November Music Thread

Obviously I meant woolley - complete brain fail on names there!
I’ve been lucky with DS2 that we’ve been able to coordinate with cello and piano quite well but the term he did G3 piano, cello and SATS was the last time I’d try to combine all that!

I feel I spend my whole life negotiating for ds with everyone ( except his trumpet teacher who is amazingly accommodating) thinking that their needs, concert , rehearsal etc is the most important thing. A difficult balancing act I guess our dcs ( or us) just need to keep talking to everyone so that all involved are aware of the bigger picture.

True kutik, but some of us do go through rocky patches with music teachers and can come out with a good relationship again down the line. It's easy for a teacher to be triggered by something and then write (not condoning it), but some are also parochial to their own instrument needs and don't take in the bigger picture, or wasn't aware of the bigger picture. If they are and ignoring it, then there's an issue.

It will depend woolley, if on balance there's more good with this teacher than bad, and then try and work through it as a misunderstanding that you all avoid for future?

But I guess woolley’s another issue in the situation is the teacher didn’t communicate in a way she wish she did?

Definitely pull her out of the exam - if our dcs are going to keep playing they need to enjoy it

I'm with previous posters woollley. Having once done a double sitting once, we've avoided it since. Your DD is mentally preparing also for entrance exams, which don't just stop at at the exam, it's the follow on from that..months of endurance.

Reassure her that she's already passed the level for G4 on clarinet by preparing all the necessaries for that level. The exam result alone is not the indicator for that, so on this occasion, with what's going on, by-passing maybe her best option. Then put it behind you and move on. There is that risk that if her result if she sits didn't not go well, this puts more on her plate than she needs right now.

Then get back on track with both teachers with a programme both instruments are on board with. It never helps to play pieces you're not fond of either, so that may be another learning to avoid for future (even if it means an uncomfortable conversation with the teacher)! Zapping the love out of in instrument is not beneficial to anyone.

Good luck with it all!

woolley, is your DD also applying for a music scholarship at secondary? Mine is sitting at two indies so he’ll have two exams and two auditions and an interview in January (the latter two are only if he passes the exams though). The exam subjects at the two schools aren’t the same so he has to prepare for both, though it’s just one additional subject to one school. He has to perform two pieces on the violin then one on the piano, and will be tested aural, theory and all that for the auditions. Then he’ll have a piano exam in Feb/March.

He hasn’t done much preparation for 11+ as he has no free evening (and weekends are hugely taken up by music and sport commitments). He is doing fine at school and he is in a very bright class but I know it won’t be good enough for passing 11+ comfortably. His optimistic nature doesn’t help. For instance he seems to enjoy writing and actually he has no problem finishing his writing homework as he always has something to write about in his head. But I checked his writing yesterday (I don’t normally do it because of his horrible hand writing) and it was full of laziness. I could see he rushed and didn’t really plan carefully, simple structures, simple wordings (even though he knows a lot of words), careless mistakes here and there. Oh dear, he’s got to work hard during the winter holiday if he wants to gain a slightest chance to be successful...

Now I’m not sure if it’s wise to book a piano exam next term. It’s not even his first (most important) study. Feel he would be better to spend his already very limited time on something more important...

Sorry no direct reply to your post in regard to the clarinet exam. But just thought your DD may also have plenty on her plate so may not be a big deal to miss an exam for now (she’s still taking bassoon exam, right?).

Doubleup I’d cancel the clarinet exam - she doesn’t have to take it. If she’s doing grade 4 bassoon the aural skills are covered and she can just move on. I think the teacher is just trying to shock her into practising but it sounds like dd is out of love with the pieces!
It’s ok to take 2 exams in one session but I think if you’ve got additional school exam pressure, that could be overload.

My reading is that the clarinet teacher is ticked off about finding out about the bassoon exam and everything else follows from that. I think she would have expected that she she would have been consulted about the bassoon exam before it was booked. It would probably have meant that she would have scheduled the clarinet exam in another session. Going forward with two teachers on two instruments - they do need to know what's happening on the other side.

G4 - meh. Cancel it, remove the problem and focus on school entrance. You have a lot on your plate there, why add to the pressure?

I am really sorry to be back here just with worries as we really aren't keeping up this term.

Bassoon is going well for dd, Big Double Reed day tomorrow, thanks to Doubledup for the recommendation to do that.

Our issue is clarinet...dd struggling a little, mainly due to lack of motivation I think, as playing her exam pieces for too long and she doesn't like the two that the teacher picked for her.

So, last lesson she comes home saying unless a certain thing is fixed on her clarinet she will not pass her exam. Fair enough, Ive been putting it off due to financial worries. I e mail her teacher as I was a little angry that she had put this to dd, rather than to me.

I have had this back

"At grade 4 candidates are expected to negotiate the break smoothly and dd does not always achieve this due to insufficient breath support even when the instrument is in good order. I think the adjustment to be made to the instrument will be minor.
I was concerned to learn yesterday that dd is taking a bassoon exam this term as well as clarinet. This might explain why she has progressed less rapidly than I have come to expect from her. At present she is not quite at the standard needed to pass but I hope she can turn a corner over the next week as the Board won't refund her"

This is the first I have heard of her suspicions that dd might not pass, and I suspect I only got this because I emailed about the repairs to the clarinet.

The reason for less practice/less progress is twofold. Mainly it is due to entrance exam preparation but secondly, the pieces being given to dd too early, and the teacher insisting on two of them, and dd doesn't like the pieces.

Clarinet is now due for repair on Wednesday but I'm thinking unless there is substantial change between now and this time next week I should pull her out of the exam. She'll hate it as she will then have to miss grade 4 but I really just want her to get back to enjoying it again. The effects of a "fail" just before her entrance exams will I believe be catastrophic and I just cant take the risk.

Any thoughts...and thanks for listening to me rant!

And the concert master is absolutely brilliant, so there will be no chance in any near future that DS could lead the 1st violin. Ha ha.

Thank you for sending me good luck. DS has to pass the entrance exams first though! Imagine if he didn't. What's the drama of sorting out the references and all!!

To update DS's decision on whether to take 1st violin place or stay as 2nd violin leader. DS has decided to stay as the leader of the 2nd violin for now. He didn't find 1st violin's part particularly difficult or overwhelming when he played during half term holiday course. But of course it depends on what they play, so it could be that the repertoires at the holiday course was not that hard. Anyway, he has nerves of steel, so pressure of being 1st violin won't bother him much. The main factor of the decision was more likely that DS preferred to be a leader.

(and no, I can't play either part with any degree of accuracy let alone musicality... it will have to wait a few years!)

Good luck Kutik!

Continuing the thought about relative vs absolute pitch Waffle I have only just realised what a total minefield baroque recorder music is woth all the French vs German, Chorton vs Kammerton pitch issues requiring complicated "Well if i have a treble voice flute in d playing in g minor it will sound in e minor" kind of decisions. I had got out Gottes Zeit ist die Allerbeste Zeit to see if I could play it (had been listening / watching the Leonhardt, Koopman, Gardiner recordings - one where Gardiner is, unusually, far better than Leonhardt). Couldn't work out why the pitch was wrong until I realised the edition writer didn't realise it was written for French pitch trebles...

Well done Kutik- good luck !!

Fingers crossed Kutik! Thinking of you x

Ah! Just dropped the application form and references at a school DS is sitting/auditioning in January! Yes, I delivered in person due to the deadline problem... Ha ha.

After all, I didn't enclose the summary - so just the form and a few references put together in A4 envelope. DS's school's head teacher kindly wrote one with a note explaining her school doesn't have head of music (thank you Prada for your advice on this!). In the end, there were quite a few and well balanced collection of references. I felt it would be enough. Sometimes less is more!

Waffle kindly consulted and cleared my worries in many ways. Basically I kept her busy during her precious weekend - sorry, but big thank you.

We were walking in rain together, and the little girl I mentioned started humming the notes of raindrops! She does this kind ever so innocently because it's nothing surprising to her. Interesting!

Miniprada has perfect pitch and plays the Violin. It was idebrifues during the music auditions for secondary schools by a director of music. Never been an issue. She can identity the note of random things like a squeaky folding chair at a station or a hornet at the window. It's a bit freaky.

Interesting. I thought pitch perfect which can be developed by training is still relative pitch, whereas perfect pitch is something you are born with. So even those who never had any musical training still have it.

I agree you just get used to what you are learning. So everyone who have and haven't perfect pitch will be trained to adjust their way accordingly.