New Year Music and Musicians Thread

Misti your DS sounds similar to mine, mine is interested in BMXing, skateboarding, technology. He'll be 15 in the summer.

Green happy shopping! I have to say I am a bit dissapointed we found our piano so quick and shortened the shopping experience.

raspberry that is what I was doing, just dusting but then I admired Dd's piano teacher's piano and complained ours has finger marks that don't seem to disappear easy. The polish above (Amazon) works wonders.

Thanks Fleur. So far I've just damp dusted, which I tend to do mostly anyway throughout the house, but I think it might benefit from an occasional polish too.

Fleur: thank you for sharing, now I think I only want a shiny black and I dont mind to polish it even daily ha ha ha, cant wait to join the shiny black team.

We need to rehair the violin bow too, its seriously in need of rehairing. That task is much smaller however I am also looking forward to it, the local music shop is lovely full of the wonderful "toys"!

Some violin today and it wasnt that out of tune so I am now a little relaxed

Mine are only a year and a half apart (13 and 14) though as I have girl and boy in that order, they look and behave as if the gap were more like 6 years!! Fortunately they don't share any interests. DS dabbles with the synth and GarageBand a bit, but he's not really musical. He likes programming, BMX biking and juggling - hard to think of three activities for which his sister has less aptitude! It makes handling sibling envy much simpler.

Luckily, exams here are three rather than two years apart, so we have DS's school leaving diploma in June next year (in the equivalent of Y10), and DD's baccalaureat in 2018.

I have piano envy now - all this talk of shiny black pianos! DD still plays an old Yamaha digital piano. We do have a lot of guitars, though, one of which (DD's Taylor cutaway acoustic) is very beautiful and shiny ;)

I have 6 years gap between DS and DD, they adore each other but can also argue really bad. Ds is non musical, tried piano and gave up 2 months later.

I'll have GCSEs and 11+ at the same time next year so I'll probably ask for advice on how to remain sane from you folks.

raspberry this is the spray I discovered that helps keeping the piano shiny, I thought I'd share as it took me a while to find it, in fact it was Dd's teacher telling me about it

raspberry I have 2 DDs a year apart both very different but with similar interests. It can be "challenging"

Very well done on the grade 8s. Hoping to get there with DD1 by the end of school as she is proving to be a bit (by which I mean massively) target driven. Her sister not so much which is a good and a bad thing.

We have a shiny black Reid-Sohn. Non musical DH got the casting vote on aesthetics. It looks great despite not having been polished in 10 years.

Haha ShakyIsles. This is just the start, they have GCSEs and A levels between them this year!

They do get on well, but DS is calm and laid back, DD is the opposite. Don't know how I would cope with 2 DDs.

DD is still a year younger than DS1s first Grade 8, but that's never been an issue.

Good luck to the raspberries!

Two gr 8 - oo oh, Raspebrry , let me know the secret of a calm household. The closing date for the first session has been and gone and it looks like both of my two will be sitting theirs at the same time. I've already talked to my elder child and the possibility that younger sister may sit here before she does to try and head off a major problem. She says it's okay and I constantly reiterate that they play different instruments that requires different things.

Do your children get on well? Is there any else I could do to help the home life during the run up?

We have shiny black too!

Icouldbe I had to pay in December too! I refused to let DS2 fo Grade 5 clarinet this session, he's going straight to Grade 6.

Thanks for all the good wishes.

DS1 has passed with Merit, and is very happy. He got Merit for Grade 8 trombone last year. That will certainly be the last Exam I am required to pay for as he his hopefully off to Uni in Sept, it is a nice happy ending for his school music. He's looking forward to a final term of lessons just enjoying playing.

I love shiny black too, I need to see how shiny it is, thinking of mahogany too

Good luck with the grade 8 exams raspberry!

Green I have the black shiny U1 and it doesn't really match the colour in the room, still admired though. Not sure what other colours the Yamahas come in, the most popular seems to be shiny black bloody hard to keep it shiny though.

Two G8s in a week? My cheque book is moaning in sympathy.

Hope it goes well for them both raspberry

Oh and best of luck with double grade 8 rasberry!!!

Its so hard, I think I need to visit the piano shops and see it( mainly because I need to make sure about the colour which should match with the floor and furniture oh well, in the end I am nonmusical and no clue about piano. Hopefully this weekend will be fun shopping

Lovely to see the results coming in
Well done to all.

We too have a second hand U1, its gorgeous.

DS1 had Grade8 tuba this afternoon and DD Grade 8 sax tomorrow
Roll on the holidays!

You lovely people spur me on to practise!
I notice ds2 definitely is naturally more flexible with wrist turns than I am.
I am now feeling deep piano envy - do keep us updated with the purchase! We have a piano shop round the corner and they try to tempt me with deals I can't really afford at the moment.
Wow! To playing Copland! That will be fantastic, I'm sure!

Two one hour violin lessons in one week to get through the exam pieces! Wow they are long! Miss 11 has picked Copland's Hoedown so I am hearing the orchestral version about twenty times a day to inspire her for her part. I haven't dared look at the piano part.

I've just got a digital piano (actually two) because I used to get sick of having mine tuned - but I do so miss a 'real' one.

Hi Green,re: piano shopping miniprada's GP's bought a white Yamaha for their house for her. It is lovely. At the time they were £7k but there was an incentive from Yamaha that saved £3k with an old trade in. There are a few piano shops in our area and only one was supporting the deal so shop around. It should be said this was around 4/5 yrs ago so different economic circumstances. My own research for our house is that Yamaha retains value more than the Kawai in any colour and White ones general are more valuable second hand. I bought a white baby grand for our house (it is a challen) as I've always wanted one (I watched too many 1980's pop videos with elton John etc I guess!) I struck ebay gold as they aren't very desirable and the seller was desperate to get rid of it as her kids wanted a table tennis table . Good luck with the search!

Fleur: the white one looks truly shiny

Loose: same here I admire you very much, I dont think I could learn it not mentioning doing a grade

Musicmum: I heard that I will even have to pay for travelling cost etc so the reclying centre trip might be easier( also its very unfair for anyone else using it if you know what I mean, its very old/bad and partially damaged)

Thank you musicmom, I feel better tonight to be fair as she stopped mentioning results and she is ready to move on.

However I now remember this happened last year: the frustration of having to look at the music after playing from memory for so long. She had a little strop for the first time in a long while. She wants to learn dance of the sugarplum fairy, started the first few notes and got frustrated. When I suggested to look at the music she threw me such a look.

She did manage four bars before giving up and saying she'll do more tomorrow.