November Music Thread

Ok I actually have no idea how to post a video. Anyone?

Hi everyone. Haven't been on for a while as have had so much going on. Everyone's children sound like they are all doing brilliantly. Too many of you to single out!!
We've just heard from Guildhall and they want ds to come up this coming Saturday for a pre audition advice session. Having a slight panic as his audition pieces aren't quite ready. He hasn't got to the end of each piece and they're not polished enough so not quite sure what to do. Does anyone have any advice?
Ds had a recital at school and played Vocalise by Rachmaninov which he knows pretty well but the recital was sprung on him somewhat so wasn't quite in the right mindset. If I post a video,could you give me some honest opinions please? Though go easy as he is autistic and was not expecting to do it. His bowing seemed to be quite stiff and jerky today and in the key change he went a bit out of tune.----

I'm sure the G7 will be fine Raspberry, if he's just mentioning the aural then the pieces must have been sound. We tend to dwell on the small things that go wrong and not the huge amount that goes right.

Well done to him Raspberry! And I am sure the new pieces will be very welcome!

Thanks everyone.

Drummers snap on Carousel. For A he did Handel Sonatina in D minor and for B By a Meadow Brook.

New pieces, hooray! Although By a Meadow Brook might be used for the Festival next term.

Well done to your DS Raspberry, I am sure he did well.

Well done Raspberry! I'm sure that's in the bag. I believe it's the same syllabus DS did last year. What did your DS choose? DS chose the Mozart K.283 for A, Carousel for C and Mendelssohn's Gondellied for B.
Good luck with Saturday concert!

Fingers crossed raspberry!

Mom17: I am not Chinese, coming from a much smaller however populated country, and everyone backhome now is going opposite, they are leaning to the "Westerner style" which(they thought) that they must let the children play and explore and being creative. Still not many people do classical instruments and music is much less regarded. My parents and my in law try (very hard) to be supportive but deep down I know they think it's for fun and not serious. Only academic achievement is considered as serious

Grade 7 piano done for DS2. He's not terribly pleased with it, and is especially upset about the aural! Which normally for him is a strength.

Anyway done now, came home to some trombone music for a gig on Saturday night that he needs to practice before a rehearsal on Thursday so not much time to worry about it.

Hi monkey, my eldest was in CYM from 8 - 13 years old, and was about Gde 3 only when he started so I expect your DD would more than fit in. It's a wonderful, inclusive place with masses going on but no compulsion to take on extras if you don't want. My DS started with just Saturday mornings and ended up taking options for the entire day the last couple of years - an extra instrument, composition, jazz, extra choirs and so on ... he'd have done more if it fitted into the day.

I found it slightly disorganised when we went to look and pretty informal, and it wasn't until we went to our first annual concert and saw the sheer range of ensembles and the standards of them that I realised he'd lucked out getting in! The kids are really nice and the staff are just lovely - encourage high standards but without the pressure you can find in the JD's. We felt it was great value for money and he'd still be there if he hadn't headed off to board.

Green, Which country u r from ?just curious to know.

Thanks all, short term, points might be lost and thats expected, there isnt much time for it now. Long term, joining school choir, I think anything can be trained, hopefully it would help too.
Loose: the whole summer we were working on some other aspects of aural, like dictation. Learning the pieces is lovely, sight reading is ok for now, the rest(aural+scales) is a burden.
Fleur: yes, its so hard with friends with children at the same or similar age. We come from a developing country where music/art/sport are not regarded so we are offloaded with jealousy in these subjects. My daughter isnt G&T registered (her school doesnt have the scheme luckily) so academically there isnt anything to show. We are being happy with a dumb label for now ha ha ha.

MonkeypuzzleClimber did you consider RAM too? They take children from 8yo
You didn't make your dd sound awful at all, quite the opposite

Our situation is not school gates, I work full time so no time for it, I do say hello and all that but if anything I find it refreshing that we never discuss kids achievements on the only day I pick DD up from school.

Our situation is in private life, friend with DCs same age.

No advice on aural, DD didn't start the grade 5 prep yet, she's still happy to sing in the exam, well I think she is, we'll see the results for the clarinet exam soon as she refused to sing for her clarinet teacher but did it for her piano teacher.

What talented children some of you have. I loved the music clips.

Gosh, there are some really awful parents around the country, aren't there. We definitely struck lucky with our school and associated parents and friends (though school does work hard on pastoral stuff).

I might change my mind next year when we need to do entrance exams, but I can't help thinking that, if a child needs extensive tutoring to get to 11+ levels at 10/11, they are going to be thoroughly miserable by the time they are 15/16 and tackling formal exams. It is a fine line between getting a child to try their best and stressing them out so they become over-anxious.

Re the aurals, I was watching a few on Youtube (need to get a life) and it didn't seem that you needed to be a particularly strong singer to get good marks. (It was more about singing the right notes in time confidently). Somebody suggested showing DC how the marks are awarded across the whole syllabus (if you can find a way of saying that it isn't a deal-breaker if the rest of the exam elements earn more of the marks - it might help with nerves.)

Good luck to forthcoming candidates.

It is much easier to avoid the competitive parents once children turn eleven because then having parents at the school gate is social suicide and you just don't see so many people. I now see the odd parent walking dogs, not outside the school. When I was at the school gate I used to amuse myself by playing a game in which I win by not discussing my own child. There was the mother of a Swimmer, a Diver and a Footballer and I'd start the conversation by asking about their child's progress. If I did well then I'd be collecting DS and saying goodbye without ever getting to talk about him at all.

sorry, that sounded far too gloomy. I meant to add that it just wasn't worth getting stressed about the aural - really the focus is on the rest of the exam. I can only sing with a piano and am pretty hopeless without something to tune into but a lot of the test is about other stuff.
DS1 is cheerful about his incompetence at singing. On the music tour last summer, I gather the mainly female singing group adopted him and tried to teach him to sing. So it possibly had some compensations!

Green school choir would definitely be a solution - DS2 was supposed to join one to try and improve his singing but he point blank refused! I suggested humming as well but he is so defensive about it. Luckily he is good at the non-singing parts so it really didn't affect his overall mark for aural very much.
The real disaster was DS1's grade 5 aural. The last time he'd had an aural lesson was for grade 3. He had 2 emergency aural lessons, both with a very heavy cold! I think the mark he got in the exam was a sympathy vote! Fortunately the place where he does bass and drums also does aural lessons so next time there's a sniff of an exam he's going to be booked in!

Raspberry: We were thinking of humming a month ago however didnt practise on it, only few days left I was thinking of asking her to sight singing only. The singing was ok for the first half of the note then the second half the voice just went to a very funny direction either squeaky or too soft you can hardly hear it. Just asked her last night if she'd like to join the school choir and she said she'd love to then hopefully in the future it wont be as big of an issue.

Greenleave is humming an option? Really though, I wouldn't stress too much as it's a tiny part of the whole exam, and the examiner gives an overall mark for the section.

I have no other advice. My older DC refused to do ABRSM because of aural singing (DD did up to Grade4). DS2's chorister training helps, but is a bit of an overkill for an aural test!

The Centre for Young Musician, in Central London. It's a division of Guild Hall according to their web site.

I ment NCO this year. It must be all the Christmas I'v already seen. She turns 9 in the summer.

What is CYM?

I just read that back and I've made her sound awful . She is also creative, passionate, very loving (when I dont ask her to play scales) and bunch of other nice stuff.

I was also wondering about the CYM. We may have to leave daughter's beloved teacher at some point, and are thinking about Saturday schools. Guild Hall and CYM mostly. My girl is, shall we say, quirky and spirited. I was thinking that from the website maybe CYM might be better for this? It's so much cheaper too, though I know Guild Hall does bursaries. Does anyone know how the general standard compares? Are the entry requirements similar. She hasn't done any grades but her teacher says approx 5-6 and she was in the NCO last year (training orchestra summer course a week after she turned 8). Music reading a bit weaker, but not too bad; well behind with scales (bad music mum ).

I read disorganisedmummy's thread on this in relation to ASD. My girl doesn't have a diagnosis for ASD, but shows some traits, and has sensory seeking behaviours (insesent fiddling, some ticks when anxious, tendency chatter and prance about inappropriately etc) and may have some processing issues too.

She needs challenge as she can be a total pain when idle/bored.

If you have covered CYM in another thread please redirect me, otherwise any thoughts or experience with ether?

Thanks in advance