November Music Thread

Fingers crossed drummers! Its nearly end of the grades!
Regarding festival: I am looking into it too. Even I know its only paying to play however its a chance for motivation to practise. This morning I nagged so hard(hasnt happen in a longggg time-more 2-3 weeks) that everyone in the house just did what they supposed to do, 8yrs old practise, 2 yrs old drawing and 30 something old tidying up, unloading few washes. Sometimes we do need to roar do we.

Grade 5, Bach Prelude is ok-ish, Am Abend fingerings are not there yet, 60s swing just learned. Never touched sight reading, havent touched aural for more than 1 month. Just learnt all majors, minors and contrary motions...the rest of scale is untouched. Its more than 2 weeks till the exam, if we
cant do it then we will cancel it, her heart is more on violin. Hopefully with the festivals next year she will feel more motivated with piano.

Yes Prada that's the one! No percussion section at this festival either

Woolley - check the festival rules; one we do is ABSRM syllabus only; other is any syllabus at the grade or a piece of similar standard (so may be on old syllabus for example)

Woolley - it's for anyone learning /can play from the current G3 ABRSM/TRINITY syllabus.

The only percussion in our local festival is group classes.

Dd has done the festival for speaking but not played her clarinet. Is the grade 3 class for someone who is working towards grade 3?.

Ooh SE22 - the sight reading books chap? How exciting!

No percussion at this festival sadly drummersmum.

Dd did the wind category of her festival today. Adjudicated by Paul Harris. A truly genuine and inspirational judge of the class. His passion for his instrument shone through.

Grade 8 drums exam done here!
Does anyone know of any festival with percussion classes?

Prada - wow that is really unusual in my experience; we have never done a festival (and we do a least three if not four a year) where cellos haven't been vastly outnumbered by violins, and the adjudicator is a violinist! Def headed your way next year! Good luck for the rest of the festival.

Hello all, we are at the start of the music festival 1 out of 10 classes so far. Mistakenly thought miniprada could just 'wheel out' the G5 pieces.... Won't make that mistake again Lovely any age any string instrument class G5 yesterday but was 95% cello and 5% violin. Judge was a cellist herself. Guess which instrument won? It was admittedly miniprada's worst piece which I smiled at when she described it 'as a work in progress' -she got 27/30 in the exam for it but I was quite surprised at the winner as to my (very ) untrained cellist ear did not sound the best by a long way! Anyway, another class today - as is often the case another entrant is playing the same piece and this is a G7 piece which is a tuly 'work in progress' so we'll see what happens!!

Woolley you can do this without being pushy, all you need to do is when you agree to the swap to bassoon is to ask if there is another group she can play clarinet with as it would be a shame for her to miss out on the opportunity to play her first instrument. Leave it to them to come up with a solution.

It can be difficult socially if there isn't a mix of ages in the group and you have the youngest one there but if they aren't going on tour/residential then I shouldn't worry about it.

Wolley - yes i would ask about being in both bands if DD can manage the time etc; i can understand why they want her to play bassoon (and well done her so soon!) and i think that would work better for the bands than alternate weeks esp if they aim for concerts etc? i think there is much to be said for mixing being 'most able' with 'least able' times - dd learns so much from watching and being with more advanced players in some groups; as long as she can keep up then it will be fine (and i assume they have differentiated clarinet parts so hers would be more straightforward?)

Dd has a dilemma at the band she plays in, they would really like her to start playing the bassoon there from after Christmas as they don't have one currently. She is really happy to do this but both of us don't want her to lose the opportunity to play her clarinet. She has two "tune" bits in their upcoming concert and is really enjoying her playing there at the moment.

Dd would like to do alternate weeks with each instrument but I'm not sure how that will work out.

Or do I come over all pushy mother and ask if she is able to move up to the senior band with her clarinet? She is bordering on the standard they need and would be back to being the least able rather than the most able and she is also concerned about being amongst lots of older kids.

Drummers mum- I'll get the measuring tape out

PaulWeller yes, pretty big, our marimba is 2 m x 86 cm at its deepest point. It's 4,3 octaves.
Fleur how nice to have some stress free fun music.

Thank you loose! Happy cello shopping! I know nothing about cellos! Except that they are huge violins that make a beautiful sound!

Christmas is officially here in this house, DD has spent the last hour sight reading Christmas carols on the clarinet followed by digging out an old piano Christmas Carol book and sight reading that, while I was singing and also trying a bit of piano, we had a great laugh but didn't do any actual music practice. Oh well, for the benefit of sight reading and seeing what enjoyment playing an instrument brings I think it was a pretty productive evening.

Actually, looking at prices, I think we can realistically visit Stringers in London now - DS2 could have a very nice time trying out a couple of cellos and the service would be good. It looks as though you can try on approval for a couple of weeks before a final decision. Has anyone done this?

Good luck to MiniFleur although it doesn't sound as though she'll need it!
Can't believe Christmas is advancing on us so quickly!
Could be another expensive purchase coming up. Cello teacher says she had a student who had an Eastman cello and was very happy with it. Ideally, we'd find somewhere where we could compare one of those with 1 or 2 others.

Nothing new on our our side except the exam is in two weeks time and to be fair there is no stress about which makes me feel great. She actually moved on and didn't even played her pieces in her lesson today.

Piano going on ok also, I need to enter her for the festival next week, she'll go for the sonatina class and grade 4 class.

Hello all! I am losing track of the thread so apologies if I missed stuff.

Congrats Shaky for your DD's great results!

DD is currently doing her clarinet lesson and learning Christmas carols and it sounds so great! It really puts me into the mood and I ended up ordering her presents while waiting.

We have an Adams xylophone and it is lovely. They aren't cheap (but neither is a marimba) but I don't ever regret getting it. It lives in DS1's room so he has no excuse for not practising it! The electric drum kit in the shed is far less impressive, but he also plays a decent kit at school. That reminds me - pleased to report all is going very well with the new drum teacher, so it was worth making the switch!

Loose- she has a xylophone, but that's in the living room.
She played on a xylophone at her NCO audition, I think it was an adams one, it sounded amazing! Hers sounds rubbish compared to that one- so will think of an upgrade once she's been playing a little longer.
Marimba's sound really nice too, but they are quite big aren't they?

PaulWeller you are clearly a very cool parent! If you had room for a marimba in there you would have achieved percussion heaven!

Loose- haha that's it pretty much, although there is also a drum kit in there too and a table of Lego/playmobil.