December Music Thread

Thanks Helen and Wombat! I will just deliver the news to DD and try to explain a bit but the main message will be "unless it sounds wrong don't worry about it." I didn't explain her transposition much either, just told her that a C on the clarinet is in fact a B flat, she looked at me like I am mad and left it there.

With tuning her piano teacher said to her before the exam "right, let's tune in the clarinet" and DD looked at her like she's mad (yeah, she does that a lot) so I decided to look into it to try and explain.

Wombat good luck with the exam tomorrow! I am sure he'll be fine.

Waffle I hope you finish school soon. You have my total sympathy about the concert overload. DH has had the year 2 and 3 musical production. then a whole school carol service in the cathedral (bloody lovely it was too)and on Tue the year 3-6 Xmas concert!

I'm in concert attendance overload but loving it really. DD2 did Sat am mine pie concert ( music service), Monday school concert (the last Xmas one sob!) and we are into the chaos of being head chorister and being needed for girls services and schola ones ( the senior girls+men, only max 6 girls).

Oh and DH sang The Messiah On Fri and has a Gubbay thing at the weekend!

Raspberry did your DS voice recover ? hope he gets a last treble Christmas . DS managed the Once in Royal solo at 11 at school and the next year was singing bass!

Flurdelise re clarinet tuning. If you are playing with others it is worth warming up and then checking you are " in the ball park" of sounding the same , but like pretty much all instruments bar piano/tuned percussion tuning is a matter of ear and technique. Every fingering can have at least a 1/4 tone adjustment and often more!

The technicalities are too much for my pea brain at the moment but particularly when playing solo the importance is the way things sound. Some intervals are better blown a bit sharp or flat depending it you come down to them or go up. Children are rarely taught to think about this unless they are singers or have very special teachers. The more " ordinary" ones will teach " those fingers and blow for a g" without the " blow and listen and think if t sounds right" bit.

Hope that makes sense!

For instance DS was learning about microtones on the recorder by age 11, he just had the ear for it and could do it.,

Wool: I didnt remember that you are on 11+ next year too. Sounds like a good plan to me.
Drummers: with this work ethics he will go real far whatever he chooses to pursue. Yes, we live in Richmond so need to do look into it today or tomorrow(have been so "busy" with Xmas drinks/after work). Thinking of Hounslow, Kingston and westlondon ones too. We are on piano break now so no plan yet. I am sure with only the pieces then I wont have tantrums.
Fleur: thinking of bringing the violin with us so we could have 15mins scales each day although this summer we brought the violin with us and after nearly 3 weeks it wasnt touched so still thinking.

Fleurdelise - I think the Clarinet tuning is only vital if it's being played with another instrument. Sometimes it's just a case of warming the clarinet up to get them to match up.

DS had his practice session with the accompanist yesterday and the grade 1 clarinet exam is tomorrow. He's 99% fine, but I'm not!!!!!

We have wind band concert tonight which is a good fun event at Christmas so both dd and myself looking forward to it.

They have agreed that next term dd can play bassoon and clarinet on alternative weeks so we shall see how that goes. They are desperate to have a bassoon player but she's not quite ready to move to the senior band on clarinet.

We (well dd) has decided to do Grade 3 next term, having missed the exam deadline this term. She was given the choice of doing this or missing it and doing grade 4 the term after. I hope she is right, I have said no exams Autumn term next year as she will be doing school entrance exams so possibly Grade 1 bassoon in the summer.

She has had six ten minute theory lessons with her clarinet teacher and she says two more and she will have finished the Grade 1 book, and to buy the Grade 2 book ready. She is really enjoying the theory and listens to her teacher way more than she would me so it has been totally worth it.

Waffle I feel so much for you! Compared to your term, our arm injury coinciding with NYO auditions seems a walk in the park!! for you and here's to a restful Christmas and 2017.

Green have a lovely holiday!

Waffle I hope Goo will feel better soon.

drummers your DS sounds like a fantastic teacher, well done to both of you. DD would probably get revenge and shout "WRISTS" at me. I'll wait till she's older before I start learning.

I was just reading about clarinet tuning, really? You need to tune a clarinet? Quite funny as I have told DD the clarinet doesn't need tuning so now I have to put her straight, but first I need to understand what it means myself.

Waffle I once had a critic describe my work as: "Simplicity is its strength".
Go Goo

Green the Richmond festival is in March I believe.
loose best of luck with practice and exam. Now that I'm attempting it myself I am full of admiration for you. DS is being very sweet and keeps giving me tips. He explained to me the pattern of all major scales (tone, tone, semitone....etc) and made me look at the structure of the song I was playing (A,A,B,A) and said that's the structure for most jazz pieces. He makes it easier by making me look at the big picture and patterns. It's almost like he knows how my brain works (I trained as an artist).
Tuesday was another late evening. He finished homework at 10pm then I sent him to shower and bed. 30 min later I'm wondering, where is he? He had sneaked into the loft and was practicing on his silent drumming pad! He just wants to practice music all the time now and I feel so conflicted about it. He's going to have to wait till his school days are over... He's loving English at the moment, writing really good essays, his grades are still in the top, so it's worth keeping the academics going and maintaining a broad perspective.
Paulweller that's a cool instrument! Bet it sounds cool too!

Waffle, I'd stick the snowflake on black paper with spray glue and frame it but then I'm mean like that.

Fleur: we will be in Annecy and hoping for some snow. Thanks for your recommendation on the festivals, we are southwest london though luckily there are still quite alot going on around here(if I remember to register before deadlines)

Waffle the snowflake is funny! DD loves chopping paper but I doubt she'd know how to make a snowflake.

Green going anywhere nice?

Loose good luck with exam prep, I plan for DD to have the two pieces learnt till January when she goes back so the remaining time is spent on polishing, her teacher insists they should be performed amazingly so let's see what she has in mind. I am now happy about the festival and the wind band, I feel like the music learning has a purpose rather than just learning some pieces and taking exams. I don't know if it makes sense but I was starting to wonder what is the point if she doesn't perform in front of other people.

Mending good luck with the lessons. It sounds very complicated!
Waffle Goo's snowflake made me smile. The same thing happened to me when I tried to make one when DS1 was quite little. He then showed me up by making a complicated snowflake that you could hang from the ceiling!
I can't believe how much you've had to deal with in the last few months but I hope the holidays give everyone a chance to recuperate.
I have loads of piano practice to do in the holidays but that should be OK. Not sure I really want to do an exam in March, it's feeling a bit closer now!

Paul, Prada, gloriously white beauties. And love the stool cover.

Waffle: its nearly holiday, hopefully the whole family is recovered and on full mend.

Loose: best of luck tomorrow

Xmas presents: I will have to do couple quickly this weekend and it must be small so could go into the suitcases without notice.

Mending if it's anything like here they will be glad of the money, though sometimes they do seem to tie themselves in knots with rules and what is and isn't allowed rather than what is actually the best thing for an individual pupil. Keep trying I managed to sort stuff out here - in the end

Drummersmum, unfortunately we live in the back of beyond and once you take the local culture schools (basically county music service) out of the equation there is nothing. There are private options for drum tuition in the city but that's a 2 hour drive each way........

I'm hoping that we will be able to come to an agreement where we pay privately at the culture school in the next district where the kids currently have lessons, that's only 30 minutes away by ferry........

Waffle love the ' snowflake' that is the sort of thing that Ds would come up with dd is really creative Ds much less so unless it's music related. I really hope that 2017 is much kinder to you sometimes things do all seem to happen at once but it's nearly the holidays

On the subject of music lessons Ds now has hridiculously long ones of any where between an hour and 2 hours luckily it's at our house so we don't have to wait around it does include some theory and composition but it has made a massive difference to his playing this term as they get to work on so much stuff, Ds is nearly 12 though now so better at concentrating

Paulweller - love the violin! Can't wait for ours to arrive on the Sleigh!!

for you Waffle. Sometimes you just really need to see the back of a year and welcome the new one. I do hope 2017 brings a whole lot of less stress for you.