November Music Thread

Morning all. So here's how it all went on Saturday.

Ds was able to take part in 2 classes;Junior String Ensemble and Musical Awareness which is like theory and aural. The string ensemble was first. There were about 30 odd players ranging from around 8-9 into 14 or so. All strings. The conductor was lovely and very welcoming and invited ds to sit down and play to which he said no so we watched at first. The first piece they all had to sight read so it was nice that they were all in the same boat. I looked at the music and thought ds could handle it but he was terrified! After the first few bars he picked up his violin and off he went!! I was so proud. They played one other piece that they had all been rehearsing so ds had to sight read again but again he coped really well and you could see that he was loving it. The conductor said afterwards that he did very well. We had a break for lunch and then went to Musical Awareness. Once again the tutor was lovely and very welcoming. This class is taught in small groups and were about 7 in the group. They were doing the pentatonic scale and had to sing the notes solo!! Ds pitched all the notes perfectly although he was very quiet and I could only just hear him. They did various other exercises around this and then played the scale on their instruments. Dad's theory was the one thing that worried me but it seemed that he was at the same level if not (dare I say it,a bit higher) than the others in the group. They did lots of other things too but that's the jist of it.
We could have stayed on and watched the Junior Symphony but by that time ds2 was bored stupid and I think ds1 was totally overwhelmed by it all.
It wasn't till much later that he said he absolutely loved it and wanted to audition.

So that's all there is to say really. Auditions start from February.

Feel free to ask any more questions.

onlymusic So miss 12 works things up really quickly. Her grade 8 pieces were memorised within 3 weeks and the longest she worked on them was four months. That's a long time for her. She is happiest when she has about a month. Miss 10 likes to work them up over a longer period. It takes her much longer to memorise them - more like a couple of months for her grade 8 music.

This thread was such an inspiration... :)
Yesterday I was reading about morning practices of some of your dc. Ds5 woke up before 7am today . I made a HUGE effort and got up 30 mins before my usual time. 7.40am now and ds's violin practice is done for today! What a relief!

We've had a nice weekend -
dS2 was asked to play trombone for our City's Fireshow, which has a sort of show part of it when they light the bonfire. Only 4 people on stage, 2 adults, an older teen and DS.
Well over 30, 000 attended! Quite an experience for him.

And you probably noticed by now that I am slightly mad about music books.... Anyway, went to Oxfam book shop today and got this book for only £2.50, feel so lucky!
www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Masters-Violin-Corelli-Zukerman/dp/0671604619/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478472572&sr=8-1&keywords=great+masters+of+the+violin

In spite of my good intentions I am only on page 6 right now, which is till not bad!
Green, dd also got her pen license recently - so I know the feeling!

Shaky - congratulations with the exam results!

Talking about practices, memorising, etc... How long do your dc and their teachers prepare "important" pieces (pieces for exams, festivals, concerts)? Say pieces with 60 to 100 bars length? (which is about 2 to 3 pages of music in one clef)

Thank you loose!

Never Yamaha THR 5 or 10 are good for home use - USB and headphone output and you can plug things into it. DH says that's for home rather than gigs! Hope that helps!

Loose Just an amp for playing for fun rather than anything high end please!

sorry catching up again...

Waffle - lovely and accomplished playing (DD but you are not far behind :))

Disorganised - that sounds really positive, do hope you decide to audition!

Alexandra - wow!

Well weekend full of school exams and then NCO regional concert; school entrance interview to prepare for tomorrow. And then we heading rapidly in to the seasonal stuff....

I love hearing about everyone's experiences. Practice has taken a bit of a back seat to homework this weekend unfortunately but hoping to squeeze in a bit more clarinet after dinner. Dd has looked up the next two notes on the bassoon and started trying to work out a couple more in her practice today.

That's a lot of teenagers, drummersmum but the food sounds ideal! Hope your DS has had a lovely day! In my experience, teenaged boys aren't any trouble - or at least they make sure they behave for their friends' parents!

Disorganised go ahead, this thread is all about the details, I never get bored! It sounds like he enjoyed it and hope his audition goes well.
DS birthday outing today after which I have 13 teenage boys coming to a small terraced house. I have made popcorn and sandwiches and bought a choc cake. But first things first: COVER the marimba and the piano!

Loose DS and DH had a trip out yesterday looking at new instruments, I was happy to find that DS preferred his current one to all of the ones he was trying out so I think that's one manufacturer we can cross off the list.

disorganisedmummy I can well understand that he needed time to process what must have been a full on day for him. I'm glad that it went so well.

Waffle, thank you for the video, that was lovely. She was a pleasure to listen to and from what you were saying I was expecting the accompaniment to be a train wreck - it wasn't.

Never there are a number of amps in this house and in the shed. I will make inquiries! it could take a while as there are some electronics geeks in this house!
Disorganisedmummy I love hearing about your day! It sounds like it was a very welcoming and positive experience and I do hope he does audition! Yesterday, DS2 trotted off to his training string group, where he seems to have had a great time and as an extra treat his cello teacher let him have a go on her rather lovely full-sized cello. You can guess the kind of hints that have been dropped heavily since then! I could evilly just insist on swapping the hire cello yet again, mind you!

disorganised That sounds great! Glad your DS enjoyed the experience. :)

I seem to recall someone's DC here does electric guitar? I'm after an amp and wonder if there are recommendations ...

Morning all. How is everyone?
So yesterday we trouped off at what seemed like the crack of dawn to London to visit Guildhall.
I'm conscious of boring you all to tears so I won't go into detail unless you ask! The long and short of it is that the two classes ds took part in; Junior String Ensemble and Musical Awareness he coped very well with and thoroughly enjoyed. The tutors were both lovely,friendly and very welcoming. We could have stayed all day and watched the Junior Symphony orchestra but we were all tired and ds was quite overwhelmed with it all. He wouldn't talk about it when we first came out but later on he said that he absolutely loved it and wanted to audition. All in all a very positive experience.

Watch this space!!

Not only you look pretty Wafflenose but you look very young too :)
As for "I don't think anyone's ever said that before!" - nobody said that to me before too, but it does not mean I am not pretty

Apparently you are multi talented too - I didn't get your words about pianist yesterday because I didn't realise you play piano! And before you say that you are rubbish at it-you have to listen to our violin teacher piano playing!

She's excellent! I wish I could be so confident about performing, but as an adult learner it's not so easy.

There's a little dark haired girl near the front who has a good sense of rhythm as she plays along with the piano!

DD had an Ashton one when she first started guitar lessons in Y1 (so 5 years old). That was the make recommended by her guitar teacher and she kept playing that until Y7 when she borrowed a full size one for her Grade 4 exam.

Shortly after the exam she moved onto acoustic guitar and now she's considering an electric one.

Can somebody recommend a 3/4 guitar for a 5 year old beginner? Not very expensive but good enough quality. For my nice.