September Music Thread

kutik thanks for that - the cello teachers at the Guildhall are the big draw for her - the head of strings there taught her teacher and she has done various masterclasses etc with some of them. Having said that I think she is more of a keyboard player and I don't know anything about the keyboard dept at Guildhall except that the organ teachers are affiliated to the RCO and so ought to be really good.

fleur well done mini, I bet it was better than you're worrying. Safe trip home!
waffle well done to all of you- Goo for all the big braves this week, rara for sticking with it on the new clarinet and you for the new band, how slightly random but fabulous! It will do Goos struggling self confidence good to be the best, I think. She's got lots of opportunities to be stretched and worked hard, perhaps school orchestra can be a chance to nurture others & feel at ease and good? My girl is the youngest in her school orchestra but is the highest standard and their music teacher says she can always count on when to help when others are stuck with their parts etc.

Start of term isn't going brilliantly here, DD is being picked on a bit so a little miserable. She's often a bit more miserable the first week back as none of the clubs start til this week and that makes a big difference for her. She's also a bit unimpressed as they have to start class recorder lessons tomorrow. She's about g2 standard on that so isn't looking forward to lessons with a class of total beginners to recorder and reading music.

Well done to miniFleur! She is a star! And well done to Goo too. She is also a star!!

londonmummy, interesting your DD doesn't like going to RAM. We visited three JDs in London and somehow DS didn't like RAM and decided not to apply (he liked other two). He has a good friend there, and his friend really wanted DS to come. But DS said 'no'. It's obvious RAM is a great place to study music, so I think it's purely personal preference.

If your DD's instrument is cello, it may be worth visiting Guildhall. The head of String is a cellist, and they seem to have a good string department. Sorry I don't know anything about Trinity other than its stunning building/location.

As Trumpet said, I think best thing you can do is to visit all the places in your mind. DS set his heart on one place pretty much from the very beginning of our research, yet I made sure to look other alternatives. In the end he decided to go to his first choice, but it was good to have options. The other option was unexpectedly nice and we ended up handing our acceptance form on the last day of the deadline as couldn't make our mind up till the very end!

"Tiger", my children are younger, but I would leave it a while and let your DD settle in. Maybe also she is missing what she left behind, but it is easier to talk about what she doesn't like. Probably important to talk to the Head of Music, and if your DD has a music scholarship, it is in their interest, surely, to engage.

Fleur I'm sure it will be fine. Waffle I'm glad Goo is enjoying music at school. DS's school is very musical and even though he's only in year 8 he's still one of the better players- though not the best trumpet player which is good for him ! They are performing West Side Story soon with a pupil orchestra- that will be very challenging and will mean LOTS of rehearsals in the coming weeks.

Fleur sounds horribly stressful. Hopefully you will get a bit of time to chill out on your business trip. I find work travel quite relaxing - no cooking and no teenagers!

We have had an incredibly easy start to term. No mad teachers this year as far as I can tell (we had the useless literature teacher in Y11 and the psychotic biology teacher last year). DD has decided to take music as an option as well as Latin which means she now has 38.5 hours of lessons a week. I always find it odd that in a country so wedded to the 35 hour working week, no one bats an eyelid at bonkers timetables for teenagers. It's a good thing that DD seems happy with her subjects/ teachers this year.

Guitar classes have started and piano starts Friday. Not sure what DD will be working on/ towards in piano - she did a couple of three part inventions as summer homework (found them easy which surprised me) but the Chopin etude she chose was declared too hard/ too repetitive. No exams this year but it is possible she will do the competition that got abandoned last year due to a school trip.

Fleur I would have thought that the work trip has a high chance of being more relaxing than your domestic life of late. It's been one thing after another, what with GCSEs running into entry tests. Pack your bag and put your feet up in a hotel room somewhere.

Well done to your DD Fleurdelise

We've now officially finished the secondary school selection process (unless she's called back for an audition but after the feedback I am not sure).

Dd said the MAT went well and then she started to give me details and all I could think was "oh no, oh no, oh no!!!"

Anyway time to relax (after I return from a work trip, I am setting off tonight).

Thanks - she loves the cello department at Guildhall but also loves the architecture and location of Trinity - hmmm.

She wants to go to a Conservatoire when she leaves school so I guess the better the JD the better the chance of that.

I think you really just need to go and have a look all probably have different atmospheres also I guess it would depend if you were looking for a particular teacher ?

Hello

Not sure if this is the right place to ask this question but does anyone have a view between the London Saturday schools? DD has Grade 8 on cello and piano and also sings a bit. She didn't like JRAM (probably influenced by the fact someone she really dislikes goes there and does the same instruments as her so likely to be put together a bit) - how do the others compare - RCM/Trinity/Guildhall/CYM - anyone have any information they can share?

I found a smart black shirt for DS which he needs for jd ensembles and it was so difficult! He's between teen and adult and everywhere the teens were too small and the adult smalls were too big. I was about to give up - I dread shopping malls - when I walked into a men's clothing chain and found a very smart tailored xs. Only one left. Phew. #thethingswehavetodo

Thanks everyone. She's spoken to her House Mistress whose going to set up a meeting with Head of Music and go along with her. So far she's only picked up there's choir and orchestra and she was under the impression there was much more. If there isn't, hopefully they'll listen to her hopes/aims and see if they fit in with the school.

There's a Scholars Concert on Sunday, so that's something. We do need a few more days, but if a decision is left too long and she comes back, she'll have a large volume of A level work to catch up, as well as doing choir, orchestra, senior strings, folk group, rehearsing for some solo in Xmas Concert (a large event), as well as music lessons and practice.

Thanks for your replies. I'm not musical at all, she's totally driven and will probably work it out for herself, but it's good to have support as a parent.

Tigerblue how many weeks has she been there? Probably not many. It takes a while to settle into something new and she's probably not given it a fair chance yet. I'd review at half term, in the meantime I'd be looking at what you are contractually committed to and what notice period you would have to give to withdraw.

Conservatoires make their own mind up at audition, I can't see that having/not having a music scholarship will in itself make any difference. What will make a difference is how much playing she gets under her belt in the next year and it is just a year This time next year she would be weeks away from competing her application with auditions in October/November.

Tiger, moving to a new school and especially for music scholar, there must be lots of changes. You will save loads from free school music lesson and hire the best out of school hour as extra if its needed. We are paying loads for music lesson now as mine is still young (9yrs old). I hope one day when she has done her grades and she is older, she could travel to weekend music centre, music teacher places for lessons. So basically, taking music lessons from school(and yours are free) and build her musician ship via weekend classes, music centre etc.

tiger it usually takes a while. My DS is a music scholar and it wasn't a "jump in" from day 1. The music department may have plans for her they haven't shared or made public yet. They may have a scholar's concert coming up? Most schools have it. In terms of diploma, there's no reason why her teacher wouldn't be able to take her there even if it's the first time. Not a lot of students go for diplomas anyway so nor all teachers manage to get that experience. Checking out the county orchestras as others have said it's a good idea.

prada how did the scholar's concert go? DS has just told me that the year11 don't get to participate as otherwise it runs too long. It makes sense to want to lighten their year but I will be sorry to miss it after all these years as I like getting to know the new ones and it's also the perfect excuse to meet some of my friends (the parents of the other musicians have become friends over the years)

Tiger - yes time if she can beat it; maybe agree to review at half term? Not so far away for private schools. Also has she looked at youth orchestras by school? Lots of boarders (assume she is from what you say?) go to local youth orchestras (often children from the specialist schools do too). Also presuming she gets free music lessons (?) you could always use the money to have lessons with a JD teacher or other outside school? Really hope it works out.

Tiger I think your advice about giving it a bit of time and talking to school about it seems like a sensible place to start. It often takes a couple of weeks for everything to get up and running as well so a bit more time should enable your dd to really see what's what . If she does come home then maybe contact your county music service to see if they have any orchestras ( if she wasn't already a member) or if they know of any other local orchestras that she could join. Does your county have an auditioned youth orchestra? Lots do . She's a bit older so local amateur adult orchestras might also be interested. Pro corda courses in the holidays might also be worth a look and I think there are grants available for these

Can anyone give me some advice.

DD has just taken up a Sixth form scholarship for music. She's Grade 8 violin with distinction (after five years). She's self taught on piano for approx two years but after she got the scholarship for violin and piano we paid for 10 lessons at school and piano teacher reckoned she's at Grade 6.

Starting Sixth Form DD has had a few wobbles with I guess is homesickness and things not as she first thought - she's had okay days, but we've had a couple of really bad days. Putting those aside she feels she'd get more music experience and clubs staying at her old school. We've told her she must speak to music department, see what they have in mind for her or what she could start up. Her old violin teacher has never taken anyone through a diploma before, and she's just found out her new one hasn't either, but both are willing to aim for that and music theory.

A scholarship would be a great thing to have on any application to a Conservatoire/University, but that's not a reason to stay where she seems unhappy. I'm hoping things settle as it's a lovely school and I think she could be happy there.

However, if she does come, her present violin teacher will certainly get her through music theory and is happy to do the diploma with her. What else could we do to support her? A weekend conservatoire is out of the question as I work and need the car. She could probably travel nearby for orchestras etc. Long term she'd love to perform, but is realistic and is interested in teaching violin or even becoming a school music teacher.

Financially we haven't got loads of money (we've got a bursary) so it's a case of doing the best we can in our circumstances.

Impressed with the string changing!

green perfect Nice fridge.
kutik multi-talented woman.

Wooow, I just changed a string by myself! It's actually quite simple but so scary at the same time as I constantly worried I was screwing it up. I could take it to a violin shop like I did last time. But I thought it would be handy if I could do it - you never know when a string breaks and it usually happens at the worst moment (before performance, exams, auditions...). It was not all smooth at the first attempt, but hopefully I get better at it...