October Music Thread

Green, that is funny! Micro managing a family is fraught with hiccups. And even a DH of many years can still go randomly off message. I really don't think they understand..

Hi all, thought I'd join.

I have 1 DD who is 8.5 years. She's been singing with groups since she was 4, and started 1-to-1 tuition in April this year. She was teaching herself from YouTube and as her interest is musical theatre it was starting to get a bit dangerous.

New teacher is fantastic - is very focused on healthy singing habits and appropriate repertoire for her age. She's got a boy treble range and sound so we are on the hunt for pieces that suit that but aren't too churchy. All the MT teachers want to keep her natural child sound and not make her too church choir so it's tricky. She's getting to final rounds for the West End but hasn't been cast so far - happily she's very resilient!

She's just started guitar lessons at school so too early to tell if that will be a good fit or not. She's very dyslexic so reading music may prove tricky - she's extremely fortunate to have a good ear and memory for music but that will only take her so far. If anyone has experience with dyslexic children and music I'd love to hear what the pitfalls are and any good work arounds.

Yes, we have done theory ourselves too, I have learnt it along with DD. Luckily there are loads of tutorials online if the books are insufficient!

I guess our CAT is AYM then. Apologies if I confused county with CAT. Learning as we go along.

I did violin as a child, so have been helpful up until now, but g6 and 7 are beyond my capability and DD is just charging along. I notice that, around here, a lot of string teachers only go to grade 6, so the requirements are seem to be beyond some teachers too.

Not DD's teacher though.

Probably too early for AYM, but will go to an open day.

I randomly looked up music schools, as you do. Wells Cathedral looks fabulous. Except for parting with DD as 4 hours drive away and she would have to board.

Bought grade 6 exam book yesterday and DD played first half of Ladies in Lavender almost perfectly, without much vibrato!

Mistigri: reading your post made me smile, we will just have to admit that they will be better than us in everything, which is what we wish for anyway.

I must say I am the worst at organising the kids(including the BIG one)it always takes us forever (I do have to tell who wear what and occasionally I could still see my husband toes wriggling out of his shocks infront of all our friends).
We had 20 mins violin and 30 mins piano almost everyday these days and my piano teacher hasnt moaned about her progress(or may be he forgets that our exam is in 4 weeks or so and we only has just started the 3rd piece.
I have been reading VR and NVR how to books, they are so boring, I ended up give almost every single leaf in the indoor plant a wash, loads of cleaning and ...cooking. Well, these are for dinner tonight with some steamed rice(toasted duck and stuffed peppers).

Hello. Busy day here for DD, with NCO audition 2 weeks today, SYO audition next Saturday and g5 theory at the beginning of November. We did 3 hours on transposition just to make absolutely sure there won't be any mistakes, then violin.

As a reward we had a little make up session with her presents from birthday. I had to make her beautiful (obviously), and I was made up by her to look like a medieval harlot. Then had to cook a quick chilli looking like Baldrick from Blackadder.

Really interested in the music lesson provision made by some counties, which includes paid for lessons on first instrument if a child shows potential, like Waffles area. Suffolk don't do that, so I am currently paying for all lessons at private rates - which is why DD is now getting by on 1/2 an hour a week. Feel a bit bad about that as it is probably holding her back.

There are the primary school violin lessons, but perversely, if a child turns out to be quite good and gets ahead of the group, they are no longer of interest to the teacher who insists everyone must go at the same pace. Those lessons were £40 a term but stopped being available to DD after two terms (and the second term she was only there because the teacher thought she was a good role model). So we went from £40 a term to £40 a week.

Bit of a moan. Sorry. I just think there should be something in between for children who started with the county music service, progressed above expectation, and are then left with no option but to go private.

I don't know much about senior schools yet as only Year 5, but I imagine they have lesson provision for children around grade 8 for a termly fee?

I type this with my cross Blackadder face on, as I am not allowed to remove make up until DD stops finding it amusing..

We've been to look at music school today. DS2 would go tomorrow. He specially loved the jazz. It would be for sixth form, so we had a good chat with academic staff too.

Anyway, next step is advice auditions on his 3 instruments and we'll see after that.

Wow, Double, your organisation skills made my 20 mins military work less brilliant!

Yes we’ll be there. DH who insisted he would join us for the last rehearsal flew to Budapest yesterday to run a marathon there. DH is saying he will come to the regional concert next month but seriously I doubt he will...

Are you at South Easterlies tomorrow Kutik?

Well done Kutik We had the missing-a-piece-of-vital-kit moment last week when DD2 turned up to her bassoon lesson without the spike she uses to support the bassoon. Luckily her friend who has the lesson before her lent her her harness, but as they both play in the same ensemble about an hour later, I had to go home to get it. An extra 50 mins driving in Friday night traffic! Lesson learned.

Feeling quite organised this morning though, managed to get DD1 out to rowing on time, managed to get my flu jab earlier than I thought I would, took DD2 to have a practice with the accompanist that will play for her at next week's NCO audition and got her back just 5 mins after the start of her group tennis lesson!

It’s our jd day but the alarm was off and we woke up very late! I fed DS, prepared our packed lunch, had shower and we were out within 20 mins after jumping out of the bed. I even managed not to forget to put perfume on. And no we didn’t take the empty violin case ( anyone had done the classic mistake of taking the empty case?). I’m impressed (with myself).

raspberry I like the sound of free. I also like the sound of euph and it's the same mouthpiece as trombone but it doesn't have the orchestral opportunities that tuba would give.

DS had a concert on trombone last night, his first one. He was either "ok, I guess" or "brilliant" depending on whether I asked him or the conductor.

We had brilliant news from DS2's GCSE music this week, the head has finally agreed to new free instrument lessons. DS2 doesn't currently have instrument lessons in school so is deciding what to start. He doesn't want to pick up clarinet again, or start singing lessons again at present.

He's thinking about tuba or euph. As he's said for a while he would like to extend his brass range. His trombone teacher doesn't teach those, so I'm thinking he will be ok with that but we'll ask. Other possibility might be percussion.

He will also earning some music pocket money, playing Sundays in November and December at an outdoor leisure venue with a local jazz group.

Good luck to all the auditionees at present and congratulations on some fab results!

Misti I’d missed your post before - it made me smile because it’s obviously a case of right instrument, right child, right time! DS2 is loving his guitar lessons too - only downside is that he sits on the sofa playing his ‘hot rock’ tunes when I’m trying to relax.
I’m very impressed with your piano playing, too! My own practice has been a disaster once again in terms of time but hoping for a slightly less frantic week next week.
Also hope to see Fleur back soon.

Misti, School No.3 and 4 are a pure back-up for the worst case. We like No.1 and 2 a lot, so have to make a hard choice between them if DS manages to get an offer from both. Sadly only offers DS has received so far are No. 3 and 4...

I was also wondering about Fleur too. Hope all is well with her and Mini.

I found out that lots people seemed to have assumed my DS would try grammar schools. When they learnt the offers DS got were from non-grammar schools, they reacted as if I was wasting our time trying those options... We did consider grammar and went to an open day but didn't feel it was for DS (and DS was not interested neither). But it was a horrible weather, so it may have affected my judgement!

drummers what a wonderful evening - I’m jealous!
I don’t think ‘rest’ is in your DS’s vocabulary but I hope he has a lovely half term and the occasional lie-in!

Well done minikutik! Does this mean some hard choices to be made, or do you have a particular favourite school?

Does anyone have news from Fleur? I have been away for a week and haven't had the chance to check in, but scanning back through the thread she seems not to have been around.

Not much going on here. DD is off to Spain on a language exchange tomorrow. Not an awful lot of piano has happened recently but she has got the hang of the polyrhythms in the fantaisie impromptu fairly painlessly (it looks downright impossible to me).

I have now had three lessons with my new piano teacher and it's going well. Have been working on some grade 5 ish Mozart and Bach but going to take the plunge with some slightly harder stuff now. We are also going to do some duets. I find it hard in ways that are obviously to do with ageing of the brain, especially the Bach.

DS is still obsessed by guitar and making phenomenal progress (his guitar teacher described him as a prodigy lol). It has to be the most unexpected musical journey of all, as until recently he not only had no interest whatsoever playing an instrument, he also actively disliked music - a couple of years ago I took him to a music festival on a day ticket and he spent literally the whole day in the juggling tent complaining about there being too much noise. Now when he's not in lessons he is either perma-attached to his guitar or listening to music on his phone or playing our old digital piano. He is sitting beside me right now practising the solo from Stairway to Heaven on DD's stratocaster (groan).

He is 2 months in now, and he's already had a go at some of the Rock School grade 4 pieces which I downloaded for DD a few years ago. They are similar in standard to the pieces we do in our guitar class that DS can play easily and I struggle with - he's already way ahead of me which is quite depressing after three years of lessons!!!

Thank you so much for lots of 'well done'. One more audition to do next week, then we are done with the state sector. Depending on the results, we may decide not to go ahead with private 11+ (although we already paid £300 or so registration fees!).

drummers, I don't think 'holiday' is in your DS's dictionary, and he seems quite happy about it!

We have one more week to go, then will have a week long break. DS and DH are going away for a couple of days. It's gonna be a crazy home away as it's planned by my crazy DH. Too scared to know the details... I'll enjoy the quiet few days alone here in London!

Once back from the crazy boys home away, DS will go to 3-days orchestral workshop. DS enjoyed it so much last time he cried on way home on the last day of the course.

Kutik just caught up with the thread! Many congratulations to minikutik for those results and fingers crossed.
Good luck to mini with NCO!
DS is breaking up today. JD tomorrow then GCSE coursework, revision and lots of music practice to catch up on. So not really a holiday.
RFH concert last night - live Shostakovich accompaniment to a screening of Battleship Potemkin, conducted by adorable Vladimir Ashkenazy. DS loved it. I had seen the film four times before, but the live orchestra made it very special!

Good luck to Mini tomorrow! I can imagine her big smile when coming out of the audition room! Last year's NCO audition was my DS's first ever audition as well. He made mistakes in his piece, even though it was not a challenging piece so he could usually play beautifully at ease. Not sure if nerves kicked in. Nevertheless he enjoyed it and got a taste of the excitement of auditioning (so ended up having 3-4 more along the line)!

DS still had all those sour throat, runny nose and cough this morning! Also started complaining pains in eyes... Honestly, why those cold symptoms are so persistent! It's now more than two weeks. I let him sleep as long as he wants, fed him chicken soup with gingers, give him manuka honey, vitamin C, etc, but nothing is working!!!

He played football today though for a borough tournament. I went to see the match. He seemed to have forgotten all the sufferings on the pitch....