My first exam after 12 years!

Dear Dayre,

MY EXAM IS OVER!!!!!

Omggggggggggggg so glad it's over I had extreme anxiety before entering the exam room 😭

Been spending the whole weekend trying to last minute mug and it was really quite stressful!

My exam slot was at 2.40 and I arrived at the exam centre really early, around 1pm ish. So I changed into a nice dress (because this is for a recital performance certificate, it has to be treated like a real performance)

I wore this long ombré gown I have, very kua zhang hor?

But I played cheat and wore flats underneath la….. Hahahahaha examiner won't know right 😂😂😂

I swear I was soooooo nervous while waiting from 1-2.30pm. All I was doing was listening to my recital practice recording on repeat and repeat and trying to internalize the lyrics and try to memorize them 100%.

The thing with song lyrics.. Once you screw up one word, usually you will screw up the whole stanza and end up singing the same stanza twice or singing something that doesn't make sense.

Or worse still you change word in mid-syllable and it's very obvious you just sang something wrong ughhh. Which happened to me quite a few times during my practice sessions!

And you know funny enough people always think I have a lot of experience & am very confident and I don't get stage fright but IT'S NOT TRUE!!!

I get very bad stage fright 😣😣😣 Especially when it's for competitions and exams… My anxiety level shoots through the roof. My heart beat goes up doubly fast and my mouth turns dry. Breathing becomes harder and my voice will sound tighter and more strained omg.

If only such a thing called stage fright didn't exist. The world would be a better place.

So you know I found out that I WAS ALLOWED to look at scores during my exam/recital!

But.. Sometimes looking at scores is actually bad because it distracts you more. You can't stare at it all the time during your performance and so you have to be glancing up and down the entire time. And thus I decided to go with my decision not to use the scores during the exam but to sing all five pieces from memory.

Also you know stage presentation and performance is part of the scoring and I figured no matter what, it looks a lot more impressive to be singing your repertoire from memory rather than holding the scores and looking worried over your lyrics.

At most gabra a few words but it's all about how you carry yourself and "perform", if you know what I mean.

You know you even need to prepare a program booklet for the examiner as if it were a real recital performance?

It's my first music exam so I'm quite noob but now I know!

Last minute made this last night with the help of Woon who helped me look for information on the pieces that I was performing for the exam.

I think I was fortunate enough to get a kind-looking examiner (the examiners all fly in from the UK to represent Trinity Music to examine the performances/exams) and that calmed my nerves a little!

Though I was still very very nervous. It took me a few minutes to compose myself to enter the examination room and I just couldn't get my heartbeat back to regular rate 😓

My nerves were so bad during the exam that MY ARMS ACTUALLY STARTED TINGLING FROM NUMBNESS??! I think because I was so anxious my arms were tensing up and they got numb!

But.. I'm proud to say that I got through the entire repertoire without forgetting any of my lyrics! 😂😂😂

The exam room was quite big which made me feel better, and the examiner spent a lot of time scribbling away notes (marking my performance) so he wasn't looking at me a lot of the time, which made it easier for me.

Cannot believe myself also cos even when I was practicing yesterday with Woon (who accompanied me on the piano) I was still mixing up lyrics and getting even more nervous when I forgot them 😭

It was so nerve-wracking during the exam and I could feel my mouth getting dryer and dryer after every song cos the room was so dry!

But I think I did the best that I could though there were some occasional wobbly moments due to nervousness and also some of the high notes were abit geng 😓

Being able to complete the entire repertoire without forgetting a single word is already a big achievement I think haha I was expecting myself to forget SOMETHING, or have some very horrible bits of screeching cos not enough breath or something.

And it's stupid but I was getting so into the mood when I was singing Memory that I started to feel emotional and that caused me to wobble abit cos unstable! But to compensate I tried to put more feel into it LOL don't know if it worked or not 😣

But YAYY IT'S OVER!

I can now heave a sigh of relief, and wait for the results to be delivered to me, in three weeks time, via REGISTERED mail.

(Also checked with the staff regarding the whole late letter fiasco and they said the notification letters were all mailed via normal mail, and the registered mail is only for the results. BUT STILL. Receiving the letter 3 days before exam is no joke)

🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

I hope I do okay!!!!

The last serious exam I took was my O Levels wtf. Hahaha. Didn't have to take exams during my polytechnic diploma days because I was studying design and that was mostly project and assignment-based.

So my last exam was like 12 years ago 😓 #toooldforthisshit

Three cheers, hip hip hip hooray!!!!

Hopefully I'll receive good news in three weeks time! ✨

But for now I'm just glad I managed to make it through my first singing exam ever! 😁

Back to work after the stress of the exam hahaha. I guess I should be thankful that it was a "长痛不如短痛" situation. Three days of stress are over!

New arrivals are on www.thevelvetdolls.sg!

I found this quote today while reading an article and it was an instant connection!

I love how strong and powerful this quote is.