Spring/ Summer Music and Musicians Thread

As I said previously I don't know where the clarinet practice will fit in. I am hoping that 10-15 min a day would do for a while. Saying that she does wake up quite early in the morning and entertains herself for about an hour. I may have some suggestions for that time slot

My DC probably do about 10-15 minutes per instrument per day, about 3-4 days a week.

dd1 seems to be given an wide variety of music by her teacher.No idea how much say she has in it herself. Not a chance she would listen to any of my suggestions.
Although never going to be able to pick up piano playing as I used to (well, maybe once I retire....). I quite enjoy playing together with dd2. So from that point of view my music lessons from my childhood hasn't gone to waste. ...

I logged playing time for DS last year, just lessons and ensembles rather than practice. After that I stepped back from nagging about practice quite so much.

Mistigri: I read her cold somewhere earlier too, hope she is feeling better today.

Yes, the lesson is long. I know, hopefully only another 4 weeks. When the theory is over then there will be max 1 hour(or if we fail then we will only need our teacher the last 4 weeks in December).

DD's piano teacher gives her a limited choice eg between three pieces designed to develop a particular aspect of her playing, or between a selection of 5-6 Chopin nocturnes (which we quickly narrowed down to the two that were remotely accessible). She plays a lot of romantic music because that is her personal strong point, and with only three years to complete both "cycles" of the French music curriculum, she's not ever going to be an "all rounder".

In guitar she has little choice because it's a group situation - but she doesn't mind. She finds it all easy anyway so it's not like she needs to practice the pieces ;) And I quite like that she is playing and singing material that I am sure would not be her personal choice - and enjoying it.

Re not playing as an adult - I think it's easier to keep up playing the piano nowadays. Most young adults don't live in homes with space for an acoustic piano, but there is usually space for an inexpensive digital instrument.

waffle that's quite a schedule!

I might note what DD does in a week, although it's very variable. She got home after 7pm last night, retired to her bed sick (she's had a horrible cold) but later her guitar joined her in bed for about 45 mins . Not sure I'd call it "practice" though she worked on a couple of new cover versions. She has a very eclectic taste in music so you never know what she is going to cover next (latest one is an improbable guitar cover of a Frank Ocean song, which will probably mean nothing to you unless you are a lot cooler than me ).

We have a meeting booked tomorrow with the county person, about her grant application. Can't fault their reactivity!

When I was young () I preferred baroque too. I found Bach easy to understand.

Now it's Beethoven or nothing. (OK, maybe a bit of Schubert. Or Brahms. OK - whatever takes my fancy, really. :) )

NeverEver

I think a mixture of both is ideal. I appreciate when DD is asked to do a piece because the teacher "says so" but I appreciate she is explaining to DD the reason behind. But most of the times it's composers. So now her teacher says that even though DD prefers baroque music she'll have to do a mixture of baroque, romantic and modern pieces before thinking of grade 5. She (DD) has a preference for baroque which you can also see in her exam pieces. She always scores the highest in those.

Back in my day we did as we were told. None of this choosing what you like business.

What happens with DS1 is that I just gather a lot of books about the right level and the teacher looks through them and plays some for DS and he chooses one. I sometimes wonder if it's a bit haphazard!

I do that with DS2 but I'm a bad judge at levels - so he'd be playing Piano Lessons Book 2 + some grade 4 pieces because he likes 'em ... Still, he seems to cope...

NeverEver that sounds great. That is why I am conscious that DD may be put off by playing what she's asked to. Luckily it is a mixture of both at the moment so Dd's teacher is choosing a composer, then gives me a list of what pieces I should get according to Dd's level of playing, then she plays them to DD and asks her to chose which one she likes. I have to say sometimes I use my influence on DD to chose some pieces I like such as a Chopin prelude which I think it is fabulous.

I did grade 8 piano about 30 years ago. I've been having lessons these pass 3 years or so - just to play what I like to play. It's great.

I think DD would never be able to concentrate for 1.5 hrs on a school day. While ideally the weekend should be free I do prefer to have her lessons at the weekend (Saturdays) as it is a school free day. She also has an additional 30 min on a school day and while she does concentrate you can see the difference, she is much more "up for it" on Saturdays than on the school days.

Green my feeling is that the teacher is expecting you to somehow deal with it even though I can't see what you could do. I always remind DD before the lesson that she needs to concentrate for the 30 min with the teacher, but ultimately it is the teacher that captures her attention and keeps her on track.

exampanic are you trying to pick it up again? I can see the reason for which you didn't keep at it, would it give you a certain pleasure, life achievement, if you would refresh your knowledge?

Greenleaves,I also seem to remember that her lessons are very long,, was it 1.5 hours? dd2 is a bit older, 9 y, and has only 30 min. I think she would have been OK with 1 hour, but certainly not longer. I think 2 shorter lessons are better. But then I also seem to remember your teacher has to travel quite a bit so may be difficult .

Fleurdelise,; Yes, I am one of "those". I played piano as a child, and although I didn't do any exams (not in this country), I did play some pieces that I have seen in the grade 8 syllabus).. unfortunately I didn't have a piano available for more than 25 years (had to move house a lot for my work) so have completely "lost it".
Now I just about manage to play some nursery rhymes, and christmas songs (and desperately, panicky, not very successfully trying to learn the accompanying part of dd2 recorder exam pieces.....).

Thanks so much Fleur for sharing, your teacher sounds great. Our teacher is young, kind and patient however might be less strict and experienced. The lesson is on Monday and after school as I have a rule no study at weekend(except swimming), even extra curri. It might be hard to change to weekends also as he is very busy at weekends. I am now thinking of asking him if we could reschedule it to later on Monday so I could be at home( at least I am at home however very likely I will be with the baby: feed her, put her to bed etc.

I sent him this reply this morning

One more thing, sometimes when DD seems off and in a mood her teacher also spends time chatting about music, composers interesting facts, concert pianists she recommends DD should listen to, even though there isn't much "piano playing learning" in that lesson I think that the 5-10 min chat when DD is not up to formal teaching adds to her music development.

I think one of the things I wish for is for DD to continue playing the piano for pleasure regardless of her future. I find it sad when I hear people around me saying they had piano lessons as a child, got to grade 8 and then never touched a piano again. So while I want DD to achieve in her music education and work for it I also want her to enjoy it so that maybe she'll keep at it for life. Professionally or as a hobby, it doesn't matter.

What a long post...

Green I think it depends a lot on the teacher. How old is your Dd's teacher? I have to say that if I would get such an email I would be puzzled about what I am expected to do. The time in lesson is the time when the teacher needs to have control over what happens. I sit in Dd's lessons but I don't intervene unless I feel the teacher is stuck (it happened only once and the teacher told me not to intervene in their teacher/pupil relationship) and I can see DD going off track but the teacher is imposing enough to know how to deal with it. Sometimes the teacher brings her back in a firm voice, other times she moves on to something else as it is clear she won't achieve the task at that point if DD lost interest.

So as an example: if the teacher is explaining something and DD decides to play the piano over her talking she closes the piano and says to her something like "I need your attention for 2 min to ensure you understand this". This seems to bring DD back as 2 min doesn't sound like much.

Other times she sees DD starting to play with her hair while working on a difficult part, she then asks her "do you want to stop working on this now? Right, we'll stop but I want you to try working on it by yourself at home and see how you get on".

I don't think there is a point to insist in explaining/doing a task on and on if the attention of the child is lost. You won't achieve much anyway.

Are your Dd's lessons at the weekend? Would you be able to sit in lessons a few times to understand why your DD does that? Is the teacher explaining the same thing for too long? Is the teacher doing anything fun that your DD wants to work on in the lesson? This is something else that Dd's teacher does with her students, one of the pieces working on is a "fun piece" chosen by the student regardless of the difficulty.

Fleur: minifleur is so matured, I hope my daughter will be too, only few moths apart however mine is so not.

Waffle it sounds like Goo is enjoying piano and practising hard, good for her. I assume she'll progress really fast having previous music experience.

DD is enjoying her pieces and currently playing pieces that have previously been set for grade 4-5-6. She seems to be doing well, a lot of Beethoven, Bartok, Chopin, Burgmuller. She is now fascinated watching different channels on YouTube of kids playing piano at a high standard. She seems to be thinking about her music future a lot, last night she asked what you can do in life if you are very good at music so we discuss the various jobs you can have music related.

I love the fact she is off exams for the time being and she is enjoying pieces she likes.

Noteven: thanks for sharing. We had our exam rebooked for violin last time too as we didnt want piano and violin on the same day and they managed to find us another venue few days later so it could be flexible.
Waffle: sure, thank you. Will check with her teacher as per your advice. She was also told to reread the pink book and couple of pages in the blue book. It wont happen if I am not at home so I might book half day off this week

Had some bad news when a colleague announced at the last minute that her exam visit for this month was off. I'd checked several times with her that it was going ahead because I have a Gd 8 candidate with 2015 pieces who needed a venue before the June/July session.
However ABRSM have given him a lovely syllabus extension and he's allowed to do those pieces at his exam in June. I had no idea that would happen, might help someone else!

Its a very full on musical week and great to hear she enjoys the piano sessions.

Waffle, all, can I pls ask what extra practise for chords, intervals, transpositions for G5 theory I could get her apart from fromtheo practise theory abrsm book. I was told after the lesson today that these are what we need to work on the next few weeks. Our teacher said he will re-explain the basics next week however I am hoping we could have some practice between.
There is another terrible lesson today where she dropped her violin and just ran around(a very active 8 yrs old). After I saw the teacher email then she was told that if it happened again then we will stop all music lessons. Our teacher said he had to tell her to get back and pick the violin up as she was just dancing and running around and she was very distracted