October Music and Musicians Thread

Raspberry - that is what i hope for DD - music as a life long pleasure, finding others to play with. Brilliant for your DS!

Prada - very well done!

Waffle - Goo must be relieved; glad the audition is re-fixed and I hope rest of the recovery goes smoothly

irivine, exactly what loose said. It seems this new teacher is teaching your son keyboard. The syllabus and pieces will be different, keyboard focusing more on chords and also improv. But it's not classical piano studies. The thing is, he may be enjoying it because it will be more geared to popular music which he may be more familiar with. His last teacher had him on a good track and if he was doing scales in every lesson, he seemed to want your DS to develop a good technical base. It really depends on what you prefer your DS focuses on. If it was me, I would find a teacher outside for piano because I believe it's a better foundation and can be transferred to keyboard, but not the other way around. If you can afford it he could actually do both by the way. My DS has two different piano teachers: classical and jazz. Another thing to consider is that if keyboard is not the new teacher's main instrument (you mention he used to teach guitar and drums), then he will only be able to teach your son to a certain level. DS' first drums teacher was mainly a guitarist and she stopped after Grade 4 saying she could no longer teach him. We then hired a drummer.

raspberry so glas to hear of your DS musical activities at uni!

Great news for miniprada's confidence leading into the next tranche of exams, well done her!

And lovely to hear that there is a vibrant music life scene (with new friendship prospects) after school raspberry - what a great start to uni life! Learning the organ is an awesome supplementary instrument for your DS2 too, he's tasted the fruit now...

irvine these are two different things! The school seems to have replaced a piano teacher with a keyboard teacher. It that's the case, and parents think their children are preparing for piano exams, then it is misleading. And he should be using the piano for piano syllabus anyway!
But it depends what you and your DS want. I suppose my view would be change teacher, learn piano and transfer the skills to keyboard. But if your DS really enjoys keyboard and isn't bothered about piano, then that's another story and he should do what he really enjoys.
I wonder if the teacher is working towards rockschool grade one keyboard? Those books come with CDs to play along to and you use them for guitar and drums in the exams. Not sure about keyboards but I do know at my music school more advanced keyboard grades involve improvisation which isn't in the piano syllabus and in fact not all piano teachers can teach it!

Hi! I really need help, please.

I have posted before about my ds(started piano in Feb.) and lost teacher in September. School appointed new piano teacher, who formerly only taught guitar and drums.
He seemed happy with new teacher, but I just found out this morning that he only play along cd(came with book), and teacher make him play on keyboard rather than piano. (There is piano in music room.)
I knew this teacher uses "how to play piano" kind of book rather than piano tuition book to teach, since we are asked to purchase it.
His former teacher made him practice scales at the beginning of lesson, but ds told me he hasn't done any since the start.

Before summer, his former teacher asked him to choose and practice songs from grade1 exam book. I emailed the new teacher and told him ds was working really hard and done a quite good job. He emailed back to bring the book, but ds told me he never asked him to play them.

Does this sound like good piano teacher to you? Should I find another teacher outside of school? Problem is, he seems to like him. Our aim is not grade/exams, more for him to enjoy playing musical instrument.
So is this teacher sound like good one for the purpose? But I would like him to learn the basics in the first place.

raspberry sorry, meant to say that sounds like a brilliant start to uni for your DS!
And I definitely want to hear about the organ lessons - sounds like a great opportunity!

Obviously second DS is DS1 - not sure I could cope with both of them playing the same instruments!!

Big congratulations to Miniprada and glad to hear Goo is better and that the audition was rescheduled.
Ds2 is playing his cello on Friday in the local church as part of the school founder's day. He has been perfecting an old grade 3 piece, which I think is a really good thing as he's definitely finding more in the music than he did for the exam and he can enjoy it in its own right.
DS2 has bass guitar lesson followed by drum lesson tonight - literally just changes rooms. It'll be interesting to see if it works but I have just booked one drum lesson so far to make sure he is happy with the new teacher.

That's brilliant Prada. Congratulations.

Good to hear Goo is on the mend.

DS1 just started uni and trotted off to uni wind band tonight and had a great time. Another band tomorrow, socials and concert (free pizza) lined up. He says everyone was really nice, lovely to walk into such a welcoming atmosphere and having a skill to take with him!

Other news, DS2 is having on introductory session on organ on Saturday. I have a feeling this is the start of yet another slippery slope!

Pravda, well done to miniPrada on the 11+!

First bassoon lesson went well, we can put it together and take it apart now, lol! The teacher seemed good, very approachable with both mine and dd's questions, and one of the other people in the lesson helped dd put it together.

I am so stupid that I hadn't even realised it would be bass clef, dd is pleased, firstly it means she has as much to learn about reading music as the others in her class, and secondly she thinks it will stop any thoughts of having to play a bit of piano in future...

Good level of practice suggested, myself and dd are going to draw up a practice plus homework timetable and try and stick to it. I'm going to try and be strict on the homework time, she is meant to get 40 mins plus 25 mins reading book but often the homework itself takes well over an hour.

Waffle: that is great that Goo's wrist is recovering fast, and its even better that ths stress is offloaded.
Prada: Many congratulations to miniPrada, that is a wonderful news, best of luck for another school's news in couple of day. She deserves to be showered with treats!!!
Fleur: but you still have an option to send miniFleur to your son's gramnar school based on sinling policy? Best of luck with the preparation, it is ...tough!!! I have designed a schedule for the whole family now, cant believe I have never done it. It shows me where I am behind and what should be expected.
Finished mindset now which drummers recommended, great book!!! I although think we do have phases in live where could be in tempo fixed mindset because growing all the time is tiring, or at least slowing down in growing terms. I did have few moments where I find I have a spurt in my mindset where by end of reception my daughter couldnt read much. My husband was saying we are foreigner and we speak dual languages in our family which could slow her down than usual. I didnt agree, I thought I just havent been helping her at all. Then starting my maternity leave with my second child around mid yr 1 I started reading with her. She hated it at first. Couldnt read more than 2 full sentences. Then just 4 months later she finished the whole Harry Porter series(end of yr1). She is a book worm now, I do still save some of her book reviews for memory, an example one is attached when she read Hobbit(she started Lord of the ring series, I dont know where she is). I also think we have a fixed mindset in certain thing and growth in others. I think at the moment I have a fixed mindset of thinking that I could never play an instrument!!!

Thank you ladies. She has sat 2 x grammar as one school decided to create their own exam just to complicate matters! The CEM one is supposedly better but the feel is not as varied as the other - mainly because with a CEM style test you have kids who can beat the clock not write a beautiful sentence.... Music is not great there either.

She is then doing 2 x London indie and 2 x boarding towards the end of the year/start of next with these 4 being her favourites and with very strong music depts. the other music audition the other day was a faith based girls school (state) where she is out of catchment like the grammars but she has one of the 17 music places on offer. It does sound like a lot but she isn't a worrier and has a high capacity for work. It really is a numbers game these days as parents have gone from 2/3 schools to 5/6 so everyone follows suit. 😞

Hello all.

so sorry about Goo's wrist, such bad timing.
Well done MiniPrada

I'm sure none of you are around this area, but just thought I'd link to open day on Saturday and Chorister Day. chethamsschoolofmusic.com/whats-on/chethams-open-day-2/

That must be such a relief Prada.

Well done, MiniPrada! Great to have a school place safely sorted, especially a close grammar one. Is the CEM grammar better in some way or just a different entrance procedure? And did I imagine she did a music schol for one of these two or was that another school?

Hello everybody!

Well done miniprada! It must be such a relief Prada!

Busy times in our world, did not get to visit the music school last weekend as DD woke up and felt sick. We'll visit on their next open day, not a priority at the moment, I'll wait till she's grade 5 and I'll decide then.

We visited the local grammar last night and fell in love. I didn't even actually wanted to visit as I am somehow against single sex schools. However once there I knew it was the right school for DD. Now the problem is that I don't think she has many chances to gain entry, she would only qualify to apply on 27 academic places and 11 music places. They get in the region of 500 applications each year so very small chance. We are now back to square one, heavy preparation as opposed to light.

Congrats miniprada !!!

Glad she is feeling better waffle!

Good news here. 11+ passed 😀🎉👏 so she has a place at the nearest Grammar.

Just waiting now for the other Grammar which has a completely different style CEM test which is out tomorrow. Not holding my breath for that one, it's the one she felt ill in and had a weep afterwards....😢

Good news waffle. Are they delaying NCO audition?

Is she feeling any better Waffle? I'm trying to think back to when DS broke his arm but there have been too many sleeps in between.