October Music and Musicians Thread

Fleur: you are so much readier than us, we havent had any scale done and the last piece hasnt been touched. We still have time!(trying to pretend that I am calm). Think about Xmas and a long break after!

🏆 for you Loose, you are so weldone and have a steel nerve that you kept going. You are a star, think about me who was supposed to start but then postpone. I dont know if I could ever do it as well. It was so frustrated for example my daughter for some reason always got her left hand wrong in all her scales and I dont even know if they are wrong, then my teacher was trying to say scales are do simple it should have been 1-2-3-4 instead of 1-3-2-4 (or whatever he was trying to explain) and I told him I dont even know what does it mean. Awggg!!! I told myself that I should know a little when my second child starts.

We have the clarinet exam date, 26th November, I panicked, the teacher said she's ready. She wanted to change her C piece last week as she thought it was too hard, she listened to it this week though and said it is ready so there's no point to change it.

Loose and Raspberry good to hear you think the plan is good, I have to say I am worried about the time spent on perfecting (two bars for example for a long time) she's only turned 9 so hopefully it won't put her off.

And we have a piano that sounds lovely, got home and asked DD to play as it was tuned, I actually forgot how good it sounds when in tune lol

That's how our piano teacher works too Fleur.

Thanks Fleur and Never! I am kind of pleased with myself for getting to the end of the piece rather than giving up!
Fleur, I think your teacher's plan is excellent - I think MiniFleur will be amazed by what she can do with that kind of focus.
Had a chat with DS1's bass teacher. He was a bit eek! at how close the bass guitar exam is although he says pieces are definitely ready. Scales, on the other hand, need more work. I am going to have to chivvy DS1 this half term and watch his computer usage like a hawk! He also needs to revise musical terms for his theory exam (especially the German ones). Problem is, he is very bright and also very lazy. So, because he can pick up a lot of things easily it comes as a nasty shock when he has to make a big effort!

Loose well done for playing in a concert I would never do that, honestly you have my full admiration!

DD's piano teacher had a goal discussion with DD last night, she said that she wants to teacher her what perfecting a piece to concert level means so she'll focus on two pieces that she can then perform in January at a music competition. She told her it will be boring at times as there will be weeks when she'll work on 2 bars continuously. In the meantime she'll also get a grade 5 piece going and add the other two in the new year with a view of taking the exam in the summer session as she doesn't want to stop doing other pieces therefore will take it very slow with the exam pieces.

DD agreed to it, hearing she'll start exam pieces gave her the motivation needed.

Loose Well done for playing in concert!

How embarrassing! Played in a concert last night - just adult learners so not a big deal and my right hand froze (nerves) on bar three. Tried again, same thing. Hand shaking! Third time managed to push through the bar and play on - could sense audience relief! Irony is I managed to play all the difficult parts ok so looked a right idiot for getting stuck on one bar! The teachers were very sweet and as one said, we are not robots, these things just happen! Once I got going all the shaking went from my right hand. So, just wanted to say how much I admire all these children who do auditions where it is competitive as well as public!

Holiday courses that should read!

No school orchestra here , but we live in a tiny place. The usual set up here is a windband and a strings orchestra rather than a classical orchestra, but we dont have those either! Right now we are focussing on alle the great opportunities they do get and suplementing with holiday curves where possible.

Music tuition is well subsidised here but there are still clear social divides. In the rural areas there is often very little choice - voice,gitar and maybe keyboard, and in the cities the the middle classes are hugely over represented in the orchestral instruments.

Green great you now have a date to work to, I am sure minigreen will be just fine.

You guys are lucky, DD's school doesn't have an orchestra and they ignore music generally, they have a choir club but that's it. That is why I think it is so important that DD's secondary school needs to have at least one orchestra, the two schools we love (one of which is DS's current school) have a beginners orchestra, a senior orchestra and various bands for different instruments.

^ green on the value of this thread. Great updates and congratulations on those who've sat auditions!

We were so fortunate with DD's junior school. They had a fantastic head of music and standard of orchestra. Then strangely, the senior (through school) seemed to have a criteria of only those with G5+ could participate. We'd moved on by then, but she feels sad to see so many of her old pals now who have dropped their instruments, and worse, fallen into the cliche that music is not cool now in Y8. Getting the right support set up early can make such a difference to motivation levels, especially for those that are not completely self driven like some on here who instinctively know their future lies with music. There is then still a great pool like my DD falls into, that music still has great value on lots of levels. As does playing in orchestra where you may not always be given the most stretching of parts, but the contribution to the team is critcal to its success.

Glad to hear your experience Waffle! Good luck to Goo and your daughter.

Our state primary school Orchestra is really modest, there are only 2 violinists and a handful of other instruments, my daughter asked to quit but I said she has to stay to support it. Even has to encourage another other of her friends who can play to join(and we dont live in a deprived area, might be just an area where there are not many children playing Orchestral instrument).

I am forever in debt with this thread created by Waffle and supported by you all. I never heard of theory before for example not mentioning NCO or our current Sunday Orchestra.

Fleur: I have the exam date: 03.12, suddenly I know what we have to do the coming weeks

Waffle well done for both Goo and your little pupil. I hope the results will be as expected.

No news on our side yet except that I finally managed to book a piano tuner to tune our piano. I hope we won't be told off but I have been trying to book one for three months and the recommended tuner was too busy. In the end he recommended someone else. There you go, good future career path, piano tuning, there seems to be a shortage out there.

well done for the auditions! I think its great that your little pupil played daydream believer, DD1 auditioned for her talent program, which is mixed instruments (but mainly 'band' with guitar, keyboard, drums and singers) with a Vivaldi piece and the rock guitarist she was auditioning for was obviously happy enough with that given the outcome.

Well done, Goo and little pupil - I love Daydream Believer, bet it sounded ace!
Alexandra I don't think so many people know about NCO. I hadn't heard about it until I started reading these threads. I think there may have been a tiny leaflet about it on the borough music service notice board once but no real attempt to promote it or explain it. Goo is very lucky as well as extremely talented in that she has a fantastic support system! I am sad to hear that's also a problem with the Sunday orchestra, though.

Waffle Sounds like it went well!

How do you find time to do all these! We are struggling just to practise the usual stuff ...

Everyone,
Open day at RCMJD is Saturday November 26th. Places need to be booked in advance.

Waffle sounds good, Goo's unwashed hair and your pupil's Daydream Believer are the kinds of things that make all the difference I'm sure it went fab for both and Goo's recovery is quite miraculous