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

Well done mini4strings! It must be a great confident booster prior to the audition.

Well done 4strings

Well done 4strings ! 🙂

Success for dd this afternoon coming second in the Grade 5 category at local music festival. Her first ever festival 😊

Well, I am trying to be a cool mum so haven't grilled him for information but we'll be in a car for 40 mins from school to home today so let me see how long my cool mum mask lasts... Dying to know what happened in the lesson!

I've started getting confused who is who on this thread without the monthly introduction...

It must be nice to be an eternal optimist neleus
Music wise things we're pootling along nicely here. Ds's piano teacher has started him on some theory books and put me in charge of working through them with him. I'll probably get dd2 to join in as her theory is massively random.....

Aww bless him- I’m sure he’ll be fantastic and he will learn a lot from the teacher x

Thanks Zak! It would be too outing to name the teacher and anyway I can't spell it correctly... The eternal optimistic child may get a kick in his stomach. Ha ha.

Ooh who is it Neleus - hope it goes well for your ds 👍

Apparently DS is having an one-off lesson with an inspirational but fiercely scary visiting teacher today. He is the youngest to participate this opportunity. Hopefully he won't get beaten up too much....

Wow. Things have been smooth for us, compared to some of those stories!

Dd did an extra ten minutes of lesson at primary with her clarinet teacher to do theory with the aim of doing her grade 3 by the time she left. That didn't quite happen. Now she is at secondary she goes, albeit reluctantly to music theory club where she can work through her book and there is a music teacher there to check what she has done and to help the f necessary. She's getting toward the end of the grade 4 book and we will probably aim to do grade 5 exam in the autumn term.

Hi everyone.. DD is going to attend piano audition with CYM next week and I just realised the audition involves more than I expected, including scales and sight reading, etc.. it’s more sounds like a mini exam.. does anyone have experience with CYM? Any advice will be helpful! Thanks..

Greenleave
www.mymusictheory.com/ I'm sure you already have this, but if not it's very useful.

It's not fun to ask such busy bees to drop something they genuinely enjoy, is it? Mine was like that too, stretching himself across many activities. But sadly we have only 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. And as they get older and more advanced hence each activity becomes more demanding, the something's gotta go conversation will happen... It's great though if she can carry on some of them at school to save her time to do other things after school and weekend. Anyway, it's great she enjoys music so much!

Thank you NeleusTheStatue. She genuinely loves music (can still be a right little madam about practice sometimes though! 😂). In addition to her piano and cello she sings in two choirs (one just a fun one and one she had to audition for) but I must admit, it’s getting more and more time-consuming so the “something’s gotta give” conversation will likely happen soon. Fortunately she has enough non-music activities she can drop first if necessary! 😳😂

Lots DCs seem to dislike theory but there are also those who love and enjoy the subject. Your DD may be one of those then. Anyway, as there is no reason for her to rush, she can carry on studying as she pleases and just take it when she feels ready. And it doesn't matter if her enthusiasm die down neither as it's not that she MUST take it. No pressure, just enjoy!

To be honest I dont really know why she wants to do it, for grade 5 then I could understand because she needs it to go beyond G5 practice. I’d rather to see her practise more on her instruments. Her theory enthusiasm would die down soon though.

QueenMabby, very well done to your DD (although it's last year)! She sounds a well-rounded musician.

As I wrote on your theory thread, Greenleaves, I know plenty DCs who did self-study using textbooks (I assume you got them by now) and managed to get high marks. If your DD is keen and enjoys theory as you described, I can't see any reason why she can't learn the material by herself. Your DD being a pianist is also a great advantage.

Also, you may think DCs at jd are very much prepared for theory exams just because they are at jd. In some way, yes, as jd usually won't let them entre unless they are ready. But those DCs usually have one group lesson once a week x 9 or so times a term so it's not that they are getting some intensive lessons or clever shortcut. There is no need to be in jd to do well in the exam really.

By the way, grade 6 theory isn't compulsory at the music school I know. They don't do anything particularly in line with ABRSM as long as I know.

Both my teachers are Russian and they are not familiar with ABRSM, she did study G5 by herself with occasionally any difficult concepts will be explained by her piano teacher however that was it. She asked for sitting theory exam though, I really dont know how she manages it.

Would your dd’s music teacher do it Greenleave? My dd is not at a jd or a music school but does have individual music lessons at school. Her piano teacher does some theory with her and she has a theory workbook that she gets set “homework” in every now and again.

Reading here about children at JD and music schools are taught theory(G6 is compulsory) then now I start to doubt mine could learn it by herself.

third

I was surprised, maybe it's a self preservation thing from the children, I don't think they understand what they are doing is wrong.
They aren't really argumentative but sort of answer back, or at times, seem to know better than the HOD.

Definitely, when they ask you to play something again, could be for many reasons. I do know that sometimes they will ask them to play something differently to see how they respond to instruction.
Mine was asked to play a particular phrase differently, dd said she hadn't got it wrong they just wanted a different interpretation.

I like that about music festivals QueenMabby, they're really interested in how you perform the piece not what piece you choose to perform.

Romany, at kids arguing back at a music school audition. Can't help thinking how badly prepared they must have been. Just takes a word from your teacher that they might ask you to try something differently. (I was going to say "and it doesn't mean they don't like you" as I would have expected child crumbles under criticism to be a more likely response than child argues back!!).

Minisnowballs our piano teacher had a huge scary contract like that when they started as complete beginners. Violin teacher by contrast has no paperwork whatsoever.