Leaving Cert Music Practical Guitar - In Two Weeks, Help!

Emma.My.Chem

Hi everyone.

Currently I'm studying music for my Leaving Cert. The practical has suddenly come upon me, which is taking place tomorrow in two weeks. This accounts for 50% of my Leaving Cert so it's a fairly big deal!

Anyways, my dilemma is that I do not have a fourth piece to play. The songs I had originally intended to play were:

1. Blackbird - The Beatles
2. Autumn Leaves
3. Good Riddance - Green Day
4. East Jesus Nowhere - Green Day

Blackbird, Autumn Leaves and East Jesus Nowhere have worked out really well but Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) has just fallen to pieces. My guitar teacher showed me at the start of the year how to play the melody on guitar using the bass note on the E/A strings and plucking the upper strings. This is kinda necessary to bring the difficulty of the song up to Leaving Cert standard. I managed to do it, until a certain point. I just wasn't able to bring it up to speed with the rest of the song and now my teacher is telling me to scrap it - two weeks before the exam.

So can anyone please give me recommendations for a fourth song to replace Good Riddance? It has to be contrasting to the other three, and please, not as advanced as Autumn Leaves because I won't get it learned in two weeks.

Thanks so much!

davo2001

Sorry but how does a practical music exam account for 50% of your entire Leaving Cert? I know finished school a good few years ago but have things changed that much?!

Genuine question btw!

Emma.My.Chem

davo2001 wrote: »

Sorry but how does a practical music exam account for 50% of your entire Leaving Cert? I know finished school a good few years ago but have things changed that much?!

Genuine question btw!

Sorry, I meant 50% of my Music Leaving Cert.

whiteandlight

I'm assuming you are doing OL or are doing Technology with this as four pieces is actually only 25% of the HL LC practical. Are you playing melody or just chords for the above? You need to ask yourself if you are realistically going to get another piece to anywhere near the Greenday one is currently or are you better to put time into it?
Ask yourself honestly:
1. Have you been practising it every single day?
2. Have you just been playing straight through it or breaking down the lines you find hard?
3. Have you been using a metronome and slowing increasing the speed or just trying to jump from slow to fast?

If the answer to these is no then there is possibly a good chance you can get this ready for the practical. If the answer is yes then you need to pick a much easier piece.

What else have you played in the last two years?

Emma.My.Chem

Musicmental85 wrote: »

I'm assuming you are doing OL or are doing Technology with this as four pieces is actually only 25% of the HL LC practical. Are you playing melody or just chords for the above? You need to ask yourself if you are realistically going to get another piece to anywhere near the Greenday one is currently or are you better to put time into it?
Ask yourself honestly:
1. Have you been practising it every single day?
2. Have you just been playing straight through it or breaking down the lines you find hard?
3. Have you been using a metronome and slowing increasing the speed or just trying to jump from slow to fast?

If the answer to these is no then there is possibly a good chance you can get this ready for the practical. If the answer is yes then you need to pick a much easier piece.

What else have you played in the last two years?

This is really good advice. I haven't used a metronome yet but that would probably be a good help. I guess I'll just have to just break it down and try my best I guess! Thank you so much.

whiteandlight

You would be amazed what half an hour a day targeted practise will do. Remember you shouldn't be practising the mistakes but breaking it down until you can play each sections without the mistakes.