April Music Thread

Meant to say, sorry.
If you click on courses, there's one for impro

I'm not sure if this is of interest to any of you.
There seems quite a bit going on to, if you look through the site.
We aren't going as dd not that into Piano and does much of this anyway.
I can thoroughly vouch for the experience though as some of dd friends have done it.
www.pianosummerschool.com/

Happy birthday to your dd violinandpiano!

Yes that's what I meant regarding professional performances, I meant I am yet to see a professional performer stopping and starting again in the middle of a performance. I do know they make mistakes but my amateur ears will not hear it due to their capability to keep going and even improvising till they find their place again.

Wow many DC involve lots of music activity. I cannot image how they can manage. My DD does everything slowly and slowly. She only has JD & NCO, but we think she has been very busy and cannot do any more. Today she is 9, hope she can manage her academic and music better and better.

Hello loose no, no plans for diploma, I don't even think that has crossed his mind... However, he may surprise us. I will not mention it!! Orchestral percussion (tuned, timpani, snare) will be at jd as of September. Drums will continue with present teacher, he took g8 last autumn and now they just work on getting better, probably considering a national level drums competition next year for the fun of it. Piano he's taking g8 in two months and will continue with present teacher with free pieces. Jazz piano also continues with present teacher for the love of it, no exams. Composition he's involved in an international project between two schools which I hope he can work on in the holidays mainly. So that's what the near future is looking like, exam free! I just wrote that then remembered jd will make him sit theory g6. Blimey.

Kutik

My dd loves her impro lesson and also does Jazz harmony.
It's totally different to classical and you need to learn scales in a completely different way, it's like starting again.
Then you learn the chords, their structure, and what fits with each scale when playing over changes.
Then you get to play transcriptions, which is great as you feel like you are actually playing jazz. The solo's are already there though, so it's not being inventive yet.
You are quite advanced before you begin to work out your own solo's.
Sometimes, it's better to use the existing solo that the artist used rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.
Improvised solo's are usually used for newer or original compositions where the audience isn't familiar with the solo.
I'm not an authority, have just listened to dh over the years, but will help anyone who has basic questions on Jazz.

I am sure they appreciated the courage.!

How cool! Improvisation is what DS is dying to learn alongside composition. We were told he would have access to the lesson once he passed g6 theory. He is motivated!

Violinists and pianists had to go through two rounds of auditions due to the high volume of the application. He was given the same sight-reading material at the second round. DS told the audition panel that he did this already at the first round,. They apologised and handed him another hard piece... Imagine, if DS hadn't told them and just played the same one, he would have played much much better as it was not his first time to have a go at it. He was too honest so suffered!!!

Yes, JD2 Kutik. He said he'd never seen such hard sight-reading. I think they may have been testing resilience and how they react to a challenging task? Like I said, he invented half of it on the spot which I guess showed improvisation skills!

drummers, I am guessing the JD who gave your DS a hard sight-reading is JD2? My DS said their's was much harder than JD1 and much much harder than NCO's. Luckily sight-reading is one of his strength so it was OK. But I was surprised such a difference in the level given between the JDs since both are equally respectable institutions.

In fact, a mistake free performance is a rare thing! DH hears them all, DS is now starting to match his dad. I hear them NOT
Who wants perfection anyway, right? I heard a child play a perfect Minute Waltz the other day, note perfect, but with little musicality and spirit...
Irvine yes, carrying on is the most important thing, also in sight-reading. DS was given a specially hard sight-reading task in a jd audition. He made up half of it but said it sounded very nice

I am yet to go to a professional concert and hear mistakes being made

Apparently they all make a mistake but we don't really notice - it's part of the skills belongs to professional performers. I bet some mistakes they make is such a tiny thing, it may even not be counted as a mistake for us normal people though.

Thank you, Fleurdelise and MrSlant.

Fleurdelise, it does make total sense. I think one thing my ds learned this time is to keep calm, and carry on. One big thing I am so grateful about this site is , before, he used to lose it if he made a mistakes, may have got into total meltdown if it was at the exam!

And now I will forget all about it, and just enjoy the result. Thank you!

I had one fudged bar in each of my pieces but didn't stop and got 24/26/26 for my pieces at grade 2. I'm sure they do get a bit stricter as the grades get higher but not too bad, I'm sure they are more on our side than they were when I first took exams about a million years ago.

There's a handy how we mark our exams section on ABRSM if that's the board your son took. I didn't obsessively look over it waiting for the results, oh no.

Irvine from my understanding you get better marks if you continue past the mistake and keep going correcting as you go than if you stop to correct the initial mistake. So imagine there is a performance at the Royal Albert Hall and the pianist makes a mistake but keeps going past it keeping up the rhythm and reverting to the correct notes as soon as possible you wouldn't even notice compared to the pianist stopping completely, pausing, finding his way and starting again. This is what the dc need to aim for in an exam too.

Obviously the example above is a huge stretch of imagination, I am yet to go to a professional concert and hear mistakes being made.

On the other hand, making a mistake in the middle of the piece and not recovering, playing the wrong notes all the way to the end would not be preferable, in the situation when they cannot recover from the mistake it is better to stop and pick it up again from where they stopped. At least that is what our teacher told us.

Great results, drummers and Miranda!

I have calmed down from last night's excitement, and have a newbie question please.

Ds said he definitely messed up on C piece, he jumped to the wrong key and played the part of it in total wrong notes.
Luckily, he managed to carry on as I passed on the advice I got here and not to stop playing.
He got 24 for that piece. I am sure the examiner must have been quite generous since it's only grade 1, but wondered how they grade these performances. So do you get better results if you carry on even you made a mistake, rather than stop and start over and play perfectly?

Drummers first prize! Wow! He is indeed very good!

I do leave it to the teacher generally but dd has this habit where she decides to something "should" sound in a way, practises that way and then no amount of teacher input will get her to correct it. She ends up playing a rhythm error for example the same way and we're stuck on a wheel of teacher asking her each lesson to correct it and dd not doing it. So from time to time when I see this happening I need to intervene and remind her.

So you know those writing a rhythm for some words part of ABRSM theory? Why can't some people (ie DS1) just do a 4/4 rhythm? Why does he HAVE TO write something silly like 6/4? Why? >

Well done to Miranda, Irvine and drummers for yesterday's fantastic news! it's hard to keep up with these great results!
Fleur I agree, leave it to the piano teacher! I have definitely been guilty of playing my own versions, so has DS2! He's been playing his A piece beautifully as long as it's the slower speed his teacher set him. Last night I heard him trying to play at twice that and all the old errors came straight back. Sigh!

Yay for Irvine and Miranda: fantastic results!

Drummers: Many congratulations to your son, why I am not surprised though after reading here how hard he works and listen to his playing. And the 1st prize tonight, wow!!

Kitaro was great tonight, we heard Matsuri and many others in Kojiki, it was a small and modest concert though, Kitaro looks well.

Mine will be back home tomorrow, I miss her already, so looking forward to this long weekend as its also my birthday weekend!(25 minus few less days compare to you Drummers)

It's lovely to hear of such wonderful results, you all should be really proud of them.

drummers, likewise your ds. I'm sure they will meet sometime soon.
Mine is just a bit young for the national jazz ensembles and bands.
She looked at summer schools for Jazz too, and the ones that were any good were over 14, she's still 13.
I was secretly happy as want her all to ourselves in the holidays

Congrats to Drummers, Miranda's and Irvine's dc. Great results.

Waffle, with ABRSM aural, it's not just the singing back the melody that gets to DD2, it's the sight singing as well. It terrifies her, especially the thought of doing it with a stranger. The change to Trinity was her teacher's idea to deal with it.

Wow a thread of amazing results, congratulations everyone, how fantastic and for every good grade for a child massive pat on the back for the parents who get them to lessons and make them practice.

My gang have had a week off doing music as they've been with their dad but fortunately that means DS2 is hungry for the piano, DS3 on the other hand is a massive drama queen every time I ask him to play. Ah, the joys! At least I got to frame our certificates and put them up on the wall then force everyone passing to look at them .