November Music Thread

Drummers - I've asked a few people teachers linked to conservatoires how many end up professionally employed a few years down the line and never got a straight answer. It doesn't seem to be that it is possible for every (or indeed even most) graduate of the top conservatoires to end up playing professionally. There are just too many graduating every year compared to the employment opportunities and I read an article a while ago criticising the conservatoires for overselling the dream. Of course a large number end up teaching at various levels and perhaps playing semi-professionally and have an enjoyable music filled life with reasonable standard of living. On percussion in particular I scratch my head at the number of people graduating each year across the UK conservatoires and wonder what the hell they all end up doing.

Thank you for the Opera suggestions, I'm just catching up with the thread. It does move so quickly.

Those of you who are on the private youtube channel will know my dd won't be recorded, so I can post, but here's the next best thing.

6 months ago Manchester was in deep sadness after the horrific terrorist attack. The children sang an impromptu song from the middle of the cordon, hardly a sound could be heard otherwise.
Now, they have arranged the piece and recorded it for British Red Cross.
My dd is in there somewhere, along with other children of other parents on here.
www.classicfm.com/music-news/videos/chethams-dont-look-back-in-anger-manchester-attack/

kutik re your DS there's a difference between aiming for be a good violinist at an orchestra and being a world renowned soloist. At DS school a couple of students have gone to RCM. I have no doubt they will have a professional life in their respective instruments even though they went to an academic school and did lots of stuff, just not a Perlman or Kennedy career IYKWIM.
But someone correct me if wrong.

That's very kind of you to say, drummer.

Kutik, I'm pretty sure I didn't do much more than 1.5 hours a day, max until I got to music college, and some days none at all, due to musical commitments. As an undergraduate, I probably did between 2 and 4 hours, post grad we were told we should be doing 4 to 6, but I'd guess the majority of orchestral instrument students didn't - impossible if you are rehearsing with the college orchestra for 6 hours a day!
I guess pianists are slightly different.

I think how early you should know/decide would depend on which instrument you play? DS is a violinist. We have no plan to send him to a specialist school, nor letting him drop other stuff (academic for instance)for the sake of securing long hours of daily practice. It's quite clear already that he is not destined to take it to a professional level! He could do something to do with music though, just not as a violinist!

Drummers our backgrounds sound very similar. I gave up offers from heavyweight unis to study fine art. Left education with no debt, and I could even afford to buy a flat in London with my new graduate salary. Fell into a good job where I acquired various post-grad qualifications, mainly paid for by someone else.

It is much harder for our kids.

On the theme of children deciding music not for them I have heard of two in the last few days who have reached that conclusion. One is 16/17 extremely good a violin, London JD for years and been planning on music college for years. Now she has just decided her passion to take it further has gone. Another one at a specialist music school in year 10 who is a fantastic player has decided he wants to do something else and will leave for a normal sixth form. I guess they are the lucky ones in that they the decision was fairly easy.

DS is a treble reader but is occasionally asked to play bass clef. He doesn't do it often enough to have mastered it and he also translates to treble and then plays. If he's not fast enough then he makes it up (he's not been rumbled yet) His teacher says that if he did it regularly it just becomes automatic, the bass/treble translation step is just a transitional thing that will fade with practice.

We have had several instances in the family of children being pushed down career paths by their parents. One was "encouraged" to be a doctor, one was "encouraged" to apply to conservatoire. Both did one year, left and went off and did their own thing. I don't want DS to do what he has always wanted to do, I'd rather he have a nice safe career path as an accountant or a lawyer, but this is his life and not mine. I've spent the last seven years attempting to point out "better" options and he's having none of it.

floot never apologise for posting. Your knowledge and experience is like gold. Not like gold, it is actually gold.

Apologies for yet another post!
drummer, your ds sounds very grounded. Specialist school is absolutely not the be all and end all, and actually, many parents are giving places like Chet's a wide birth since the historical sex abuse cases came to light.
As you say, he is who he is and it sounds like he'll work hard to succeed in whichever area he chooses.

herts, I'm with you. While what drummer says is a sad fact of life, I think a career in the arts is always heart, not head, and has always been - the idea of starving artists is fact, not fiction!
What is true of the music profession, perhaps more than ever before, is that most musicians have portfolio careers, that might include teaching, coaching, shows, arranging, fixing, chamber music, session work etc. Back in the day, music colleges trained you with a view to getting a permanent orchestral position; these days, they recognise that musicians have to be able to turn their hand to just about anything, so, for example, GSMD have just created a session orchestra that is training alongside pro session musicians (with the MD from Strictly Come Dancing). Lots of my friends play in West End or touring shows - perhaps not the most fulfilling,musically, but financially lucrative and now much sought-after.

fedup, I teach my students to treat note reading as a map. So, we have a starting point (let's say it's a C, as an example) and rather than read the next note as a note name (eg E), they learn to recognise whether it is higher or lower, and then whether it's a step up/down or a jump up/down. Gradually then, they learn to recognise intervals - so, from space/line note to the next space/line note is a 3rd, then a 5th etc.
If you think about it, this is how clefs work - there are no absolute notes, since the pitch is only set by the clef, if that makes sense. The above technique was taught to me at college - in musicianship lesson, we had to learn to transpose at the piano at sight, and also to score read orchestral scores that included transposing instrument. It works particularly well on piano because of having the notes laid out in front of you, so you can 'see' intervals and you always have a 5th under your fingers.

Kutik , absolutely! In the majority of cases, children don't know what they want to do or what they don't want to do. I do believe, however, that for a small number of careers, such as I mentioned, you are born to do it and just know it's your destiny to at least try. There's no chance of becoming a musician if the seeds aren't there early on; it's not something you can decide to do later on in life or retrain for. I can't think of any colleagues who didn't choose to be musicians from very early on, except for some singers but that's because you have to wait for your voice to mature to see what you've got.

If I had paid for my degree maybe I'd be able to post without so many mistakes

thanks for your thoughts
mistigri he isn't dyslexic and his eyesight is great

We had a long chat last night.....I think it's partly because he started in treble clef ( which he can read well still) and then switched to bass clef 18 months ago. He tells me he still in his head does bass clef to treble clef conversion and then works out what note to play.... so essentially if he sees a "b" on the bass clef he then transposes that into whatever that is in treble clef and then he knows what note to play on the trombone. Unsuprisingly this makes it really slow and he often confuses himself.

I've downloaded the bass cat app ( he prefers app stuff to books) and we are going to start with lots of practice- starting with super easy stuff.

thanks for your advice

If the child/young adult wants to pursue music it will be completely obvious and if there is significant doubt probably means they shouldn't.
herts, I'm not so sure anymore. I am with mistigiri on this. This was true maybe thirty years ago, when tyoung people could afford a decent rent and enjoy unemployment benefits whilst instead of looking for a job they were practising and rehearsing (what would the British music scene had been without the dole?). Also, if you made a mistake with your degree, it was "oh well, I was wrong". Now it's "I was wrong and I am 50K in debt".
I finished school with my country IB equivalent of 11A. When I said I wanted to do a Fine Arts Degree two of my teachers were literally crying, they called my parents to push me to architecture. My parents said I was free to pursue my passions. It was the late 80's, money was growing on trees back then, my country was booming (green* you may not recall any of this as you were still a baby ). Young people were less subjected to the doom, the news, the pessimism, the cuts, the insane property boom, the competitiveness of the market and the technological shift of the professional world. So I ended up doing Art paying no more for fees than the price of a Southern Rail ticket. Then I did a 3 years of another "useless" and "creative" Masters in New York all paid by a scholarship from my local government which no longer exists after the crash. I clocked 8 years of university for almost nothing and started life with zero debt. If I hadn't felt so free back then money wise I may be an architect now... mhm damn

On the primary book leavers book, DS had to put what he wanted to do when he grew up. He wrote "professional musician". So it is very likely that that's what he will end up being, in one guise or another, through one route or another. I believe Floot is right, he is disadvantaged by being an all rounder and actually caring a lot about his grades and working hard for every subject. But that's his nature and his natural compulsion. He has never asked to go to specialist school because of his academic interests. You are who you are and you have to find your place in life.

mini, that's fantastic! Keep that teacher!
I just knew I wanted to play the flute, from my first lesson. My parents weren't musical, but they went with it and no-one ever questioned it. I look back sometimes and still can't believe that I managed to achieve what I always wanted to do - I feel incredibly lucky. I do have a few regrets, in that my parents had no knowledge so perhaps didn't push for certain things, but they weren't to know.

With regards to high-flyers not going into music, ds took part in a competition at the weekend and the 10 year old who won highly commended and also most promising pianist from all the competitors, also sings, plays the violin and is a junior European chess champion! Incredibly impressive but I do wonder which path she will peruse; I suspect it will be academic, although I know absolutely nothing about her abilities in the classroom...just a hunch.

I am really quite surprised by how young musicians have moved on since I started learning many years ago. I passed grade 8 at 12, which was fairly exceptional back then, to such an extent that when I started JD, I had to tread water in a way while my friends caught up. Certainly I have professional colleagues that didn't actually start playing until they were 13 or 14.
It's easy to get caught up in the rush to get through ABRSM exams but I'm not sure what's to be gained from doing so? Ds only started lessons at 9, which seems late for a string player. It's tricky; he's made fantastic progress but is obviously less advanced than children that have been playing since they were 4 or 5. It seems to matter now but I really don't think it will make much difference when he is 15 - I think the playing field levels out more past grade 8, other than in the rare cases of prodigies.

Trumpet, I always think it's so important for children, especially teens, to have something they are passionate about and committed. It enriches their life and also protects them (well, more likely) from unwanted temptations they may encounter. So it's so amazing and fortunate for DCs to have found one and enjoy the opportunities fully. I agree to keep as many options open as possible, because a tool to make living (money!) and passion are not always equal.

Floot, I think you (and your DS) are lucky to know what you want (or don't want) for sure from a very young age. But I wonder if many of us are so fortunate like that.

For instance, DS has started telling me what he wants to do - he doesn't name the profession but just tells me 'what he is going to do' with more details. Obviously my 10 years old doesn't know all the professions or lifestyles available. He is not informed fully yet. He is speaking out of his very limited experience and knowledge. I can't really take his words too seriously no matter how passionate he appears to be.

I am aware though that there are children who 'know' and can 'show' how determined they are (like you). But mine is a typical 10 years old.

I'd add that of the adolescents we know here in France who will definitely pursue music, one is a wunderkind already studying with a known pianist/composer (was already beyond diploma level at age 9 - i saw him play at a concert where he made Liszt and one of the hardest Chopin études look easy), and the other dropped out of school to pursue music and was/is homeschooled - hasn't and probably won't take any formal academic exams though he is pretty bright. The latter is now in the French conservatoire system, in the stream intended for professional musicians, he's either the same age as DD (16) or maybe one year older.

floot my DDs ballet teacher said she remembers the day, aged 9, when she decided her career plan to dance & run a ballet school. She had the business plan by 11. She said the only person who believed her was her mum. And says she looks at my DD and totally believes my DDs plans.

Kutik it was interesting last year that none of the very talented muscicians at ds's school went onto university to study music

I think teachers and other adults probably unconsciously do a lot to deter good students from pursuing music.

DD has basically been conditioned into thinking that good students in France do a "classe préparatoire" rather than anything artistic.

It wasn't always like this. I was a good all rounder (straight As at A level back when this was rare) who went to art school. But in the 1980s you could afford to do 4 years at art school with fees paid and a full grant then change your mind if it didn't work out (which was the case for me, I'm an economist now ). Much more difficult nowadays when 3-4 years of vocational music study will cost you the best part of £50k including living expenses.

I read some interesting research recently that said that students who get all A* at GCSE s (or equivalent) actually do less well later on in life than students who don't; the theory being that the majority of jobs require you to specialise in one area, so students who are all-rounders and have never focused on just one area of learning are actually disadvantaged. (I think I've got that right - I'll try to find a link.)

I decided very young ( around 10) that all I wanted to do was music. My ds has already said, at 11, that he doesn't want to be a musician. Cliche as it sounds, I think musicians (like actors, dancers, artists etc) are born, not made.

Kutik it was interesting last year that none of the very talented muscicians at ds's school went onto university to study music ( even those who at ds's age were convinced that that was what they would do) this is why we are working very hard at keeping all of his options open things change but whatever he decides ds will have had some amazing experiences because of his passion for music