Are opportunities to excel in music limited by postcode and middle earners income?

It's for Dance but here is the cost for one school

dodobookends I cannot find any eligibility guidelines for MDS funding anywhere. Could you please send link to your source? Is there an income scale I can look at? Thanks.

The higher income end for eligibility for MDS funding is well in excess of £150,000 so it does help most people, and many of the schools also offer scholarships/bursaries to the most talented who apply.

Some other sources of financing...

www.rcm.ac.uk/junior/feesandbursaries/applyingforabursary/Trust%20and%20Foundation%20contact%20details.pdf

My son was in a medical experiment where his auditory perception was assessed. We were told that there was no such thing as "perfect pitch", just people with exceptionally good pitch. My son does not have perfect pitch, but he does have better than average auditory perception. What I don't know is whether auditory perception is something someone is born with or developed.

"And many people claim perfect pitch but when you say, coming from nowhere, sing me E flat, A natural an octave below, top F sharp and so on ... they will absolutely not be able to do it."

Does that require musical knowlege? A young toddler might have perfect pitch but would not have the musical knowledge to know what on earth you are talking about. I have heard a theory that young children are born with perfect pitch but most people lose it once they have learnt to speak.

www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/feb/21/timradford

Absolutely Ricardian. I don't know how technical anyone wants me to be but if a conductor decides to say, transpose a piece, that can be really difficult for someone with perfect pitch whereas with relative pitch it really doesn't matter.

And many people claim perfect pitch but when you say, coming from nowhere, sing me E flat, A natural an octave below, top F sharp and so on ... they will absolutely not be able to do it.

I can generally tell you what key a piece is in on first hearing (but not reliably enough to stake my life on it ...) but that's not the same as true perfect pitch. And not a particularly useful skill anyway ...

Perfect pitch can be a pestilence.

Particular if you're playing or singing baroque music.

DS2 is a chorister and I can recommend it. I don't think Newcastle is attached to a choir school. We claim a grant towards 1 instrument, roughly about 2/3 of the cost usually.

I find the perfect pitch argument interesting. DS2 has perfect pitch. Choir uses him to give the note often! He is a very able musician and finds the singing back part of aurals really easy. He plays trombone, which one teacher told me is hard for perfect pitch people, another believes if you don't tell them its a problem they will just get on with it difficult.

Inhiding4now, which bits of the G7 and8 aural do you think perfect pitch would help?

Ds has perfect pitch. He sings beautifully & in tune but hearing anything out of tune physically hurts.

He has ASD.

well I guess that's better than me Moominmammacat ... I only have a rubbish Mmus.....

& to be perfectly honest -- I only meant to write something helpful .. not to launch some sort of oneupmanship thread about the merits of perfect pitch but never mind - will now go back to my corner and leave mumsnet to all of those people with better degrees, more knowledge and experience and perfect children....

DH seems to have a very good ear for music, he's always pointing out key changes and has no trouble helping DD tune her violin (I am hopeless without an electronic gadget). But DH actually sings worse than me (which is an impressive feat). I keep trying to sing because I can't hear how awful I am; whereas he shudders at how awful he is so can't bear to try.

I don't have perfect pitch but didn't find the aural bits of Grades 7 and 8 particularly hard. I think that's nonsense, actually.

Is it possible to hear 'perfect pitch' without being able to sing at all ?

No, I have relative pitch and a ph.d in music. Agree with everything really tired says.

Does your DS like singing, op? If so are there any cathedral chorister opportunities nearby?

Some come with a choir school place (with scholarship if fee-paying), some don't - but either way they tend to include free instrument tuition. And of course would put him with like-minded kids.

I agree with Katymac though. Middle income earners have more music/dance opportunities than those on a low income. Your ds can still make great progress in music. He doesn't need to go to a top music school. Dh made music a career and he went to a crap comp and was only average in his teens.

Dh is a pro musician and he does not have perfect pitch. We think 2 out of our 4 dc do and it happens to be the 2 that find learning an instrument relatively easy.

Extreme perfect pitch can make life difficult to function. I met autistic children with perfect pitch who are driven up the the wall because the electric lights are buzzing (very quietly) out of tune.

There is absolute pitch and relative pitch. Absolute pitch is the sense of pitch you are born with and relative pitch is learned. I think that having an excellent sense of pitch is an advantage as a musican especially if you are playing the violin. I don't think that perfect pitch is essential. There are professional musicans without perfect pitch.

Moominmammacat - oh ... I didn't know that....do you have perfect pitch?

Perfect pitch can be a pestilence. It does not suggest advanced skills and it's not that useful for aural!

yes - for the Saturday music courses (like Junior RAM, Junior RNCM etc etc) the fees are about £3000 - and if you want a bursary, you must apply and then any scholarships will be based on your income. If you are over the magic MDS scheme number of £59,000 (?) then you will probably pay full fees.

Tuition for the specialist music schools, (Purcell, Chethams, Wells, Menuhin or St Mary's), is sliding scale (based on your income) IF your child gets an MDS grant (which is based on two auditions). If you around the £57,000 mark then you might not pay very much (the fees are usually listed on websites of these schools). HOWEVER - once you turn your kid over to one of these schools, you don't have much say in what's happening with his/her music and sometimes the academics aren't very good.

Some music services are excellent - but I'm guessing that Northumberland has had loads of cuts. So - you are correct teabiscuit - it's really tough out there...and bloody expensive too. Probably one of the best things you could do is to get him through his grades with high marks .. this lends credibility to any sort of financial requests you might make based on his talent. This also means getting him through the grade 5 theory and working hard on the aural portions of grades 7 & 8 - cuz they aren't easy unless you have perfect pitch. (And if your son is already so advanced then it is quite possible that he DOES have perfect pitch - do you know?) As for NCO - this isn't necessarily everything it's cracked up to be. Have you looked at ProCorda North? this could be really enjoyable for your son...

in terms of private (independent) schools, then it's quite possible that he could get a scholarship from an independent ... if it's a local (to you) place, it would cover his music lesson fees. If you send him to a boarding school - there are quite a few that have excellent music programs (Uppingham comes to mind.. but there are many more) and would probably give you a lot of scholarship for a grade 8 fiddle player... so - get that Independent schools handbook - and start checking things out.

Music education is an investment.... it will enhance your child's life when he is older... one of mine has started uni - and absolutely loves the orchestra and other musical activities that are open to all of the students. It was the same for dh - he says he would have had no social life at uni had the orchestra not existed.... life is different and better when one has these 'special' interests... don't give up on helping your son!

Best of luck!

TBH at least middle income children get a possible chance at playing & creating music or participating in dance

If your income is below £20K you have almost sod all chance of even affording lessons

The MDS and later the DaDA are very good sources of funding - but by the time they are useful a child would have already missed years of potential training, during which children from more average earning have accessed lessons

I just wanted to say that when I said the bursaries cut out at 59k I only meant the nco. Only I got it slightly wrong and it is 57k. Also looking again on their website the courses for the younger children are cheaper than the older ones.

I do think though that music has is something that is much easier to access if you are well off. The only school music lessons available in my area are short group ones. So unless you had a parent who taught you how would you reach the necessary standard anyway for something like the nco without parents who could afford private lessons?

It's the same for most talents, really?? Nothing special about music, methinks. Affluent parents get to help their kids more than poor parents can. Was ever thus. My neighbours never go on holiday & scrimp by rest of the time so that their son can do footie academy (very mad). Others make huge sacrifices on small incomes (e.g. Lewis Hamilton).