New Year Music and Musicians Thread

Green - well done to your dd, lovely result; aural and sight reading come with practice and getting a bit older for many children. Good,luck with the piano buying - you should get something special with that budget I imagine

New life - am sure the exam went well; sounds like the prospect of jazz is going to be a great motivator :)

Fleur - your DD sounds very committed and talented, and others are quite right that grade exams dont necessarily measure talent , although it sounds like she will do fine anyway

Loose - I so admire you; i am sure it is much harder as an adult, not least because you don't have time or a nice mom coaxing you on! I really wish I could learn an instrument, but am completely unmusical.

Good luck to all waiting results - they seem to be quick this year so hopefully we will all hear before school breaks up.

We bought the U1 for life also even though I was in two minds about spending almost 3k on a piano but hey, it is a lovely piece of furniture and luckily it is stillplayed.

This is a good website with lots of info. It does sound like your budget can get you a new U1 look at this beautiful white one in the second link

www.markgoodwinpianos.co.uk/yamaha-piano/

www.yamahamusiclondon.com/product.php?product_id=YAM-U1-PWH&source=froogle&gclid=Cj0KEQjwt763BRDZx_Xg3-Pv2cABEiQAoDfeGJ1cstXPj-EpeH5Z4pCss2j4I5EKj-VhJqZ9bS4eDgEaAhGT8P8HAQ

Fleur: i bought our current second hand one now for £700 when my daughter was 4.5 and she was stamping on it at first rather than playing so it will go straight to the council waste dumping once we get the new one. I am thinking of a brand new one yes, hopefully we will use it for life. Our house isnt big(we couldnt afford here, Richmond is very expensive and very unlikely we could get a much bigger one until there is a lottery winner) so an upright good size is great, will google U1 and U3 now, thank you

Green that is a very healthy budget. From when I did my research (we got an upright last year) it seems that the most popular and desired are Yamahas vs Kawai. And it also seems that it is a matter of preference as the Yamaha are known to be brighter in sound while the Kawai softer. Dd's teacher has a Kawai we decided on a Yamaha U1. The U1 and U3 seem to be the most popular and loved models for students. U3 is better as it is taller. It depends on how big the room is also, for us I am sure there wasn't a need to stretch our budget to get the U3 as our lounge is just an average size lounge.

For 7k I guess you could buy it new? Not sure as we bought a refurb one that looks amazing (as new) even though it is 25 years old. That was 2.8k and Dd's teacher and the piano tuner said it is in an amazing condition, as new. The dealer was recommended to us by Dd's teacher.

That is about as much as I can help but do ask and if I know the answer I'll help. Happy piano shopping!

New life: yes, thank you waffle and everyone else this has been a very supportive thread(and we are in it together).

Fleur: the violin lesson today was very bad, the teacher said she couldnt concentrate for 1 min. He looked very tired and frustrated. I feel for him, of all, she is only a "very active" 8 years old.

On a positive note we are getting a new piano. Budget is 7k, any idea? We are thinking of an upright but no idea of brand etc... Any thought?

fleur

I hadn't noticed or thought anything from your post
I think this thread is always supportive. We're all in the same boat.
I won't say we're all in it together as i'd sound like a politician

Congratulations Green! A merit is fab!

That is true Green 10 min is no reflection on real talent (and hard work) but that is what I find annoying, the fact that she may not get the reward after the work she put in for the last few months.

On the other hand I should stop thinking about it and concentrate on the new job interview that I have applied for, much more important

Fleur: breath breath, the exam could never reflect her talent. To be honest even if mine had distinction in every single grade no way I would say she is talented in music. She works hard though(in everything she does). I cant renember the scale exactly however the pieces she had 2 at 27 and 1 at 25(the results were very similar to grade 2 only she were 5 marks closer to a distinction with grade 2, we know the pieces were always ok, the rest was always failed or close to a failed mark). On the exam day there were 2 examiners in the room we were told one was learning to be an examiner or similar. I was very lucky last week in the sense that I have a colleague resigned in my team blaming because of me so I was distracted a little. Try to plan for her learning the next few days as its really independent of the result. Its not like 11+ where even if we had an undesigned result there isnt any consequence, especially for music how could you judge someone with only a 10 mins test

Loose DD hits the wrong key in the arpeggios, not all the time but it happens and her teacher keeps asking her it is her wrist rotation that needs fixing, I have to say I never expected to have such a fixation with my child wrist.

NewLife I meant I am sure your DD will get more then a pass, reading it back it sounds like I meant mine which sounds really smug. God knows what mine will get, as time goes by she seems to remember more errors in her exam.

Fleur I hi I Minifleur is just teasing you! Although both my DSs like to drip feed information like that, it usually turns out fine in the end!
No, the scales are actually fine - in fact there is a lot of logic to the way they've grouped the major and minor scales and there's overlap with grade 3 for those. i was just constantly hitting the wrong key on the way down and I've realised it was just bad technique on my part!
The bit I find daunting is that there are 4 contrary motion scales and you have to be able to play all the arpeggios with hands together!

Green nevertheless a great result and I am sure you know that! Can I ask what did she get in each piece and for scales?

I admit I am going from highly confident that all went OK to scared as DD decides to disclose a new mistake day by day. Last night it was the "oh, I have taken the trills out of Jack is sad because I was worried I'll make a mistake". Do they loose points if they don't play the trills?

NewLife I am sure she'll get more than a pass.

Loose are grade 4 scales really hard? What are the main differences?

Thank you!

She has 122, so not really a high merit, 14 on aural and 15 on sight reading again, these have been her weakness arhhhh!!! Her pieces scores are not bad for all 3 given she didnt practise them long.

Fleur: opposite to you we went to a concert yesterday and once we got home she sat on our piano immediately and played the g3 pieces and they werent as good as last week, we all didnt say a word and went straight to bed. I have to admit we have no music gene in this family either, we are learning to know how to play and to appreciate classical music but to be good at it there is very little chance(I only say it here although in front of her we always praise-to a limit mainly on her hardworking)

Well done MiniGreen! A fantastic result and that's great you found out so quickly - now she can really enjoy the Easter holidays!
Good luck to everyone waiting for results. I am in awe of these talented DCs as I plod my way very slowly through grade 4. Rather embarrassingly, I have now realised the scales are not impossible and I just needed to work on turning my thumb a bit more. Like my teacher has been saying for weeks. I'm in great danger of being overtaken by DS2 at this rate!

Aw, thank you all.
She called briefly at break time to say it went ok apart from a chord inversion or something like that.
Can you tell we aren't piano players here ?
If she gets anymore than a pass I'll be surprised as she has really just only started applying herself to Piano.
It's compulsory for her and I do understand why, hopefully she'll come on leaps and bounds after this, especially as we have decided not to let her practice any other instruments at home until she has done 15 mins practice a day. It's amazing what you can do in this time if you apply yourself.
5 min sightreading, 5 min scales and 5 min on a piece. We'll see.
She has her school assessment for her main instrument and voice tomorrow, this is surprisingly more important than the piano exam.

Well done Greenleave, it's a weight gone once the results come, especially if you have been heavily involved yourself.

Fleur
You are so right, it certainly is no good for them to become exam factories, they need variety and to be able to learn through playing with the music.
Btw, do keep in touch about mini fleur, I love hearing how she is doing.

Good luck to your DD NewLife! Let us know how it all went!

Well done to miniGreen! That was really quick result. I am hoping to get Dd's around the 4th April but now my hopes are up.

DD asked last night if there is no piano practice. I said she's on a break but of course she should practice something and she can start a piece of her choice tomorrow (as in today) but she can take a day off from practice.

She looked puzzled and decided she'll play her exam pieces just for fun. I asked her to play them the way she wants, ignore the previous dynamics if she wants, just play them as you would like them to sound. She played them so beautifully, respecting the dynamics but you could see she is putting her heart in them. It made me realise how much the exam prevents her of playing them emotionally (the way she'd feel about them) and I am happy her teacher is not doing every grade with her.

Newlife: best of luck with the exam today.

I checked the Abrsm account this morning and she passed with a Merit. We will have at least a month break so today lesson will be learning "river flows into you"( her most favourite).

Best of luck to everyone else waiting for the result

Good luck to your dd newlife!

Have just noticed that dd Piano exam is tomorrow, it's the first one we've had no input. It feels strange not to be taking her to the music centre and listening to her practice.
I suppose I'll get a call tomorrow night telling me how it went.
It's only grade 2 though, as it has taken her until now to realise that if she gets on with it and passes grade 4 she can transfer from classical to Jazz and composition, which is what she wanted from the start.
I anticipate a lot more Piano practice over the next year.
Concert was lovely, it certainly was a marathon and I think most of them played something. I love hearing the standard of these children it is truly amazing and obviously you are listening to finalists and sometimes winners of Young Musician.

SE22 I think some young (and not so young) pianists find it hard to focus on reading two staves of music while coordinating both hands AND listening to what they are doing. It's not really surprising as it's a lot to concentrate on at once! My 14 year old, but still relatively inexperienced, piano player still finds it hard to read the music while simultaneously focussing on playing, which is why she tends to rely more on her ear.

Anyway the upshot is that if you can separate out the listening part by making a recording, it may help!

I will try recording her with my phone today, and see if that helps, thanks

SuspendedInGaffa I looked at the syllabus for G3 and although it's 8 years since DS took it I can see two of the pieces he did then - James Bond and Danny Boy. I can't remember the third piece at all so for all I know that's still there too. The Trinity examiners leave the results with the centre organiser as they leave so you can get them very quickly after the exam.

Woolly: a big congrats from me too, I am dreaming of a pass only so if she had a merit like yours then I would be on a cloud nine.
Fleur: so glad to hear she did well!