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Extra-curricular activities

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Original poster

April Music Thread

970 replies

Wafflenose · 31/03/2017 13:38

We've managed to fill up the March thread, so I give you April's, around 10 hours early. Don't use it all up at once!

The music threads are for learners of ALL ages and stages, including beginners and adult learners.

My kids Goo (11) and Rara (8) break up from school today, thank goodness. Rara is off sick at the moment, in any case, but they both need a break. They did their music exams this week. Goo got a distinction for her Grade 7 Flute, and we are awaiting the results of Rara's Grade 1 Clarinet, plus a couple of my pupils. They will probably come on my birthday - the ABRSM ones often do.

Next term, we have a big community concert at the local high school - all the feeder schools take part. Goo could do Grade 7 Recorder and/ or Grade 4 Piano, but I don't think she wants to. Rara is doing Grade 3 Cello. My Year 6 Recorders have been asked to play in the local Festival gala concert, and I'm sure there will be primary school leavers' performances too.

OP posts:
onlymusic · 10/04/2017 18:32

Oh! Well done me! I managed to be uptodate with this thread so far! And btw, it is 10th April and 445 messages already :)

onlymusic · 10/04/2017 18:29

Massive congratulation to Rara with her results, but I am not at all surprised Waffle as I remember you were saying how naturally and effortlesssly she started her clarinet (was it a clarinet?)

onlymusic · 10/04/2017 18:25

Witchend, congatulations to your mini 💥

Another fan of Bath here, saying that last time I was going to take my dc there we had a car accident, very luckily no one suffered but I had to buy a new car as mine could not be repaired.
So we didn't get there, still on my plans... Children have never been in Bath...

Well done to mini found 🎈

onlymusic · 10/04/2017 18:17

Green, your new violin teacher sounds good! Mery Poppins type ;)

onlymusic · 10/04/2017 18:15

Kutik, I am with you. Can never find time for practicing during holidays. Too busy 😂

onlymusic · 10/04/2017 17:55

We are off practicing for the third week now. First week I let her off the lesson after the exam, last week teacher was too busy with his pro work and cancelled the lessons, this week she got ill and I need to cancel her lesson again 👿 Ds6 says to his sister-you are so lucky (as he still needs practicing 🎻🎶)

onlymusic · 10/04/2017 17:48

Trying to catch up again....
Fleur, your dd's piano teacher still sounds fantastic even though I am in love with our Russian teacher now :)). What a fantastic plan for practicing...
Talking about practicing time, when I took my ds for an 'audition' to an English teacher, and asked about potential possibility of moving my dd to her too, teacher said, yes, but at this age and level she has to practice not for 20 mins but for about an hour (no idea why she was talking about 20 mins). I was literally laughing - dd never practiced for 20 mins, even when younger, not to mention now when it is so much to play. This English teacher is positioned as a teacher for musically gifted children. So this is an expectation of practicing time in our area :))

Totally agreed with Helenluvsrob about exams, I have heard the same-better to have three As than four but some Bs. And yes, they say Art is ridiculously time consuming and virtually impossible to get A.

Trumpetboysmum · 10/04/2017 17:45

Great news on the results waffle . Hopefully they are having a great time on the nco course ds was very excited when we dropped him off yesterday

stringchild · 10/04/2017 17:36

well done for all the results - everyone did brilliantly :)

Original poster
Wafflenose · 10/04/2017 11:13

Ooh, well done Witchend and foundout... as you can tell, I've only just read the thread properly!

OP posts:
LooseAtTheSeams · 10/04/2017 11:12

Fabulous news on exam results! Well done everyone! CakeWineStarStarStar as appropriate!

ealingwestmum · 10/04/2017 11:05

And I missed foundoutyet from this morning's news StarStar

se22mother · 10/04/2017 11:04

Congratulations waffle and Rara

Fleurdelise · 10/04/2017 10:47

Well done Rara and BFF and Waffle for preparing them.

ealingwestmum · 10/04/2017 10:33

That's a lovely confidence boost for you waffle, and we'll done to Rara for storming her G1!

Doubleup · 10/04/2017 10:02

Well done Waffle and Rara!

Original poster
Wafflenose · 10/04/2017 09:48

My two don't do 2 hours a day between them! Goo is away with NCO this week though, and will be doing around 6 hours a day of orchestral playing. She tends to sound pretty good when she gets home... shame she doesn't keep it up, really!

Anyway, I have fab news... despite various blunders on the day, Rara got a distinction for her Grade 1 Clarinet exam! Her BFF (who's a lovely, solid player and has been learning for 8 months longer) got the exact same mark. My wobbly Grade 3 Flute actually flew through with ease, so I'm really happy. I had been feeling like I'm losing my flair, and wondering why I tend to lose pupils during the middle grades (life, I guess) and why I hadn't been able to motivate this one and get her safely over the pass mark. Turns out that I had.

OP posts:
Fleurdelise · 10/04/2017 09:19

Well done witchend and foundout! Time to celebrate now.

I remember when dd was around grade 1-2 and I was reading on this thread of dcs doing 2+ hours a day music practice and I used to think dd will never get to that amount or be so motivated to do it. She was doing a max of 20 min/half an hour and I didn't want to add another instrument at that point as I couldn't see where we would fit the time to practice.

Somehow though the time has increased slowly without realising and we found the time to do what we had to do. Dd doesn't actually realise how much time it takes her to practice, if I tell her she's doing 2 hours a day she'd be shocked. In fact she told her piano teacher she's doing around half an hour practice Grin and I had to correct her as she doesn't practice time wise but task related so she doesn't clock on how long it takes her to achieve something.

Doubleup · 10/04/2017 09:18

And congrats to miniFoundout!

Doubleup · 10/04/2017 09:16

Congrats to miniWitchend! Hoping for results sometime this week, but depends if the music centre is open and then results have to go through DDs teacher. She did an exam through school in early Dec and it took 5 or 6 weeks to get the result with school holidays and ABRSM's office move.

foundoutyet · 10/04/2017 09:10

well, dc2 who practices 2 hours a week, with a lot of nagging managed to pass her piano exam with a merit. She was pleased as she thought she had failed

Kutik73 · 10/04/2017 09:07

We once considered moving to Bath and did house hunting there. The layout of the houses were quite unique due to the hilly landscape. We decided to stay in London in the end. But I love the place - it's so beautiful.

ealingwestmum · 10/04/2017 08:46

That was music practice!

ealingwestmum · 10/04/2017 08:45

Fantastic news witchend!

Lovely weekend had in Bath before dropping DD off to a sports camp for the week. But I did manage to get 2 hours daily practice last week to make up for this one...

Wondering if Bath is as lovely to live as it is to visit...been in the past but fallen in love this time, must be my age Grin

Greenleave · 10/04/2017 08:45

Wonderful news witchend!!!

The strops mainly come from the fact that she is on the Ortho-K and she determines to put them in herself. She managed to mix up between the left and right then on Sunday they were red, today the right eye is still very red so we are watching it very cautiously. Everything else comes second to us now.

Have a lovely week everyone!