May/ June Music and Musicians Thread

Just found this one, can anyone help with regards to the most popular piece and its difficulty? I am not into Star Wars at all unfortunately....
www.amazon.co.uk/Star-Wars-Episode-Phantom-Menace/dp/0769284620/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1466175100&sr=1-4&keywords=violin+soundtrack

Please can anyone recommend a pop/classic pop/soundtrack violin piece grade 3-5 level? Something very recognisable for non-musicians?

(No! I'm not going to add the prelude to my list too... Cote you are a bad influence! )

Cote That was very well played! Very calm and assured. It's lovely. :)

Has anybody used the "improve your theory" books by Paul Harris? Are they any good? Bear in mind that by good I mean I am after an explanation of the topic and lots of practice, I am determined we will not follow the abrsm's theory books heavy approach.

NeverEver - . I'm pretty sure that I can play Les Sauvages and Le Rappel Des Oiseaux but Les Cyclopes is a distant dream. Sorry for the video's potato quality and I now totally get what you mean by hearing one's playing recorded being very humbling. I've never recorded myself on the piano before and honestly thought I sounded much better than this

We use the Paul Harris books for violin. They are good.

Fleur we use those, too. I think they're great - DS2 tolerates them!

Loose DD is using the Paul Harris sight reading books, I love the format of them. They tie up nicely with the abrsm requirements in terms of time signatures, rythms and has plenty of exercises.

Phew Cote! I did double check that I didn't inadvertently downloaded the Les Abridged Sauvages version.

It's doable but not easy.

NeverEver - Just wanted to say that I got the notes for Les Sauvages, too, and realized that I was confusing it with Les Cyclopes when I expressed and at you finding it fairly easy. You are right - Les Sauvages does look doable.

The grade 4 book is quite hard. My teacher has also suggested mixing it up a bit with the specimen exam exercises! That's a bit confusing for me as I like to plod through it!
DS2 is going to have to just do about three from each stage to get to the specimen ones in time but in the exam the actual sight reading tends to be a bit easier. He has been teaching himself to play various tunes he's downloaded the sheet music for so I am hoping that will help a bit, too.

Waffle I like Rara's cello teacher, she must get to know her students well to make decisions about exams.

Loose I found it interesting, and rather upsetting as I felt we (myself and the teacher) must have done something wrong. Looking back what went wrong was the fact that her teacher's approach to sight reading was not doing structured exercises but practice sight reading through appropriate level new pieces. So she never called it sight reading but put a piece in front of her and got her to play it. Her sight reading progressed but DD didn't acknowledge it because she didn't realise that is what she was doing, does it make sense? That is why she decided to start her on grade 3 sight reading exercises after the grade 3 exam (initially she even gave her grade 2 exercises) so she finds it easy and goes over her fear.

It is quite amazing to see that now she does it so easily, no freezing, no fear and she is excited she is close to the end of the book looking forward to start the grade 4 book.

Fleur that's very interesting about the sight reading - I am so glad that she conquered the fear of it, good for her! I fear I am rather similar about the aural even though I can actually do most of it OK. DS2 had slipped grade 2 cello although he had done most of the scales but no sight reading since grade 1! Piano is different as he works, admittedly reluctantly, through the sight reading book.
Waffle Rara's cello teacher sounds very sensible!

Loose DD was doing sight reading before the exam but she developed a fear for it so her teacher was showing me silently how she can do sight reading quite well if she put a random piece in front of her but when she called it sight reading and ask DD to do it DD would freeze literally.

So she decided that once the exam would pass back in March we need to address it by doing constant sight reading exercises and calling them so. I still remember first time DD sat at the piano to do one of the exercises and burst into tears. Now 3 months later not a practice session goes by without at least one exercise and guess what, she picks the book herself and does it without problems so I think we've overcome the fear.

New I am jealous- enjoy your weekend!
Fleur that sounds an excellent plan. It is a really good idea to get the sight reading up to the same level not just for the exam but generally. I wasn't too impressed when DS2 brought the cello sight reading exercises home the night before the cello exam! He didn't do too badly considering but forgot the dynamics!

onlymusic DD had her usual 30 min lesson the day before the exam, we kept going as normal so as the last lesson was the day before the exam we kept it.

Loose I know what you mean I said the same, Dd's weak point is/was sight reading and because she skipped a grade it became more of a gap. Now I decided with the teacher that we won't put her into an exam unless all areas are that level, she started her after the exam on grade 3 sight reading exercises, she's almost finished the book so hopefully she'll manage to cover grade 4 and 5 by the time she's ready technically for grade 5.

waffle forgot to ask after Rara - is she having a break from exams?
My view on exams at the moment is that after this term DCs are only going to take any more if they are very comfortably at that level - partly to allow for nerves on the day which seem to come out in the scales (family trait!) and to make sure aural requirements for higher grades are covered properly.

New life - sounds like fun like fine, enjoy the weekend. 😀

Only thanks - I have bought the grade 5 Turnbull one - reckon there are three of us in this house who will use it!

Theory.
Bought few books as a supplement to ABRSM books and they arrived yesterday
This series looks great-theory/ qestions/answers
www.amazon.co.uk/Theory-Time-Grade-David-Turnbull/dp/0711997454/ref=pd_sim_14_4?ie=UTF8&dpID=51qzcDHwlsL&dpSrc=sims&preST=AC_UL160_SR115%2C160&refRID=MY0CTV4WN0T7DME0AR2B

This looks fantastic esp for younger children as there are plenty of pictures, puzzles, etc, clear layout and relatively big font (the orchestra section is ...yummy :)!). Can be bought 1-5 grades in one book or separately, answers are sold separately.

www.amazon.co.uk/Rachel-Billings/e/B003VNH58S/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

Thank you your expertise ladies, I think you are right, it is too risky to have such a long lesson before the exam... Will speak to teacher about it....
xxx

Just came back from hearing some amazing Jazz and a fantastic singer, who regularly sings at Ronnies.
I have a weekend of jazz and I'm lapping it up, dd is jealous as she is at school and can't join us atm
Off to that there London on Saturday, really looking forward to it.
Then South of France. woooh my NewLife is beginning, and I've had a few lagers after the interval when my help was no longer required

Dd has a Jazz gig in a popular Manchester music venue coming up, local comp, but not much more. She's asking her dad if he'll put her on at one of his gigs and he's saying nooooooooo
Really looking forward to the holidays now.