April Music Thread

if they want to do something then they will do it to the best of their ability

She doesn't need much prompting, but the deal here is that DD gives things a fair chance e.g. not discarding a book until she has read a few chapters. In some areas I expect her to fulfil obligations e.g. if she goes to Scouts one evening a week then, unlike the many part-timers, she goes on Remembrance Day marches, night-hikes etc.

Not much nudging required for the latter though because DD has three Ms: maths, music and mountains. The latter includes a lot of serious technical rock-climbing. They’ve all got visual-spatial modelling, but there are some interesting assessing and thinking ahead under pressure parallels in her music and climbing.

Music is clearly very mathematical and I recall DD did take to her first busy Bach piece very quickly, but what about music you want to hear? I’d say a lot of the art is in the deviations from the maths.

raspberry

I'm happy to give you the low down on dd school if you like.
She'll show you round the school if you attend an open day.
Just dropped her off tonight, it's so good to see her happy.
Everytime she returns she says it's like she's died and gone to heaven.
The children are so lovely, like a family who all look after each other whatever their age or instrument.
I'm sure the others are the same too, it's a fantastic environment for them, especially if they are hell bent on being musicians.
I like that everyone is accepted warts n all.

Anyone had a teacher suggest the new ABRSM performance only diploma? My daughter has had this mentioned (violin), but I'm thinking that if the syllabus is basically the same then she might as well prepare the rest of a full diploma exam anyway. She's year 9 and I suspect it will take at least 9 months to prepare a programme regardless; having failed to get a diploma myself once exams got in the way of a resit (not in the UK) I think year 10 sounds ideal for a serious attempt.

Meanwhile with my youngest I'm wondering about when to start him preparing for grade 8. He's a chorister which puts a lot of time pressure on, so we've given exams a break since grade 5. He is heading for early voice change (summer born year 7, so not fair at still 11!) but getting towards grade 8 level on both piano and violin; scales however have been neglected ... When I did grade 8 violin I learnt the scales from scratch in about 3 months then ignored them again. So the dilemma is whether he should consider doing a grade 8 exam before he finishes choirschool next summer, and how soon to start preparing. Do we choose a piece that would serve for scholarship auditions and an exam, or leave thinking about grade 8 until after scholarships and then see when he looks ready. Complicated by me being his main violin teacher at present, though I may get him more external guidance soon!

It's the last day of the holiday here. We had been away and back in London last night. We decided to finish off our holiday with a day trip to Greenwich today. Had a fantastic family day - munched Byron burgers for lunch (loved the Korean flavour), cafes, pubs and shops, then museums to make DS the astronomer happy. Music practice has been pretty much abandoned as usual during holiday. But most of after school activities start this week so hopefully we go back to our normal routine soon.

Ah, they aren't shorts specifically made for drumming, just shorts that DS1 has identified as ideal! Perhaps there is a niche market for drummer-friendly clothes...
I will mention the barefoot thing to him as I am not sure he's thought of that!

On the maths and music thing, DH is a mathematician, but hasn't a musical bone in his body (although he enjoys listening to music). Both DDs, however, are really good at maths and pretty decent on their instruments.

Well I wouldn't have noticed unless you pointed it out drummersmum!

What do special drumming shorts look like or is it just because it's such a physical instrument and you get hot?

I'm with you Greenleave, liking what JanetBrown wrote and also that I don't push my children to do anything but if they want to do something then they will do it to the best of their ability. I think it's excellent training for being a grown up where you have to commit to do well. Although with sport they are fully committed with no pushing I'd quite like a day off sometimes. I just LOVE how music is bringing a new dimension into their lives. DS2 will sometimes hare in from a game of football, muddy and red and not even take his shin pads off before he throws himself at the piano. One of my all time favourite photo's of him is when he did this. Hair standing up, mud on his gangly teenage knees, all his kit still on and fingers dancing over the piano with such an intent look of concentration on his face.

Pique there are some excellent YouTube videos of maths and music if your DD would be interested. On the grown up musicians thread a few of us are of a mathematical leaning as well as music, I think all music is basically maths and ratios but I think this is probably the opposite of people who see it as an art!

"Each parent decides"

That's a bit romantic though e.g. if parent A decides on 11+ tutoring then parent B may feel they have no choice but to do the same.

Perhaps it depends on people's economic status, but it was the 2007/2008 financial crisis when my DD started primary school and there was a lot of anxiety in the air here. We actually had a choice(!) of one faith or one non-faith school. The schools were similar, but as the third generation of my familiy with a piano in the house we picked the one which mentioned a long relationship with a very good peri and when DD started at the school we stuck her on a list for future lessons in Y2.

Y2 rolled around and some mothers genuinely ran to the school office when they saw DD in the playground with a music bag in her hands. Within two years nearly half her class were having piano lessons. It was a possible advantage and they didn't want their child to miss out and get left behind mine. A couple of those parents are just insanely competitive, but for most of them that anxiety about the future was the significant factor.

Unfair of me. Bilingualism does hinder!

Thank you everyone for the hand holding but it's unfair for me to despair as many of you are on the same boat. I marvel at the early risers that sit by a pool for hours. icould I do hope uni application is mostly indy but all I see is parents super involved. loose drumming shorts cool. DS is now drumming barefoot to strengthen his foot muscles!

Same here Fleur! Just had an expensive trip out for haircuts and school shoes. I think I won the bad mother award when it transpired DS2's trainers were 2 sizes too small. The school shoes were similar. Turns out he's been hobbling around because he hates shopping! DS1 on the other hand had a specific brand of shoes in mind and wore DH down into getting them for him!
He's also bought a pair of shorts to wear for drumming.

Back to school tomorrow here (and work) so I am trying to make it into a positive "you can see all your friends, and wear your new uniform items, and there is wind band tomorrow also". I hope it works.

Thank you for the aural advice, Dd does a couple of 10-15 min sessions with her teacher before the exam and it seems to be enough, but I became a bit worried this time and downloaded the app. I think helping her at home on top of the couple of sessions with her piano teacher will help.

Her piano teacher will also have to do both grade 3 and grade 5 examples as she refuses to do aural practice with her clarinet teacher. At least she's done grade 3 before, it will be just a quick refresher.

MrSlant At least I've discovered books again to help me avoid competitive swim parents

I really like what Janet Brown wrote: "Each parent decides which I like. I like a UK where parents have choice - some will do lots of tutoring or lots of music or else nothing out of school. Parents choose. We are all different." My only principle is if we want to try something then we shouldnt do half hearted.

Aural: grade 5 piano aural isnt as bad as sight reading or scales I remember. Mine couldnt sing and still managed ok. We didnt do any practice the last couple of days and this morning it felt apart. We decided to go to the riverside for a lunch and then a stroll, will try again tonight.

ha. imagine playing after no practice for 2 weeks (been away). at least dc3 happy to get back at it, but dc2 won't touch it till her lessons next week...
I don't mind the clorine in my hair, but my eyes get sore after sitting there for 2 hours

I am so very happy there is no choice where we live! The form for secondary school has one written on it

That’s our world except it had SATs. We’re in a grammar-free zone and if you have the money that quite nice private school is still quite a long daily journey. That said we did get (very discreet) tutoring kicking in towards the end of primary to help ensure top set places at secondary, and I'm told it's still happening now in DD's Y9.

Borrowing from someone else’s recent quite witty blog the acronym for my 13yo DD is FL, where L is for Lucky, and F is rude. She is some people’s yardstick, ‘the one to beat’ in a few areas, and if she didn’t exist then a few of our local parents might have been a bit more relaxed.

DD is really good at maths and has never done extra curriculum maths at home, but there is a lot of ‘extra’ in a school lesson because of faster speed. In music she’s a pianist, refused to touch another instrument sadly, and despite typical repertoire stuff for roughly nine months pf a typical year, her average weekly practice is around two hours.

Here the purpose of music was to be ‘good for her soul’, but I was outvoted on climbing the grade ladder and the next one on the horizon is 8. I’m not sure what will happen after that. If there are no difficulties, then it will be Y10 at that point and I’m assuming GCSEs will be annexing more of home-life. Ideally we’d still keep the lessons with a very good teacher just exploring repertoire for a while, but without any concern for chasing diplomas etc.

Uni visits - I'd forgotten about the jolly to the RNCM next month. DS expects me to go, apparently it's a thing now for parents to be in tow. I suspect that it's more to do with the ease of me delivering him to the door rather than him having to find his own way there from the station and I'm hoping that when he's done one visit I might get to bow out. I pointed out he had GPS and maps on his phone which I somehow managed without when I was his age but he still thought I was being totally unreasonable expecting him to find his own way from A to B.

Sixth form choices ....DS2 announced this week that he would like to consider specialist music school for sixth form!

Lots to think about there, but he's only Y9 so there is time.

JDs were also our plan for after his Choristership, but that plan seems to have altered with starting organ and seeing how that goes!

DD is Y12 so at the uni visiting stage, second DC to do this. Parental involvement involves facilitating visits up and down the country! And encouraging them to crack on with their personal statement over the summer.

(as an aside, I really like the fact that people are honest about their marks on here - I am on another website and you would think a simple pass or a fail is the end of the world and they should not be doing music AT ALL - despite actually enjoying it)

DD did not start doing theory until she was at Grade 4 practically. Then she had done enough key signatures etc to skip straight in at grade 4 theory learning level. She only did the Grade 5 theory exam and did better in that (126) than she did in playing (117). It is skewed towards pianists though.

As always when a thread touches on education I am so very happy there is no choice where we live! The form for secondary school has one written on it (although you can also write in yourself the one just over the county border) and it is an absolutely excellent school. Makes life so much easier. I don't think I know of any children being tutored because there is no pressure we don't have SATs either. From my experience they come into their intelligence level at different speeds and it all balances out eventually anyway (or that's what I tell myself, possibly I'm lazy!). I'm putting in the hours now though with the revision nagging, DS2 will only revise if I'm with him. At this rate I think I could get a better grade in chemistry than I did first time round . DS1 is applying for universities this year .

For all three of them sport is life, they achieve highly in their chosen sports (why couldn't they all have chosen the same one though, my evening timetable is a nightmare!) the youngest two are stupidly competitive. Which means I never have to force them to practice their music because as soon as one touches the piano the other gets his flute out and vice versa, long may this continue!

Did you all start yours on theory from the get go? I passed my grade 8 a million years ago so I don't have to do it now but I'm presuming they will need to get looking at it. Are there special lessons/teachers or will it be included in their lessons? I remember it not coming at all naturally to me and being such a slog to get grade 5. (The grade 8 was a moment of madness when my best friend and companion in all things musical at school needed it for her uni application and asked me to do it too so she had company, I believe I achieved exactly the pass mark, still gets you the certificate though )

Fleur.. they ask "can you describe the character?" pretty much as it is written in the aural practise test books.

"what gives this piece its character?" was about as far as they deviated for DD16.

If they are not responsive the examiner will give hints "did you notice anything with the dynamics?" for instance but lower the mark if there is not a response which expands substantially on their prompting - sometimes a little prompt like that will put them at ease and get them - kids especially - talking about the whole thing.

In DD16 case she has always found the examiners to be very friendly and willing to try to drag knowledge out rather than just leave them to stew over what is wanted. They are not specific on things like pedal or ornaments or stuff like that though.

Well we've just done the grade 5 aural training (with the app) she got the first one mainly correct, one slight mistake in the singing, the second one was disaster she only got the style and period right.

Does anybody know (only I'm looking at you as you are preparing your dd for it yourself) how are the questions formulated? So when they ask about the character do they ask something like "can you describe the character?" Or do they say "was there use of sustain pedal, where there ornaments?" I assume the first?

She seems ok with the period question which was my main worry, the singing from a stave part is a disaster, only getting 3-4 notes right!