December Music Thread

Good luck today minigreen!

Serial framer here I'm afraid. What with three styles of dancing, two instruments , theory plus recorder and musical theatre and lamda at school and then the festivals, I'm running out of wall space!

Thinking about buying miniprada a skeleton style electric violin for Xmas (nothing fancy) as a fun thing but maybe the Harley Benton brand? Anyone had any experience of them at all?

TheSecond I suspect he'll do great in his theory exam, at 14 he can be trusted to have known when he finished. DD would probably rush through it and leave early without checking anything so I hope we'll manage to postpone theory till she's closer to 11 (now 9). I am hoping that if she takes grade 5 piano next summer she can then start preparing for both grade 5 theory and grade 6 piano at the same time and take the theory exam a session before the grade 6 practical. By then the 11+ is out of the way which would help.

I went out last night so didnt have a chance to try with the video, sorry ladies, will try again.
Fleur: sometimes I wonder whether my daughter and my husband value the certificates more, hahaha. However they have to work for it and if it motivates her then I have no problem at all. I like the playing dumb card though, I usually tell less of my daughter while my husband is opposite. The other day I said if she likes to try some "festivals", then she asked, what's in the festivals, I said there are trophies, then of course I have a thousand nodes.(thanks for your kind wishes)

Fleurdelise he's 14. He is smaller than average, so his hands don't yet have as much reach as he'd like.

Same here thesecond - I am slightly dreading finding out!

Green forgot to say DD has two frames in her room, one for piano where she puts the certificate on top of each other with the most recent first and one empty waiting for the clarinet certificate now. She had various other certificates for dancing and other sports but I made a folder for those.

TheSecond how old is your DS? Good luck with the results.

Green good luck tomorrow with the exam, I am sure mini will smash it!

DS2 was the one who came out of the two-hour theory exam after 50 minutes, insisting that he had checked his answers thoroughly, so he will have some explaining to do if he hasn't passed.

DS2 (clarinet) has recently moved up from the junior wind band to the senior wind band at school. Concert was last night and I was very impressed with the standard.

He has been learning the clarinet for just over three years, and is progressing really well. He took G3 this time last year, missed G4 for orthodontic reasons and will be taking G5 in a couple of weeks. The rapid progress means that he is finding the scale repertoire and technical difficulty of the pieces quite challenging, but he is enjoying it and is very motivated. I'll be glad when this exam is done. I'll be happy if I never hear those three pieces again

I think the theory results become available online soon, but I'm not sure whether DS2 will be able to log in, or whether the results are only available to the teacher who did the exam entry.

Same here for videos!
drummersmum I think he's sticking to bass for GCSE! As he did well on his bass pieces and now finally accepts they sound good to other people, he would be mad not to use them!

Oh, like Fleur I would like to see videos too, even in pm please....

Waffle thank you for your pm, I just discovered it-I keep forgetting to check it....

Loose well done for the great result!

We're so behind on theory that we'll have to do a crash course. She has weeks when she does a lot and then theory is forgotten for a long time. I think once grade 5 piano is out of the way I'll focus on the theory at home with her so she can pass it before the next grade.

disorganised and green (and everybody else) I'd love to hear your DCs playing so if not posting here please feel free to PM me the links.

DD spent the week on Christmas carols on clarinet and 1 grade 5 piano piece plus 3 pieces for the festival. They are coming along nicely, still lots of work to do though.

Oh, new thread! Thank you Waffle for keeping us together!
I try my best to follow musical threads but never manage. Perhaps I should make a New Year resolution?

Anyway, I have dd8 (still 8...next thread she will be 9, I promise :)) who is violinist (grade 5 is next, not sure when though) and plays piano (we are stuck at grade 4). We are waiting fro grade 3 theory results but it looks like whatever the outcome grade 5 theory is on an agenda for March. Her teacher's view is that she would pass it tomorrow and who cares about distinction (I don't necessarily share it )

And I have ds5 who started violin this year.

Loose well done to your DS1! Fabulous result! What was the final decision on gcse performance chosen instrument? I remember a lot of changing...

Thanks for a new thread. I have a ds 11 who plays trumpet and loves his music, he seems to play or sing in some sort of group almost every day now ( which keeps us all busy) he's also started to learn piano. No exams here for a while although I think he's going to take grade 5 jazz trumpet sometime next year instead of doing grade 5 theory!! I also have a dd 9 who loves to sing and perform and is also having a go at learning the piano ( when she's not finding it too frustrating). We have a busy few weeks ahead with lots of concerts and shows for both of them which will be lovely

Thanks for the thread waffle

Ooh! Forgot to congratulate Mr Knitting on a fabulous result! Love the rivalry he has going on there!

waffle another fan of the thread here! Thanks so much for the new one.
Wow Musicdoc!! I am seriously impressed! Also very impressed with Mistigri's amazingly talented Dd!
Much happiness here - DS1 just found out he got 82% in his G6 bass guitar exam! He's also working on grade 6 tuned percussion and plays drums. He is in a marching band as well.
DS2 plays piano and cello. He's probably going to do his grade 4 exams in Summer and Autumn term next year.
I am planning to do grade 4 piano in March - just to try and keep ahead of DS2! I am also plodding through grade 4 theory and wondering how small children are so good at this stuff!

HOW TO POST ON YOUTUBE
photofocus.com/2014/01/08/how-to-post-your-video-to-youtube/

After your video is published, copy the link and paste here.

musicdoc wow, respect.
waffle did you ever imagine this would become monthly?!

I have only one DS (15) whose musical adventures are drum kit (just passed g8), tuned and orchestral percussion (g8 next spring or summer), piano (g8 next summer), jazz piano (teacher not doing grades) and composition. Exams will depend on progress as academic expectations are v high this year.
Coming up fro him before Christmas break is playing drums in the school musical (5 performances, about 20 songs each time ), and a composer's concert where he will play the marimba part of a piano&marimba duet he has composed. And he told me yesterday he has just created a rap Christmas mix on garage band for his class kareoke, in his spare time.

Why am I part of this forum? DS has turned my life upside down by bringing so much music into it. It feels like a tornado sometimes. I just enjoy exchanging and sharing stories and wisdom with people who are going through the same in whatever degree. Besides, everyone here is incredibly generous and non-judgemental and makes the journey a little less lonely.

Musicdoc: fingers crossed, similar to Loose, you are another one doing it and taking exams, hat off!
Icould: really like the "Not My Problem" anymore
Fleur: my husband framed all the exam results too, will take pics tonight. It embarrassed me great deal.( If you ask him what grades mh daughter is doing for either violin or piano he wont know)

Just turned 9 yrs old daughter here who plays (a little) violin and some piano. Violin has been slow/on hold as this term is for piano. We cant do in parallel both instruments, we just juggle along mostly. Piano exam this weekend and I tried to post her playing in you tube last night to share here but failed. It doesnt allow me to share anything. I will have to try again tonight. This Dec will be a complete rest. I am writting to both of piano and violin teacher now that we are taking the whole month off. Next term, might be a "festival", violin exam. We audited for NCO at the very very last minutes and we knew that we were barbarians so not really looking forward to the "letter". We however will try again next year.

Hello everyone, miniprada is 10 and working towards g7 violin (might take it at the end of this month or start of next term) and g6 piano - also next term.

Well done icouldbekinitting! Fab Mark. And loving the braces smile waffle.

musicdoc 😱 Good luck!

Christingle concert tonight. As music captain, miniprada gets the honour of doing the bells for jingle bells. She is very excited having waited 8 years to do it 😂

I am the non musical parent in a musical household. DS and DH play in two brass bands so it's a busy time of the year here. DH is working his way through the jazz piano grades, he might also start with the brass jazz syllabus too (no idea why). I think DS is done with music exams for the next year or so (unless his teacher decides differently) and I'm fine with that. He's in the first year of A levels and already has more than enough to fit on a UCAS form, I'd rather he spend the time on academics. If he takes another exam then it means that it will be after he's gone off to university and so it will be Not My Problem.

musicdoc - I admire your dedication, a new instrument to G5 in five weeks is ... well words fail me. Good luck for the exam anyway.

Hi all,I'm Disorganisedmummy and I have a 10 year old ds who plays violin at roughly grade 5/6 standard. He will be auditioning in the Spring for Junior Guildhall and on saturday he has a pre audition assessment.
No joy in uploading the youtube video I'm afraid.