September Music Thread

"Do you enjoy playing the piano?"
"Yes, and I also enjoy playing the clarinet."

"Are you looking forward to starting secondary school?"
"Yes, as a clarinet player, I'm especially looking forward to joining the orchestra and wind band."

"Thank you for playing your piece for us."
"It was a pleasure. I found it difficult to decide whether to play the piano or the clarinet today, as I enjoy both."

50 is really impressive. Well done to your DD Fleur

Well done minifleir

Green - amnaure she will enjoy the audition 😀

Oh Fleur, what a roller coaster for you, I am so happy to hear that its now confirmed, fingers crossed for next week and then result.

We had a good trial lesson with our new violin teacher. She said we should go for the NCO audition. I am booking time off, its in nearly 2 weeks time. We wont have an accompanist as we do really go for an experience(and more because I have paid £20). Our new teacher (as always) says that its good for her to correct bow holding/fingerings in the mean time and for her to get to know my daughter playing better if she plays things she is familiar. After these couple if weeks then we will sit down to plan for this year.

Thank you all! We can now relax for a bit till Tuesday. Then stress until the 16th October when results are out. I am sure her teacher will spend extra time with her to work on her piece, I am sick of it but hey, it has improved massively since her exam, if only she would have played it like that in her exam.

And I need to drill into her that she needs to mention clarinet also, when the talk to her. Don't care if there is a context or not she needs to say the words "I also play the clarinet"

Fleur I logged in just to see if you'd had any news so congratulations. It must be so difficult when they really need a slap but you have to smile sweetly as you might be starting off school life on the wrong foot. Reading all the angst here I am glad that we are in an area where selection on merit is totally against the rules.

I echo Loose!

Good luck to Minifleur and minikutik - I'm sure they'll do well!

Thanks Waffle there will be so many pianists there that she really needs to be exceptional to do well but I am proud that out of what is probably close to a thousand kids she made it to stage 2.

She can definitely now get into her brother's school (her first choice) on her merit, not on sibling rules.

Oh and the piano teacher texted me to tell me the results were out again I managed to stress her as well in the last few days.

Kutik good luck I am sure he'll do great, he sounds like an all rounder which they'll love.

And the results are out...again. Same as before, Dd is at stage 2 with an audition on Tuesday but they lowered the mass mark as there are a few more places, two schools increased their PAN. So she smashed it even better now with a score of 50 and a pass mark of 43 (previously 45-46).

Celebrating tonight properly by going to the Purcell concert.

Just received an invitation to an interview at a private secondary... So, DS has a test for state secondary this Saturday, an interview at private secondary next Wednesday, and an audition for a music place at state secondary next Friday. Oh and the NCO audition for the following week. Audition pieces are still undecided, and no interview practice has ever been taken place. I thought the interview would be in November (they said so previously). Totally, utterly, under preparation. DS is fine as always - he has probably no clue how important they are. I, on the other hand, am speechlessly panicking.

Alex , I am so sorry to hear your news, look after yourself.

Dd had her first bassoon lesson back, her teacher has suggested she do grade 1 this term and grade 2 next term. Is there any point to this? I rather think it may be so that the other child in her lesson gets an experience of an exam. Having persuaded her that we don't have to do all grades, dd is now quite excited by doing grade 1! I will have a better chance to chat to her teacher next week.

Kutik: thanks for explaining to me.

I am keeping my fingers crossed for both miniKutik and miniFleur for this weekend and next week!

Thanks - this is really helpful. We'll go with RH and hope he gets on ok.

We had this dilemma with dd2 Jed and researched it quite a bit... basically we were very strongly advised not to restring a beginners guitar due to tensioning and string sizes ending up all wrong, we asked a few places and all said the same. She is fine with the right handed action now.

JedBartlet As your DS is not very left handed I would probably see if he can get used to a RH guitar. My DS who has started guitar recently is not well lateralised - right handed for writing, but he is left-footed, eats left-handed and favours his left hand for other tasks too. He plays the guitar right-handed without a problem. I'm not sure that it ever occurred to him to play left handed, because we have a house full of right handed guitars - but either way it doesn't seem to be a problem for him.

Yes MAT is indeed a bit of a lottery at the margins. The ones who get through clearly have a musical aptitude but lots who have musical aptitude won't. Saying that life is a big lottery at the margins including universities, Oxbridge, jobs, etc. I feel for you going through it and glad that little part of the educational journey is behind me!

Herts by your user name you are close by but not exactly neighbours. I think choosing just by MAT is such a lottery. We have a huge amount of kids sitting the test here too, I think it is app 1,000 for 10% of places at a handful of schools so I understand why they are using the MAT initially and then they audition only a few. I never know how many go to the audition stage.

Still no news, the website has been taken down yesterday and since then it is offline. I find the whole process really disappointing, they said in their email they'll release the result by Thursday (tomorrow) for audition slots starting on Monday, which basically means that there are kids who are practising like crazy and feeling stressed in the hope that the results were correct (like mine who wants to continually play her piece) and kids who are also practising like crazy hoping the results were wrong when they said they failed, like one of dd's class mates who apparently is waiting for the new results being released.

In all honesty they sound correct, talking to the people around the kids who I expected to get to the second stage did and the ones that I kind of knew had no chance didn't, I'd be shocked if the results change but it is torture.

They expect us to book work time off and school time off for auditions in one day.

Have never ventured onto this thread before as I am not remotely musical and don't have a particularly musical family! However, DS is keen to take up guitar lessons. He has started trying both acoustic and bass guitar in school music lessons but there is no option for music lessons through the school so I am looking privately.

Here's my dilemma - DS is ambidextrous - he writes with his right hand (although can write fairly well with his left hand too) and uses a knife and fork like right handed people (although this could be social conditioning!), but does most other things with his left hand - including using scissors, using a tennis racquet, 10 pin bowling etc... We have always just left him to go with whatever is most comfortable for a particular activity. When he first picked up a guitar at school he automatically went left-handed but the school doesn't have any left-handed guitars so have told him he will have to play right handed in class.

We will have to buy him a cheap guitar to get him started in lessons - do I go with left-handed, or get him to force right-handed. He could probably do ok with right handed, but left would be more comfortable. I'm thinking that playing right handed would be more useful as he'd be able to pick up any guitar in the future.

Any thoughts?

To be honest, I don't think DS will get a sport scholarship. I'm amazed how much he's managed to achieve with such minimum effort. But I always knew sooner or later he would meet his limit if he kept relying on his raw talent only. And at 10, it's started showing. Favour of raw talent only works at young age. After then you need more than what God gave you.

Alex so sorry to hear your news, you may remember I lost by mum in 2015 and dad last year so if you want an absorbent shoulder and listening ear, please do PM me

Green, I remember you were thinking of private education for your DD. Maybe that's why you don't know these things. MAT and test and auditions I'm talking about are all for state schools. DS is taking a test this Sat, then his first music audition is next Friday. There will be more auditions/tests in October as we are thinking to apply for three schools with music places (but still not sure as I haven't seen the school yet). Can't think of preparing for 11+ exams/auditions at private schools until those for state options are over...

se22, yes, we are going to apply for a music scholarship at two private schools. I think at least one of them offers a combined scholarships which will reduce the fee more than just one scholarship. But we won't go for it as it only makes already busy DS even busier. We've experienced enough of the hardship of balancing sports and music. Just yesterday, DS was asked to take part in a sport event, and if he manages to get through the first part, the second part is taken place on Saturday. So he had to turn it down as he knew JD wouldn't allow him to miss their lessons for a sport event. Anyway, it would be nice to be successful at private entries, but still our first choice is a nice state secondary due to the financial reasons! So, the whole drama around MAT is a serious heart-ache for me.