Joanna Funk

music, gardening and my dog


First theory exam! Woo hoo!

Congratulations to my student D who sat her first online music theory exam with AMEB recently and passed with Honours! The certificate came in the post and she was keen to show me. Yay! 🎉

Well done practising transposition, learning the pattern of a major scale (tone tone semitone…) key signatures, and being grilled over those dreaded Italian music terms!

We’re now going to work on a first piano exam from the ANZCA syllabus.

Although I grew up the old school way with Trinity College in the UK, I think the world has moved on and it isn’t necessary to sit exams under very formal conditions, especially in the early stages of learning. We are encouraging them to learn, after all!

ANZCA hits a sweet spot for me, being friendly and enthusiastic, and they even require some improvisation in the modern syllabus. It’s such a useful and practical musical skill!

D and I are pretty psyched to start! 💪



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About Joanna

Joanna is British Australian. She worked mainly in financial news in London. In her forties she moved to her parents’ birthplace, Sabah, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo, where she became a pianist in a hotel and wrote a blog about musicians. The blog became a book before Joanna came to Australia in 2012. In this blog she writes mostly about music, gardening, and trips to Sabah. Oh, and Wookie the Havanese.

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