Autumn / Winter 24 - music thread

@chickentikkasalad congratulations to your DS - he’s done so well!

One thing that always helped me with nerves as a musician and now as an adult doing public speaking (which I really hate, despite being totally fine with musical performances!) is telling myself that the nervous feeling is actually excitement - the feeling is the same so reframing it can really help.

I have a question for more experienced parents - DS (6yo, violin) is happy to practice but has a short attention span (we do 15 mins x 2 each day) and gets bored of doing the same things over and over. He’s not really motivated to perfect things - think he’d ideally just play everything as fast as possible - and is quite sensitive to criticism so it’s difficult to find a balance (though we are working on all this!).

His teacher has been giving him one new piece a week then asking him to carry on working on the piece from last week, but the pieces are so short (few lines) that playing them both through a couple of times each only takes a few mins, and then he’ll do a few mins of scales. I’ve been filling the time with his Xmas music which has been great for his sight reading, but I’m wondering if I should ask the teacher to set him more stuff to do? I’ve really tried to avoid interfering and don’t want to push him, but I feel like he’d actually enjoy it more if he had more to work on. Or maybe he should just practice less?!

Those of you with relatively young children starting to tackle the middle grades (4/5), are your children motivated to practice or are you doing a lot of the encouragement (mostly gentle and sometimes cross..). Also looking ahead to secondary, how do you manage the homework/practice balance? By then assuming the same trajectory but obviously with wider gaps between grades, (assuming a year) we are looking at grade 8 around year 8 on at least one instrument possibly two. Thanks

@HappyHaggis, my DS did NYSO last year but only sinfonietta so I can't give you any insight in the sinfonia. But I did watch the sinfonia concert and they were very good. I wouldn't be able to tell what grades they were because I'm not a trained musician but it felt like they were grade 8. The Sinfonia also played a piece with the orchestra above so they would've had chance to play and rehearse with much higher standard players. They also rotated their seats throughout the concert so everybody had the experience of leading the orchestra and played at the back in different sections. Assume that's a good thing.
DS just got his offer of a place in Sinfonietta for next year this morning. He'll be delighted when he hears the news.

We had a busy music weekend.
DS had his grade 5 violin exam on Friday. Usual Saturday morning music school thing. Played piano in the morning and violin in the afternoon in a local music festival, and went to a concert to watch a symphony orchestra playing the Beethoven no. 5.
Exam result isn't out yet. He won both classes in the festival with medals and cups and LOVED the Beethoven 5th. He wouldn't take his eyes off the first violin lead for even a second. It was late when it finished but it was so worth it seeing his face lighten up with joy!
His piano accompanist said he played better in the exam than the festival. I could also tell he was nervous in the festival. When I asked him he said he was more nervous playing the violin because he was worried about the tuning and timing. Where on the piano at least he didn't need to worry about the tuning. I don't know how to help him cope with that. Maybe we should find more performing opportunities for him to get used to it. Any ideas? He still won his class but I can just tell the music wasn't how it normally flows.
Hope everyone else had a nice weekend too.

Similar situation here considering NSSO and NYSO for DD who has just turned 10. Would love to hear of any experiences at roughy this age of either. 🙏 x

Don't get me started on music/ sport! I work in sports and see the national support structures and the local opportunities. Government funding is so much higher. Sport is really a wonder drug for your body and music is the same for social, emotional and mental wellbeing. Our school really promotes sports but thankfully the music department is doing well with the resources they have but it's definitely lagging behind.

I can't help thinking that in future they might need to do categories rather than age groups

I thought the same about the BBCYM this year - substituting regions for age groups.

My school used to have a junior and senior but "junior" was up to grade 5. I think all these things are hard to compare really - even comparing someone playing mature beautiful Bach to someone playing a fancy showpiece. You're def on the right track treating it as a lovely concert with a bonus trophy to a strong but sometimes somewhat randomly selected participant.

It is lovely that school do anything like this. If our music department were given 1/10 of the budget or importance PE are, maybe the musical students could get 1/10 the opportunity to shine that the sporty ones already do.

There is no real way to easily compare a mixed group of instruments, we've had bagpipes, penny whistle, drum kit, singers accompanying themselves, classical pianists, accordion, violin etc. It's just a way to get performance experience and a bonus if they win but hopefully they get helpful comments and are pleased with how they perform. We have been to a few competitions and you can rarely predict ( even as a reasonable amateur musician myself). I have sometimes actually disagreed with results too but just need to accept they were looking for something else.

How many to a room?

Hers is 18-20th. She wants to know All The Things before deciding but she did enjoy the day.

@GeneralMusings he did, he's doing the Ensemble again this year 21st-23rd. As @horseymum says, you get a lot more info nearer the time once they know who's accepted their places

They get a list beforehand with everyone's names on. There's a link to a Google sheet with a really detailed timetable nearer the time. I just save it as a link on my front screen. It details pretty much every 30 minutes of the day so you can see what's happening. My usual advice for residential trips with people who you don't know - take a card game and a packet of sweets to share. You've all got one thing in common anyway so that helps. They're hardly in the hotel. I do think it might be shared rooms though. If that's a massive issue, you might need to speak to them but that's partly why it's free I expect.

There's no details on the app thing just whether you can go or not.

Did he enjoy it? It's woodwind she's doing!

@GeneralMusings they usually stay in a hotel and get taken by coach to and from the school they are based at. They have breakfast at the hotel, lunch at the school and possibly dinner. He last did a woodwind Ensemble in 2022 and there were 49 of them over the 4 instruments

Just this afternoon - hence the post.

I still don't understand how it works and what's when and who goes to what.

Thankyou.

I guess do lots of them not know anyone? Is accommodation straightforward? Food etc?

It will be a very big leap for her to go away with people she's never met before. She's done school orchestra trips but obviously that's with friends. And I drove her to the October day.

How many people are there at each one etc. Just all the things!! Shed never have done inspire at all without this thread. We're both ND and it's so helped to be to understand a bit of what it's like before going to these things too.

Inspire has been great for mine. Youngest is going to do her second one. They are a mixture of sectionals and ensemble sessions. They work on some pieces as well as usually some kind of improvised soundscape or something. They do a wee concert at the end. It's great because my dd doesn't play with any other bassoons on a weekly basis so to play with others of a similar level, as well as the full NYO musicians is really encouraging. Some of the inspire ones will be as good as the full NYO musicians, they maybe didn't apply etc so it sounded pretty good. Any specific questions? The pastoral care is great too. They are strict on rules but check in on them and you can have a chat beforehand if you think there might be any issues.

Can anyone tell me about the Inspire spring ensembles?

Unlike many people on this thread it seems my duaghter has never done a music residential (and we're so very grateful inspire is free!!)

She did the one day in October half term and loved it!

Thanks so much everyone for the summer school recommendations, we will have a look at them all tonight. I hadn’t heard of any of them, but now I feel we’re spoilt for choice!