October Music and Musicians Thread

We are having the Thumping Bach again. And he is resolutely not mentioning the fact that those two bars I made him play slowly yesterday is sounding perfect today.

We don't generally use the cd either (found it in the grade 1 book in the end, she didn't forget it) her teacher's advice is first nail the piece without the cd and then you can try it with it. However this is one of the spooky sounding pieces (Dinosaur Park) that doesn't have an impact without the cd, the speed isn't the issue as it is quite slow, she wasn't counting at all so all the notes were equal in value which meant the cd went ahead. In the end after a strop (she's the one who wants to play it with the cd due to the spooky effect) I asked her to first listen to the cd without playing but "match" the tempo visually (if that makes sense) so she then played it perfectly still without counting but knowing the rythm.

Her piano teacher jokes with her that this is her role, the teacher's, she sometimes sits next to her in lesson and counts for her to fix certain bars. Grrr!

NeverEver of course she did, we had the "the cd is playing ahead of me!" shouted at the top of her voice. Lol

We're lucky that her piano teacher is very supportive of her clarinet playing so she'll do all the accompaniment needed in exams and festivals later on. We'll pay for her extra time of course, it is just great as it gives DD extra confidence also to have her in the exams.

only I have no idea about wine for men. If it's someone whose taste I don't know I'd get a bottle of New Zealand pinot noir. Because I like it.

Our accompanist makes 5yos who can only play one note sound good. He is a genius.

We only used two accompanists and both were quite good, but I guess like with everything - playing with accompaniment - should be learnt. Dd only had one rehearsal with accompanist for her last exam, which was down from 4-5 in the past, which is a good sign I guess

Thanks again everyone for answering about Christmas presents
Now, may I ask for advice on wine please? Which one would you recommend for a male teacher? Do you reckon that gift vouchers will do as an alternative? The teacher has delivered 200% this year, I feel almost obliged to acknowledge it....

That was our problem regarding to accompanist when we havent had any rehearsal and entered straight to the audition then my daughter was trying to catch/match up with the piano and lost focusing on producing her own sound. We are always told that just focus on the violin and its sound, let the accompanist does his job, the violin should be the lead. We are banned from playing the whole piece now as our teacher said she is murdering it. We do need exams (or festivals/competition) to play pieces in quality rather than finishing them with high quality sight reading.
We didnt give present to our teacher and he has neither. We found out by accident last year about his birthday so we got him a couple of scarfs(her idea)

Fleur - we don't use CDs either; dd found them frustrating. She has got much better at practising with a metronome but counting....well erratic springs to mind......

I second how great a really good accompanist is - DD had a very very bad experience of an unknown one last week, at a very critical audition and it is fair to say we will play unaccompanied rather than with an unknown one in future! Amazing what a bad impact someone who doesn't follow the child and adapt can make.

Only - wine and chocolate all the way here :)

Prada - i am sure the audition was fine; we too are still plugging away for the Indie exams over half term. DD has done two, and has another one next week. Good luck with keeping the momentum - we don't finish until Feb but am not sure how much more either of us can face :(

We've never given any presents to the teachers. The kids will give the teachers a piece of cake or something on their own birthdays. And the teachers generally come in with a box of quality street at the end of term.

We don't really use CD accompaniments. But you have to be entirely fluent before you can use them, I would imagine! Also they show that a good accompanist is really worth their weight in gold. I sometimes accompany my children for practice, but when you see a really good accompanist at work you realise there is more to it than just playing the right notes at the right time.

Fleur Did your DD then claim that it's the CD that's wrong? My DS would do that! When he is in his mood he would claim that the law of gravity is wrong ...

Se22mother - no, not beginning with 'b'... Good luck though!!

I could do with prosecco though

We've found wine goes down just as well with the men only!

Blimey, we also have festival in our area in few weeks time se22mother

Thank you ladies, I was wondering about the present to the male teacher, somehow I managed to get away with it before but not this year I think. It does feel a bit....awkward, somehow it is easier with the ladies :)

I second speed shifter too, we use it all the time with my little one.

only my standard Christmas present is wine, often Prosecco.

It must have been something in the air as we had a row tonight also, ours was about counting. Honestly she drove me mad, I could hear all the minims and quavers held for the same value and she was getting angry that she couldn't keep up with the cd (clarinet). And when I point it out she's the one who's stroppy! The lack of counting drives me mad.

Only yes, I alway get the piano teacher some chocolate but this year I plan to give it more thought, found some music notes pencils, rubbers and some other stationery music related for both teachers. Plus a card and some chocolate.

Neverever we too had melt down - in our case some complex fingering which required fingers on multiple strings.
Prada we too are doing a festival over two weekends in November. does it begin with a b by any chance?

Hi all, I am with my silly questions again....
Christmas is not far away-are you planning any presents to music teachers?

Prada: its over now so you can only focus on the Indie entrance now, fingers crossed for mid Dec result!

Never: I thought it only happens with girls and boys usually have the go for it attitude. And I have a princess at home too, what I am mad about most is her dad always is on her side awggg! What happened to us that since our neighbor complained that she doesnt fancy the piano noise after 7.30, I literally don't listen to her playing as much. We have our ear phones on occasionally though(silent system where there 2 ear phones can be plugged at once)

disorganised DS was also upset because I wheeled out the metronome - I said that if he can't hear that he is not slowing down then he will need a metronome to tell him to slow down. He slowed down.

drummers We had Thumping Bach.

Ha Ha nevereverI just told DS he was playing the Mozart piano sonata too forte. He gave me a look but restrained himself and then blamed our piano the cheeky monkey.

Good evening ladies!

Well NCO is over but did not go swimmingly with a false start in the first piece and a falter on the second. Sight reading sounded ok I think but who knows? Our piano teacher was accompanying and she seemed to think all ok but I'm not so sure. She gave it her best and good practice for the indie school auditions. Few tears after though 😢

She is doing a local music festival over two weekends in November so we'll see how that goes completely agree that it should read 'competition' as not much 'festival' stuff at this one!!

Hope everyone is enjoying the half term. More exam prep here 😬😬😬😬😬

Neverever I've just had exactly the same row. He's practised with a metronome but really struggled for some reason. Then he got all hysterical and threatened to give it all up. He was being a proper diva! As you say,I wonder why we put ourselves through it!!

Had a massive row with DS - he got really upset because I kept telling him to practise slow, as his teacher instructed... I sometimes wonder why we do this...

DS has done several competitions and one festival. The competitions have had a clear finishing ranking with an individual points score and there is most certainly a winner in each category. The festival was judged against a scoresheet, in each category there could have been several platinum awards or none at all because the entrants weren't being judged against each other but against the mark scheme.

I was massively thankful on the dentist visit where the dentist commented on DS's lovely straight teeth which would need no work at all. There was some celebrating in the Icouldbe household that night.

I'm not keen on them being called competitions. Locally ours encourage lots of taking part to perform and listen to others. The Junior Schools Choir has about 16 choirs, increases every year, and over 700 KS2 children take part. Many, many of those children wouldn't get a similar performance opportunity.