Autumn Term Music and Music Exams Thread

Good luck with the exam oslomum. We don't have any exams to look forward to at the moment though DD will have a formal sax evaluation this year. I probably need to look into her doing some piano and guitar exams at some point. Has anyone on here done any of the rockschool guitar exams?

Good luck with the grade 1 oslomum - I was mentally drained by the time DS2 (9) took his but he was fine and I am sure your DD will be, too! This term, it looks as though DS2 will take cello grade 1 and DS1 flute gr 3 in December so plenty of time yet. Grade 2 piano won't be happening for a while yet, that much I know!

o, yes, forgot that, piano...at least she is keen unlike dc1, who has had the same exam book for the last 2 years, and doesn't like practicing etc....

Which instrument oslomum?

hm, I usually have a quick look on this thread and then quietly leave it again.
But ...I have entered (as a parent), dc3 (8) for grade 1 exam. Bit scary as she has only had 1 lesson in the last 3 months...

hello all

we're years behind a lot of you- 11yo twin DDs- one harp, piano (studying for grade 1 & 2 respectively) and tother piano, also grade 1. Two lovely teachers with completely different approaches- one v grade focused, the other not so much

both approaches seem to work as well as each other- so far at any rate

DD is loving her piano lessons ... I was a bit unsure about the teacher but he certainly seems to have sparked some enthusiasm as she played for the best part of 4 hours today. I joked tonight that piano is now banned until homework is done and she gave me a stricken look ;)

Blech... I'm already thinking about whether students will be ready for grades next term or if we should wait for summer... tempted to try Trinity for grade 3 piano. Grade 1s will probably be ABRSM with one of the pieces not from the book (because it's fun, and because they all still have small hands...).

Just getting to the end of term 3 here so both children are tired. Miss 10 is now playing a beautiful old 3/4 violin which sounds gorgeous - so she is a very happy bunny. Miss 7 is counting down to her grade 5 now. Scales going well, pieces ditto and she's trying to cram as much sight reading in as possible whilst doing lots of composing.
Seems funny to think your term has just started!

Hi
Dd has had a good start to the autumn term. She has just started secondary school and spends a lot of spare time in the music dept with a gaggle of musical kids. She's started private keyboard lessons there too which she seems enthusiastic about.
Out of school she's graduated to the main orchestra at her music centre playing her clarinet as well as doing an advanced sectional . She's carrying on with the music theory group there too.. Needs to get grade 5 theory done before she can move on with her abrsm practical exams.
So it all seems to be on the up.

Love reading all your music experiences, can I join?

I have 3 instrument playing DC.

DS1 is 12 and has been playing piano for almost 5 years and violin for a year. He is working towards Grade 3 piano and will take his Grade 1 theory exam in November.

DS2 is 10 and has been playing trumpet for 3 years. He hasn't done any exams but plays in the County Wind Band.

DD is 8 and has been playing violin for 2 years. She hasn't done any exams but plays in the County Orchestra.

The hardest part for me is getting them to practice consistently. I leave for work at 7.45am so doing it before school isn't really practical, which means fitting it around everything else (homework, swimming lessons, football practice, Brownies etc) in the evenings. They have to practice at least 5 days out of 7, plus they have one lesson a week and the younger two have one wind band/orchestra rehearsal a week.

The best bit is when they realise they all know the same piece of music (tonight it was Morning from Peer Gynt) and decide to play it together on their various instruments. I love seeing the enjoyment they get from playing together.

I don't know the answer Mistigri, DS gets grumpy because he can't play the same pieces on second instrument that he can play on first instrument. Let me think why that might be - possibly because he's been playing one for seven years and the other for a few weeks? Going back to being a beginner is hard.

Pass, but I can identify with the children..! Pesky harp is just annoyingly hard. Otoh, loads of lovely folk repertoire that's easy enough to play... Until clairseach arrives and I have to learn it again from scratch...

Not sure whether to post here or in a separate thread but anyway ...

If you have an older child with several instruments, how do you rein in over-ambition/ over-enthusiasm in the early stages of a new instrument? We've got some piano repertoire suggestions from the new piano teacher, mostly in the grade 4-6 range which I think will be OK but some harder. Obviously DD wants to learn the hardest piece on the list, I think it is way too hard for her. She sulked when I suggested she choose two easier pieces.

And she had her first sax lesson on Friday and is already getting frustrated that she can't reliably produce the lowest/ highest notes when sight-reading. She's had the saxophone four days ...

Wow Waffle sight reading seems to be a v imp part of the audition so your dd should do well. My dd has two Frozen songs on the go and is really keen to include one....would be really nice to settle now!

Waffle - my DD firmly resisting playing a slower piece in contrast to her (very) fast one....

Waffle - I'm assuming that it will be unaccompanied so you can't use the excuse that the accompanist needs to know what she's playing well ahead of time. Can she narrow it down to three pieces and then pick one from those later? (not that there's much "later" left)

I don't know whether I told the tale of our county audition, the form went off in March but we missed the deadline and they said they'd contact us later in the year. An eight month silence followed. I found out when the next round of auditions were but seeing as they were going to be the night before DS grade 8 we talked about it and decided just to let it slide and to remind them that he existed before the next round. Five days before the audition, six days before the exam, he had the letter asking him to attend. The good thing was that he had three pieces to chose from but there needed to be some emergency scale work. (He got in)

The festivals sound fun! Nothing like that here as far as I know.

First official sax lesson for DD this evening. But she's already had a go on the new sax and it does seem like all those years of recorder will make it a lot easier as she was already sight reading simple tunes last night. She says the fingering is similar.

Oh, our 'festival' is a lot less serious - it's just a local thing and the music section isn't taken too seriously (trust me, the dance part is a lot more crazy). There will be a winner for 'string solo' or whatever, but age is taken into account. The duet class my pianists will be in is under-10, but they're respectively two 7yo and two 8yo. Certificates are bronze, silver, gold, platinum depending on level of performance (platinum hardly ever gets awarded), but everyone gets one.

There's usually set-piece solo, own-choice solo, recital (contrasting pieces) for each group of instruments or piano. Strings/piano are banded by age, wind/brass and oddly cello/bass by how long you've been playing. Thus not fair on my late-starter pianists.

Then there's a whole recorder section, various ensemble categories, school groups, and about half the music festival is vocal. There's also a signing choir category, which is cool, and they've added rock/pop vocals for the first time this year (guitar/drums was new last year I think).

We are officially back to normal today with the first peri lesson of the academic year. DS is in Y10 now so GSCEs loom, how long do we give it before there's an issue with him missing the last five minutes of his maths lesson? His music lesson is mostly in lunchtime but ideally he needs to get to it before it starts. My guess is that it's a month before he gets complaints.

I have no experience of festivals except that DS is entering one with wind band later in the year. Brass players have the alternate opportunity of solo and duet competitions but with those you are placed with prizes.

Oh, and I may do a harp entry (will likely be the only one) and probably one of my prospective diploma pieces in the adult violin bit.