The system followed by you

[8426]

If you are in or were in a school of music (conservatoire, academy, etc.)
What type of system was followed? Did they have you doing certain scales?
Certain pieces? When were examinations? How often were they?

[Bob]

A final performance for the teachers every semester.  It wasn't for me, but for some areas it was a joke -- The stuff they did during the semester was more difficult than the semester end pieces.

Every teacher I ran into said they didn't use any system or method.  It was whatever met the student's needs, individual for each student, different learning pacing, etc.  I think that was just bunk though -- Not necessarily well-developed teaching ideas either.  Just whatever entered their mind during the lesson.  I do think there was a general pattern of pieces performed though.

Pieces -- The teachers would vary pieces within their studio.  They didn't want to hear the same piece over and over.  Nobody worked on the same piece at the same time.  If someone was working on it, it became "their" piece for that semester.  At some point, one teacher had a group of student (myself included) play through piece after piece after piece -- A group of pieces for one week, perform them the next week and do whatever you have to do some kind of performance (which meant simplifying them for me).  I did a semester like that.  Good and bad weeks, but you cover lots of repertoire and collect a lot of standard music that way.  Some of the performances, for me at least, were a bit of a joke when you simplify a complicated piece back down to a one-note melody.  (Tah-dah!)  And it really makes you used to dealing with what's going to work in a piece -- Basically sit down and decide how you're going to perform it and how you can read that piece for the performance.  Practice doing that for the next 4-5 days until the performance day.  Repeat week after week.

[Bob]

I can't edit my last post.

Studio performances too, varying with different teachers.  Some did a topic lecture/listening a week with occasional performances.  Some had the studio meet maybe two or three during the semester and you played through your pieces.  I actually preferred the topic lecture/listening format with small topic-focused performances throughout the semester.  That included duets and accompanying, so you got to actually meet some more people that way.  It really gelled the studio together too.  I don't even know, let alone remember, who was in the studios of the teachers who didn't do that.