New Year Music and Musicians Thread

2ndSopranos I am sure it will be a good outcome but I know what you mean about the wait! You try not to think about it but it niggles away!
I'm really interested in the art/music thing. I think all you can do when they are little is put opportunities in front of them and let them experiment. They know at this stage that they like something but they can tend to live in the moment. DS1 was always good at art in primary, and did as much as he could. Fast forward to secondary school and he's now into music in a big way. He's picked art and music as GCSE options. I know this is coursework madness but as he spends his breaks at school either in the art room or the music practice room, who am I to judge? I suspect at this stage that music is going to win over art at A level but knowing him, he could end up dropping both or trying to take both. That could be an interesting conversation!

I've been lurking on this thread.

DD1 did Grade 1 theory in early March (passed with distinction!) and Grade 1 violin ten days later. According to the ABRSM website we should get the results between March 24th and April 8th but I am going mad waiting! She has lessons via the school music service and they aren't in for weeks!

Dorothy - glad your DD is feeling better; we are also in a high achievement school that makes do much fuss of the 'regular' g7 and 8 distcations that it's quite disproportionate ( and we are still in primary school)

Mist I - any music shop trip has to be well planned as DD gets out a full range of brass and wind and strings to try out; a, currently wrestling with her oboe/bassoon dilemma ( to which my answer is -neither!)

Waffle - we missed g6; will def do g7 as its quite different to G5 (aural ESP ) and quite a leap to g8.

Still waiting our result......guess we are last?

Mistigri: oh only if I could know what she is really keen on, she is only 8 years old (and couple of months) and changes her mind even more often than myself. I try to encourage and give her support any time she finds that she likes something however its getting harder once she is more into it. Her love for drawing my fade as soon as end of this term break, it might be because of the books I bought her. She isnt particularly good at anything( yet). People says her drawing is nice but I know they have been kind. The same as music, she progresses well however I know deep down she isnt a talented musician. She might turn out musician or an artist later though which really hard for a mother to support. For now, ofcourse she likes to paint, then paint the life she likes, however dont just drop her instruments which she has been working hard for. I should have been more discipline I guess. As I said, there is always a solution, to be able to do it is a hard bit especially come to the sweet little angle, after a long big kiss then very often they could get away with anything they like.

green I am curious - if your daughter is much keener on art than music why not invest the money and effort in that instead? My daughter also likes drawing and (especially) calligraphy but it isn't something she "needs" to do, whereas making music is essential for her. As a child I was the opposite and I ended up training as an artist and dropping music (I've taken up guitar again as an adult but I'm not very good). I have a friend whose daughter is a very gifted artist and has been drawing obsessively since she was at primary school. She's 14 now and it's obvious that she could make a professional career out of it if she wanted. I find it odd that in the UK, (classical) music is so much more highly valued by parents than the other arts.

Waffle: once my daughter could play anything around Goo level now then I would be happy and relaxed! By then hopefull she has undertood that music is beautiful and could be part of her life!

Dorothy: glad to hear she is feeling better!

There is always a solution I think, to move on or to retake. If retake and starting on 1-2 new pieces then scales, sight reading and aural are already done, keep the piece with highest score and learn 2 new fresh, why not?

My daughter has been so much into drawing these days, in the past we used to have a tutor to come for 2 months as she was really into it then I thought £50 for 1.5 hour craft/art a week is too expensive. We have stopped for few months now and I made a mistake to give her some new water drawing books and oh boy, now she doesnt stop, she doesnt feel excited with River flow in you anymore even before she begged to learn to play it. I am thinking of rewarding games that she must practise violin and piano at least 30 mins before she could turn into her books and her drawing. Arggg!!! There is always something doesnt make the journey easy!

Thanks all. She's feeling a lot more positive and her teacher has been in touch with encouraging words. Onwards and upwards

Dorothy if your daughter's peers want to be critical then they will be. If your daughter had got a distinction then someone else would have got a better mark, taken it younger, on a "harder" instrument, with a more difficult exam board. It's all a load of tosh but the point is that if someone feels the need to score points then they will do. My favourite line that I picked up from this thread is that success starts at the pass mark but if your daughter feels that she wants to improve next time then the marking sheet will show her the way to go.

In my son's state school of 1200 pupils there are three pupils in Y11 and below who have G7 (there may be another secretive pianist and the clarinetist may have taken an exam so possibly five) - in a different setting your daughter would be right at the top of the musical tree.

If she really really wants to have a better grade "certificate" then she could always try again next term. The best thing I find with grades exams is there isn't a consequence, you could always practise more, try harder and retake it if you want a nice "certificate collection"

"she took a rather long break since the exam."

Slacker . It was the usual day for one, so my DD had her next lesson on the evening of exam day.

First time that conjunction has happened and I was poised to cancel, but DD isn't slow to raise a grievance and didn't protest. Realistically it was a friendly debrief with the one other person sincerely interested in the detail of the tale DD was bursting to tell. Teacher also demonstrated lots of repertoire-expanding stuff for DD to choose from i.e. she gets a break from the grade-ladder for a while now in favour of music that she really likes and wants to learn.

This is our annual parental-bliss phase re. music. First there’s a lot of wandering around doing whatever happily singing to herself. Yesterday she voluntarily (no parental nudging!), wandered over to the piano and spent the entire afternoon preoccupied with several quite beautiful pieces. She’s just started again on another one.

Dorothy firstly, huge congratulations to your DD - getting to grade 7 is a fantastic achievement. A friend's daughter is currently learning for grade 7 in two instruments. All the way through she has passed exams rather than getting merit etc. She had to retake a grade 6 because of scales disaster. But no one cares, they just know she's reached those grades. Best of luck with grade 8 - take as much time with it as possible and enjoy playing would be my advice! Definitely agree that playing in concerts as much as possible is a huge confidence booster as well!

Dorothy not being able to play all the notes at rehearsal is absolutely normal for strings players. That is why it is so good for improving sight reading

The violins only look super confident compared to the violas because there are so many of them.

I am too much of a nervous nelly for any exam so grade 7 sounds pretty awesome to me. If scales are a nervous issue it might help to know there is only 1 scale for grade 8. If you can do a 1st finger scale over 3 octaves in any position you can do them all.

The best thing for confidence is to play everything and anything to anyone who will listen.

Dorothy if my DD is still playing her instrument at 15 and still loves it I'll be very proud.

A pass is a pass, it does make me sad to hear so many kids ( including my DD) are not happy with the mark they get even if they have passed that exam. There must so much peer pressure...

So you should be :)

Doubt my DD would get a grade 7 pass on any of her instruments (too lazy) but she's still an amazing musician and I am sure yours is too!

Yes this is the problem with the kind of school she's at. Thank you for your kind words. I am certainly very proud of her.

People with grade 7 passes might be common in some highly selective circles - I'm guessing your daughter is at a private or super-selective school - but out in the real world they are rare as hen's teeth. Especially in viola!

Getting good marks for the pieces in a grade 7 exam isn't "normal" - by definition, anyone even taking a grade 7 exam is in the top 0.1% of the population in terms of instrumental prowess. And really, it's the pieces that count, isn't it? When you play music in public no one cares whether your scales or aural exercises are any good - they care whether the pieces are well played and sensitively interpreted!

Your DD may not be as talented (or driven, or pushed) as some of the other students, but so what?

Apparently the pieces were good, weakness were scales and aural I think (we haven't seen the breakdown). She is doing two instruments, she switched from violin to viola, and is doing clarinet, where she is grade 5. The school has some extremely talented musicians where I think dd with her more "normal" musical ability feels inadequate. I told her that to even reach grade 7 is a fantastic achievement, that is true isn't it?

Dorothy it sounds as if self-esteem might be the issue, more than musical ability (I have a daughter the same age and she also puts herself down constantly). If she is in a school full of competitive musical types and her self-esteem is a bit fragile, it may be difficult for her to feel confident about her abilities. In reality, few people ever get to grade 7 on anything let alone on three instruments.

Is there a part of the exams she struggles with? Also, I wonder if she is spreading herself a bit thin - it sounds as if she is doing exams on three instruments and that's a lot of work on top of school.

Thank you! By virtue of being viola grade 7 she has joined the county youth orchestra, but feels that it can be quite hard and like everybody knows what they're doing while she doesn't...

Dorothy. Echo previous poster noise ever asks the mark just the grade and a Pass is a pass. And a viola player grade 7. Always be in demand !

Thanks everyone for all your help. 😊 Much appreciated.
Dorothy I think the main thing is to emphasise is that nobody ever asks you your score, they just ask what grade you are at.
It is always the same area she loses marks in?

Sorry, to clarify - she got 104

Hi, new to this thread, but wondering if anyone could help. Dd is nearly 15 and she just got her grade 7 viola exam result back (Abrsm) - she is upset. Apart from in grade 1 she has only ever received passes on strings (she did violin first), though she has had better results on the clarinet. She is at a school with lots of very musical types and she feels like a failure, but surely she's not? Anyone got any ideas how I can help her feel better?