(Mostly) August Music Thread

I think dd1 is 'musical', at about 4/5, her lalalaing in a campsite toilet caused a fellow camper who was a music teacher to stop their shower to come out and see who was singing and as soon as she encountered communal singing through hymns at school she pestered for printouts to sing at home. Her instrument came easily to her but I didn't start her early enough or push her at all really practice so now she's not at a very high grade for a string instrument but she gets a lot out of it. One thing I am good at is rooting out cheap or heavily funded courses and opportunities and now she has a wonderful life and education as a chorister and second study instrumentalist at specialist music school. My point about believing that people are potentially innately 'musical' is that i do think that her school that receives so much funding from the government should do massively more outreach work to actively seek out musical children who don't have such focused involved parents. The amount of money required to get a child to even audition level is eye watering.

Read about Laszlo Polgar's experiment. He's the father of the Polgar sisters, the best female chess players in history. He believed he could create genius, married someone who agreed and had the three daughters with that purpose:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r

Oh god tennis table. I meant table tennis.

Perhaps we use the description "musical" in different ways. I note that I described my DS3 back a few pages as being "musical" . We don't all have the same amount of natural ability.

I guess I would use it to describe him as I know he can play expressively and really feel the emotion in music. The fact is that he doesn't want to spend hours practising to progress through exam grades. My DH, however, I firmly believe that if he practised loads would still not achieve either accuracy or emotion. He simply cannot count beats in a bar or pitch a note or hear different pitches. So I would say he is not musical.

Sorry if I have irritated anyone by saying that I think DS3 is musical. It's probably because I am not musical!

foundout

mistigiri I agree, some people have inclinations, abilities... But as Orson Wells put it, it's 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration.

loose it may be so, but if you had been put on a tennis court age 5 like some champions and given nothing but that, every free hour of your growing up, you cannot even start to imagine what tennis you would play now. OK, you may not win Wimbledon, but... Pity for your students now, they would not have amazing you!

Gilly it was the book "Bounce" by tennis table Olympic champion Matthew Syed. DS read that book and it had a big impact on him.

It's not just about hard work though. DD has a natural aptitude for certain subjects at school. She finds stuff easy that others find hard (especially languages and writing). She works, but not as hard as most of her friends.

Similar with music: she does work, but not as hard as she might, or as hard as you would think given her rate of progress.

I think it's important to teach the value of work, but at the same time, children with an aptitude, whether for schoolwork or for music or for anything else, need to understand that they are also lucky ... that they have a "gift", not in the sense of talent, but in the sense that they were given something precious that is not given to everyone.

I totally agree with Misti! I guess the moments I find "musicality" annoying is when it comes from parents that don't see the connection between the two: musicality (I call it inclination) and hard work. You can be a person who has an innate ability to make music by singing and playing instruments, if there's no nurture, opportunity and a lot of hard work you'll never know.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have sleepless nights when people don't recognise dd's hard work, it just annoys me more after a period of hard(er) work when ppl honestly think dd has woken up like that lol.

Like that time when after ds got into a school based on academic ability (a school 3 miles away so no way on catchment) somebody with kids the same age made a flippant comment as her dcs didn't get in "oh I don't know how you get into X school, I think you need to be recommended by your primary school or something". Like she was trying to find a "fault" and minimise DS's hard work just to make herself feel better.

[wouldn't put my hopes up, that was referring to me not drummersmum obviously)

Very true, Mistigri!
By the way, I could have stood on a tennis court practising all day every day for my whole youth and I'd still be an uncoordinated mess! (maybe not as uncoordinated, though!)

I agree with every word of Misti

What was that quote about needing x amount of hours of practice.
Was it 15,000 or something.
I can't remember the musician who quoted it now.

The musical talent thing is complex I think: a self-reinforcing mixture of aptitute, motivation and work. The best musicians I know do of course work hard at their music, but that does not mean that anyone who worked equally hard could be equally good.

DD is clearly "musical" by any sensible definition of the word, but it wasn't at all obvious until she was 12 - and she did learn an instrument from age 5 (stopped at 10 due to lack of interest). Before she started teaching herself guitar 4 years ago, I genuinely would never have thought of her as "musical" - in fact, I never expected her to play an instrument again in her life. So "musicality" is innate, but it requires the right combination of circumstances to express itself.

Well, I think it's a bit of both, hard practice and natural talent. And parents willing to support. I am all in favour of children doing music, arts and sport at school (rather than just maths and English). Even if they don't have instruments at home as it may be all that they get to play, and actually really enjoy it. Same with sports, and science etc etc.

But not sure I agree with Drummersmum: "Or how i could look if i went to the gym everyday". Hm, I wouldn't put my hopes up. Sometimes it is really a case of lost cause.

My dd gets really offended by the innate talent comments.
Her dad is a world renowned player and recognised famously in his little niche.
The amount of people who comment she must be good because of who her dad is.
I can see it really upsets her, it's as though all her hard work amounts to nothing.
It's even worse if they ask about any other children as ds1 and ds2 chose not to take up music. We encouraged them the same as dd, but they were sporty and not into playing themselves.
They do enjoy music and did have ability had they chosen to continue.
People ask if they are musical, I reply well yes, but they don't play any instruments.
They do have a wide variety of interest in most genre's of music though and will enjoy the good standard rather than rubbish, so they took this from a home environment with lots of music played.

I'm not bothered if someone says my kids are musical if they mean they enjoy music. I would wonder about the slightly more nuanced comments that I think Fleur has been getting from people,who don't appreciate how hard MiniFleur works. I agree practise is the major difference in most cases - I've had people express surprise that my dcs have got as far as they have because their child hasn't. My dcs would be even further along if they practised more! I was really lucky when DS2 started learning piano to talk to a friend whose son also learned. I was amazed how fast he was progressing and she explained the great secret - you guessed it, she sat in on lessons, reinforced what the teacher said at home and he practised! And of course as he got better he got more motivated - something I've noticed with DS2. I do have lovely friends who would support their DS to the hilt if he wanted to pursue music but he just doesn't want to - so it does work the other way as well! They support his sporting activities instead but they certainly don't claim one is better than the other.

drummers

Of course the "inborn talent" thing is so limiting - if it's all about talent, and I don't have the talent because I couldn't play The bloody Lark Ascending after 2 lessons, then I might as well give up. It's all that growth mindset thing, isn't it? (Or gross mindset, as someone's DC said ... )

A friend of mine is tutoring her bright dd for 11+, she is also doing music and practising so all good. Her mother in law told her she's lucky to have had such a bright, musical child born to her as she'll definitely succeed in life.

My friend was So I could have done it without all these money spent of music lessons and tutors as she was obviously born this way? (She obviously knows that she's lucky her dd hasn't got any SEN but hearing from her MIL her dd was born musical and able wasn't a great compliment to her, was it?)

We humans would like to think that talent is divinely breathed into some of us at birth. Who wants to hear about the hours Nadal had to serve balls whe he was a child. Or the hours Benedetti spent on her vibrato. Or how i could look if i went to the gym everyday. Nobody

Greenleave DS2 is 15, about to go into Y11.

I can see why some people get annoyed by musical/non-musical or alike comments. But personally I don't mind as those comments barely carry any meaning. Some just say it for the sake to make a comment or some purely want to compliment and so on. No one think deeply before saying it.

Everybody has sensitive spots where no one see it as a big deal. So I'm sure we all make some lighthearted comments without knowing the effect of the words. But that's alright as it's impossible to be able to see the world in other's shoes at all time. There are million people and million values, so showing understanding gesture or trying not to see things without any fixed idea would be very much appreciated. But, usually I try not to take things personally and take any compliment, no matter they really meant it, take as a compliment.

Having said that, I'm sure occasionally a naive comment can hit straight into the sensitive spot, and even though I know I shouldn't take it personally I need moaning and groaning for a moment. But that's also alright as I know I can move on after a bit of suffering!

Thanks for the encouragement trumpet hopefully we'll have something ready by then.

Dd had a sleepover last weekend at our place with a friend from school. Said friend was itching to play the piano and showed us what an aunt of her taught her which were the first few notes of Fur Elise. One finger at a time and all. Dd then played for her what she could remember from Fur Elise and started teaching her, all fingers playing, we had an hour of first few notes of it on and on and on, felt like chucking the bloody piano out the window.

When I asked her if she wanted to learn properly with a teacher she said yes but her parents (who do have the means as she does lots of other stuff) said they need to see a proper interest first. How?! Are they expecting her to wake up one morning and play the piano (at school presumably as no piano at home)? Kids like this are the ones who could really enjoy and enrich their lives with music, she woke up the next day had another go at the piano bless her.

Drummers well said 😀It's not for everyone but I always think it's a shame when people right off music saying that children aren't musical without giving them a chance. Music ( and dd's musical theatre) totally takes over our lives at times but I wouldn't have it any other way. It's great to see them enjoying something so much, I've made loads of different friends who are in the same boat as me and we've found new interests to share as a family as a result of their passions.
Fleur I definitely think your dd should try for nco , I think under 12 's trumpet grades were 6-8 and he had only taken grade 5 but the comments in the feedback were all about his musicality not how difficult the pieces were .

Waffle you are amazing, thank you from the bottom of my heart for recording and sending them over, I'll listen to them tonight with dd as yesterday we just looked at them and decided the Paul Harris must sound intresting without a clue how any pieces may sound. Thank you!

Glad to hear I'm not the only one finding the "musical" comment (or indeed science or another passion) annoying.

I bumped into a mother at dd's school who stated dd must be so musical after seeing my bragging post on FB on her passing grade 5 piano and 3 clarinet. I replied with my usual "she does work hard bless her, there were times when she could hear her friends playing outside our house in their back garden but she was practising for her exam" and she felt the need to contradict me by stating her DS had 3 months of guitar lessons and there isn't a musical bone in his body therefore he gave it up, my dd must be a natural. I translated that as he couldn't be bothered to practice, fair enough, give it up but don't deny the effort my dd puts in all her music practice.

Another mother of a friend of dd's asked me about piano lessons for her DS. I recommended our teacher and then explained the benefit of attending lessons with the DS herself so she can see what is expected as he was only 6, getting a second hand digital piano to practice at home etc. Her reply was she wouldn't attend lessons as she wouldn't understand anyway as she's not musical and wouldn't yet buy an instrument as she has a toy organ, once he shows an interest she'll think about it. Needless to say said child gave up 2 months later as he wasn't musical and there was no progress. How she discovered that is beyond me, a child at the age of 6 not practising as he didn't have the right instrument and wasn't encouraged to practice as the parents didn't know he had to.