th year and have just taken up Music for my Leaving Cert, as there wasnt enough students willing to take music for Junior Cert.

I am getting on great with theory and love it. My concern really lies with the practical.

I will be hopefully completing Piano Grade 5 in may.

Am I up to a high enough standard to play piano for Leaving Cert?

Léan

I wouldn't worry about it at all, there's no set rule as to what grade you have to be at or whatever, but a general guidline is anything over Grade 2 i think.
You should have no problem at all!

shanethemofo

Depends on what you want to do.

If you want to do 4 pieces on one instrument + 4 pieces on another/group then yea grade 5 is Fine.

If you want to do 6 pieces on the 1 instrument (i.e all piano) the the recommended grade is 6 Afaik

Shane

Daisies

You only have to be up to the grade that you would be if you started in first year of secondary school and did one grade a year so that depends what school of piano you're doing

Niamh-17

Thanks everyone!

Welll i think im doing 4 pieces on piano and then Music Technology which i find fine to use! I just want to pick my pieces now so i will have enough time to prepare!

Jay P

You should be fine. My teacher said that you will be expected to have been playing since first year, so you should be fine.

dintbo

As one of two activities grade 5 is absolutely fine. The music tech is a great option for people worried about practicals. Its so easy, all you need is very basic computer skills and music theory.

marshmallow

The recommended is grade 6. But just make sure that you play Grade 5 pieces well rather than play grade 6 pieces with difficulty.

Anna-Banana

Ya it's the performance and the expression that counts not your technical ability really.

stripypumkin

Ok leaving cert music is not like the board exams! Its based on performance and how comfortable you look playing your instrument! really a grade 4 person might do better than a grade 8 person!
So if you are picking four pieces, pick 4 different genres of music which shows you can play different styles of music!
The music tech im a bit iffy about. Its kind of there for the students who don't have anything else to do...if your only in 5th year Id reccomend you learned for pieces on recorder..?

PurpleFistMixer

Hm, I'm doing a grade 5 piece, two grade 7 pieces and a grade 8 piece... Should have just stuck with easy ones. >.<

Anna-Banana

Ya I'm doing 4 grade 7 and 4 grade 6. Dunno if that was such a good idea! its a bit late to change now though. Should have taken my own advice.

degausserxo

You could do like two pieces on an instrument and the rest on something like Finale notepad.

PurpleFistMixer

If you take performance as your elective (which most people do), you either do 6 on an instrument, or 4 on two instruments, (one of which can be music technology). That is, for higher level. Not sure how it works for ordinary level.

hgfg

ok i really need your help and advice with music technology.
ok so practicals are in a few weeks, and im doing music technology as well as 4 piano pieces.
could someone basically tell me everything i need to do for it, my teacher is useless, and she has never had a student do music technology before.
i will be using finale.
thanks

hippety-pippety

hey,

i'm doing music tech. it's so easy, you have nothing to worry about..
you have to be able to input the music. which is really really easy. you've prob already inputted (if that's the right word?) your piece, and printed it out, and you give the examiner a copy i think. or not. anyway they tell you to input four bars starting somewhere, it can be anywhere, in the piece. it's really good if you try and use shortcut keys. i'm using cakewalk which is different to yours but ther'l def be some shortcuts u can use. it looks more impressive ithink...
then the examiner asks you to make 3 changes to the music which you have prepared beforehand... these are ridiculously easy, you can just change the tempo by like 5 whatsits, on cakewalk this is just clicking the up button 5 times.. you can move a note up an octave or however you want to as long as it sounds good and blends into the music well. you can do some panning which is really easy. you can transpose the piece up or down a key, but you have to make sure and change the key signature aswell. theres so many options. its really easy, you have nothing to worry about, you just have to prepare the changes you're going to make.

hgfg

Ok thats great thanks.
Just wondering are there certain scores you have to use(i know it must be a 4-part score but wondering if there are set scores to use?)
Only have to input 4 bars?!!....phew, thats great, was getting fierce stressed thinking i had to do a full score!!! .....do they randomly pick the 4 bars???

dranahs89

well im doing my leavin certificate music practical which let me add is on MONDAY,14TH APRIL.. im pretty much ready. im doing 4 solo singing with acompainment. Im doing
1:Smile by Charlie Chaplin
2:Fly me to the Moon with accompainment
3:You dont have to say you love me*sounds great *with paino accompainment and backing track
4:The long and winding road with piano accompainment
then im doing 4 piano
1:imagine by John lennon with me playing piano and singing
2:let it be with me playing piano and singing
3:tears in heaven with me playing piano and singing
4: boureé *a grade 3* piece.. *sounds like a grade 4 piece so cool*

WHAT DOES EVERYONE THINK OF THOSE CHOICES

hippety-pippety

hgfg wrote: »

Ok thats great thanks.
Just wondering are there certain scores you have to use(i know it must be a 4-part score but wondering if there are set scores to use?)
Only have to input 4 bars?!!....phew, thats great, was getting fierce stressed thinking i had to do a full score!!! .....do they randomly pick the 4 bars???

i'm not sure what you mean by scores... i don't think there are set ones though. i'm doing a fugue by bach which is just a piano piece but i've split it up into two treble clef staffs, two bass clef staffs. is that what you mean? if so, yeah i think it should be two treble, two bass
yeah only 4, and i think they do randomly pick them. well it'll be a logical place to start, e.g. where each track/staff has plenty of notes on it, but actually i think a lot start at the beginning of the piece.
what piece are you doing?

hippety-pippety

dranahs89 wrote: »

well im doing my leavin certificate music practical which let me add is on MONDAY,14TH APRIL.. im pretty much ready. im doing 4 solo singing with acompainment. Im doing
1:Smile by Charlie Chaplin
2:Fly me to the Moon with accompainment
3:You dont have to say you love me*sounds great *with paino accompainment and backing track
4:The long and winding road with piano accompainment
then im doing 4 piano
1:imagine by John lennon with me playing piano and singing
2:let it be with me playing piano and singing
3:tears in heaven with me playing piano and singing
4: boureé *a grade 3* piece.. *sounds like a grade 4 piece so cool*

WHAT DOES EVERYONE THINK OF THOSE CHOICES

they sound pertty cool.. i only know a few of them though so i don't really know. so you're singing in practically all of them? that's cool.. out of curiousity why didnt you just do 8 singing?
i'm doing 4 violin and music technology. i know it's th easy way out but hey. i havn't had violin lessons for like a year and a half and i never got that far with grades so it makes sense to do tech.. like vry easy way to do well.

dranahs89

hippety-pippety wrote: »

they sound pertty cool.. i only know a few of them though so i don't really know. so you're singing in practically all of them? that's cool.. out of curiousity why didnt you just do 8 singing?
i'm doing 4 violin and music technology. i know it's th easy way out but hey. i havn't had violin lessons for like a year and a half and i never got that far with grades so it makes sense to do tech.. like vry easy way to do well.

This main reason i chose them type of songs is because,
1: There old enough and i picked songs which no one else would think of,so the examiner isnt listening to same songs over and over. the main reason i chose not to sing all 8 is that im trying to prove that i can not only sing,but i can play piano too.. so wht pieces you doing on violin..when is your music practical.well good luck with it