January to March 2019 music thread (Title edited by MNHQ)

Hi everyone, old poster here.

I have a 11 yrs old who plays violin and piano(very low key), she has theory, violin and piano exam next term. We havent started yet, may be after next week. My soon turning 5 years old other daughter has also started on the violin, there hasnt been any practice, still learning to hold the bold, she loves the poking bits though :).

Yes thank you double, he's getting the hang of it now!

Also (sorry for the double post) what difference is there between Trinity and ABRSM? At her comp yesterday in the graded classes most of the children were clutching Trinity books - she seemed to be the only one playing from the ABRSM syllabus!

Doubleup - she’s doing ABRSM. We do have the app but it’s not brilliant I don’t think. Will have a look at the book. Thanks.

AMRSM also have apps for both aural & sight reading. They're not free but there is content up to grade 5.

DS also working on grade 3 piano and has been working hard on sight reading. His teacher likes the Join the Dots books but he's less keen! We recently started Paul Harris' new 'Piece a Week' book. It's excellent. It's geared towards improving all the things DS was finding hard and he's doing brilliantly with it. He's started to pick up other pieces more independently & quickly as a result.

QueenMabby is it ABRSM or Trinity? ABRSM have aural practice books with CDs and specimen aural test books also. For Trinity, DD2’s teacher told us to sign up to an app called Hofnote for online practice.

littlelad I’m hoping that your ds packed appropriately for half term?

Shaky yes, scales should be easy marks - with a lot of practice! I'm hoping to get DS2 to focus on those and do some sight reading over half term. We don't have a date for G5 piano yet but the pieces are fine so it's a really good chance to get the other sections sorted!

I’m a big believer in aural and scales being easy marks. They just need lots and lots of practise. When I taught music at secondary school, some children would come for practise several months before. Some would leave it until a week before. You can guess who did well! They really are something you can work on at home. I guess when they are younger, some of that is familiarity with what they are going to be asked.

I’m even writing down what elements of sight reading she is covering so that we cover stinky keys, swing, nasty rhythms, atonality, long phrase work, etc. My hope is that when it come to the exam she’ll just consider it easier than what she has practised!

For a month I have been discussing the possibility of music lessons for DS and DD. My stepdaughter (5) is learning the piano. She is currently working on her own technique and skills during lessons at home.

My goal is for her to eventually do ABRSM graded exams as she is a quick learner. She can handle the pressure. We started out with five finger exercises and basics were also covered. Now she is working on different pieces each week.

Feel free to contact me if you have any other questions.

We have the sight reading book and she’s pretty good at going through stuff. It’s the aural really. Her teacher does do it with her it’s just that while we have a quietish week ahead (for once!) I thought it wouldn’t harmful to do a bit here and there.

I got DS the "Improve your sight reading" book for his grade Queenmabby - there are ABRSM and Trinity versions. He was trying to do exercises from the Trinity graded book but they're just too hard at the moment, so hoping we can edge up to it with IYSR. Or do you mean aural resources? I don't know about that, I was hoping I could leave it to his teacher. Do most people do aural at home?

Nelius, Romany I haven't a clue who anyone is anymore, apart from one or two! I think I may nc just to add to the general confusion.

DS is home for HT - we're not going anywhere, so looking forward to hearing him play a little. He's been working almost exclusively on technique for the last term & it feels odd and slightly unnerving for him not to have several pieces on the the go. He has his JD assessment next weekend so we'll need to come up with a couple of things for that.

Piano btw.

Glad there are others mainlining the sightreading this half term. I’m going to try and get dd to do a little bit daily and I really need to start on the aural at home too. She’s g3. Any resource suggestions?

Nice analogy Shaky

My hubby plays drums, so I know what you mean about people not understanding about it being a real proper instrument! It’s like guitar. When people tell me they ‘play guitar’ I then have to work out whether they are a John Williams, a Slash or a Phoebe Buffet! Otherwise I start talking and getting blank looks. We have work. Friend who learned chords by the ‘tigers claw, elephant with a trunk out’ method 😝 and there is nothing wrong with that.

So things are much calmer for us. Sight reading happening daily as dd has it on the next exam. (ATCL is super easy in comparison). So pulling out lots of old material for her to get to grips with. Though it’s called the ‘quick study’.

1 day of half term and DS is "bored". This from the child who resists signing up to anything because it might constrain his free time. Sigh. We need to blitz sight reading this holiday, so perhaps I'll demand a sight reading exercise every time I hear the word bored.

I am so pleased to get to half term! DS2 had strings sinfonia this morning but otherwise it's a clear week! Unless DS1 gets a bass guitar lesson.
Great to hear from Shaky and glad things settled down in the end. Have a great week with dd,Romany!

No worry, Romany, you are not alone. I don't recognise many old faces here so either lots of new people joined or lots of NC happened. I can't work out who is who...

Enjoy having DD around.

Hello all, hope you are enjoying half term if you have started, or looking forward to it next week.
Mines at home, well her db's atm, looking after her baby niece.
We have a new addition to the instruments in the form of a flute. It's having to come last to everything else though so it will be slow and steady, without exams for now I think.
Lovely to hear how everyone is doing and apologies if I don't recognise nc I never manage to work out who is who. Hello Raspberry

Yes ours, and no neighbours so he's not disturbing anyone else

Ah, Mending I feel your pain. I can only hope the drums are yours and not a neighbour! I restrict the hours of snare practice as both my ears and my neighbours can only put up with so much bloomin' rat-a-tat-tat at about a gazillion decibels.

Ah yes boyskeep there seems to be a certain type of parent who is rather invested in finding ways to put others down. (Although at 7 am on a saturday morning i have been known to wish drums werent 'real', im pretty sure an imsginary instrument would be quieter )

I’ve told her that if five different people listened to her playing that you’d get five different opinions!
Exactly this! What a pragmatic approach you've got - your DD will be just fine I'm sure.

To lighten the mood somewhat, I did have to laugh at one of the school competitions where one of the Yummy Mummies said that whilst it was very nice of the school to let DS play his snare drum it's not a real instrument, is it? So I asked what she meant by that and she said "Well, it's not like he has to be able to read music, is it?" I informed her that he very much does have to read the music (and believe me, snare drum music is way, way, harder to read than viola parts) and I said what do you think percussionists do in symphony orchestras? Do you think they're in the middle of Beethoven's 5th and think "Oh, I'll just plonk in a bit of bongos here"? She genuinely had no idea that percussionists have to follow their parts just the way the "real" instruments have to! Still makes me chuckle years later!