Autumn / Winter 2025 Music

Grade 5 online music theory exam - it’s been 29 days still no results. Someone I know who took the exam a few hours later than DS received their result yesterday evening already. I assume it’ll be in time order. Does it mean anything wrong? Should I panick?

any experience greatly appreciated!

I have two boys, DS1 is 12 and plays violin, drums and is in a choir. He is restarting drums today and I’m hoping he’ll be able to move towards grades. He is working towards grade 2 in violin, he was a bit of a late starter. He’s y8 and school are keen for him to take music gcse when the time comes but tell me violin is very hard to make work with this. He has a drum kit in his room so can practice. He attends music centre and is in a string orchestra and development choir.

DS2 is 10 and y5, he plays keyboards but we are between teachers as his school based lessons have been shocking (not local council peri but an external company). He also attended music centre and is in a keyboard group and choir. He’s keen to try a different instrument, but without access to lessons in school that feels tricky!

DS1 has violin lessons through the local co-op but they are after school and he needs taking and collecting. With scouting, swimming and twice weekly karate we are a bit full! I’m very keen for them to pursue music and to be creative so I’m willing to sacrifice time. We did a year of online violin with ds1 and it was not a good substitute.

I’ve taught for over 30 years, NimbleFox, and I can honestly say I’m engaged, enthusiastic, energetic and endlessly encouraging in every lesson!
If a teacher doesn’t inspire you or motivate you in a positive way, they are not doing their job.
Yes, we’re still human and have off-days, but these shouldn’t be the norm.

Can I have people opinions on music teachers. DD8 and I have both been learning piano for 3 years at a music school nearby. DD is about g3, I'm about g6. DD plays trombone to about the same level (she's played trombone for a year less but it's now her primary instrument) and I've actively played the cornet for 30 years to a pretty decent level in the brass band world.

About two years of piano lessons up to April were will the same teacher who we both had a good relationship with. Like all teachers there are a couple of aspects, (some technique and a focus on fluency) that I felt she lacked but I enjoyed the collaborative aspect of lessons, DD also had some ownership in her lessons and really enjoyed lessons and we were both making progress. This teacher left the school and since we have had two teachers who have really underwhelmed me.

The first one was fine with DD (if a little unorganised) but I really struggled moving from feeling like an adult and a collaborator in lessons to just being told what to do with a very dry relationship with the teacher. This went on for 2 months and I was leaving lessons feeling really frustrated and cross so I figured I didn't want to pay for the privilege!

We asked to move teachers in the school and the new teacher is even worse. No rapport, no enjoyment of lessons, just a dry list of things to work on. While he's clearly an excellent pianist now neither of us are enjoying lessons. The last straw last night was after her first piece, he asked DD whether she had played it better this week or last and when she said this week he gave a derisive snort of a laugh at her. She's 8, she tries, she pays attention, she practices at home with my supervision, she gets nothing but good feedback for her effort everywhere else and I sit in lessons so I see her working - she doesn't deserve scorn.

I'm now thinking about moving again but am I the problem and do I need to change my expectations about teachers. I want both of us to progress, but I want someone to treat me as an adult with musical opinions and experience of my own. For both of us, I want the enjoyment to be primary. For comparison we've found an excellent trombone teacher for DD that I'm really happy with, he is a top class performing musician and manages to deliver his feedback in a very engaging and positive way and she is making amazing progress.

I'm torn that maybe I need to give it longer to build the relationship and maybe I'm being the problem, but also I feel like I'm spending substantial money each week for neither of us to enjoy our hobby. (The amount of the money isn't a concern and I'd happily pay more for the right teacher but when we are having 75mins of 1-2-1 lessons between us, that mounts up for the monthly invoice if something isn't right).

Some amazing opportunities and things on for DCs on here. Well done all.

dd is back to her school music. She’s in sixth form now and is very aware that her lessons now have an end date. She wants to get g8 on both her instruments/voice so has a lot of work ahead. Piano and cello are a good way there already but she wants to do g7 musical theatre for voice before g8 (classical) so she’s going to need to actually start practising! Fortunately, years in chapel choir has meant her sight singing is quite good so it’s just the aural that needs work.

sight reading is a very useful skill to develop. Ds has been offered some jobs over much better players because of his sight reading.

for musical theatre orchestral players doubling, tripling & quadrupling (esp for wind & brass players) helps. Double bass players should learn electric bass guitar as some shows employ one for both.

Sorry I didn't mean to depress everyone! 🤦‍♀️ I was actually cheered up myself by @Comefromaway post. I agree with what she said, it's important to be versatile, and I keep thinking what to do with DD's studies as she had to specialise earlier than we planned... She's not a techie though so MusicTech doesn't seem to be an option in her case.

@Alwaysplayspicc so depressing...

Depressing but unfortunately all too true.
I went back to performing 9 weeks after the birth of my daughter for the same reason - no sick pay, no maternity pay and no pensions for freelance musicians.
My DH plays for one of the National opera companies who have just had their full time chorus cut to just 20.
It’s dire.

That is a very depressing read indeed @Ubertomusic

I think it is also important to note that a good proportion of his work is not keyboard playing, it is programming/sound. It's so important to be versatile.

I think being too busy at work is a nice problem to have for a young musician these days. I've just read this interview https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/sep/08/louise-alder-soprano-stage-fright-arts-funding-last-night-of-the-proms , it makes a rather depressing read and it was great to hear your DS's news confirming it's not all doom and gloom in the industry.

@achangeofnameisasgoodasarest - good practice for learning to balance her time either for conservatoire or uni (especially if she ends up with a choral scholarship....)! It also means she will have to practice very efficiently which is always a great skill to have!

@Comefromaway sounds like they're really on it with supporting his ambitions.. Wonderful to have a ds who knows what he wants and is in the right place with the right skills to do it

@Londonmummy66 good to know - I think the uniform regs are ridiculous for what its worth. Even the city lawyers I know don't dress like that unless they're in court. I suspect it'll all calm down once she's laddered all her tights and realises it's easier to just wear trousers.

Spoke to her last night and I think the enormity of losing the sixth formers from last year is just beginning to sink in - she has to be in everything, including a Schubert octet, the senior wind quintet and all the usual symphony gumf. Sure it will be good for her - but perhaps her determination to be in the school play was a mistake.

That’s great news @Comefromaway.

Mine totally pushed those boundaries to the extent Ispent a lot of time on the phone pointing out that I was well aware of the dress code in CIty law firms and had supplied that. If she chose not to wear it that was on them and not me... Didn't stop her getting a scholarship to RCM and a prize at the end of year 13 so I suggest you ignore so long as you know she has the correct clothes...

Well he has had his timetable today & as discussed they’ve given him a piano teacher who is also an MT MD to help with his ambitions & progression.

They were very unfortunate with the rain on Saturday especially given we have had such a dry summer. We were lucky to have seen the first show on the Thursday, so had the whole outdoor Fair experience, and then Canteen Carousel for the last show was fabulous too! It was professional quality and they coped admirably with the adversity.

I so wanted to see Carousel but even if we had have gone it would have been the cancelled performance.

Carousel - she was spoiled with such a wonderful score. They did ask her to do TE but sadly she couldn't do it as she had intake training for nyt and didn't want to have to reaudition. They are a fabulous team.

Possibly a controversial opinion but I believe that exams/ degrees are only useful for showing a benchmarked level of skill to let you do the things that you want to in life - if your DS is already doing those things then I would say he is already there.

What show did she play for? NYMT was a game changer for ds.

He has never been academic. He's clever, yes but he has always done the minimum academically to get by.

That's a difficult one @Comefromaway as he only has one more year to go. Would it be possible to switch to part time - painful to stretch it out further but if it means that the chance of completion is higher? It sounds like he is already doing very well professionally, so I suppose there is the question that if he is already getting those opportunities without the degree, then is there a chance in the future that he might ever need it?

DD did her first pit band with NYMT this summer and was very much bitten by the bug!

it was indeed a joke - don't worry! The school uniform code is very strict, and DD2 is spending most of her time 'pushing the boundaries' at the moment. The joys of teens.

a skirt so short that other parents sent me texts about it

I cannot imagine any circumstance where I would send another parent a text about the length of their daughter's skirt unless it was a VERY close friend and meant as a joke!