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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To wish they'd at least dimmed the house lights so I could cringe in peace?

31 replies

user1476869312 · 18/07/2017 22:27

School musical evening: very well-intentioned and all that. But the piano was out of tune and so were half the kids.
I am, as far as I know, neurotypical, but I really, really hate wrong notes and it was a massive struggle not to flinch and pull faces while it was all going on. I wish they'd darkened the room so i could have bitten myself in peace. (and had someone in to TUNE THE PIANO before the show FFS).
And don't get me started on the 'suitability' of some of the songs.

OP posts:
AlternativeTentacle · 18/07/2017 22:29

cool story bro.

OwlinaTree · 18/07/2017 22:35

Give it a miss next year? Pay for the piano tuner to visit? Small children are never all going to be in tune!

Calvinlookingforhobbs · 18/07/2017 22:46

This isn't about you. It's about little people gaining confidence and enjoying their hard work.

Original poster
user1476869312 · 18/07/2017 22:46

This is a secondary school Gin
And there was a 14-year-old rapper who kept trying to remember that he shouldn't grab his crotch when his mum was in the front row. I told my DS that if it was his turn to rap next year and he did that I would shout 'Leave your willy alone!' at him.

OP posts:
MsWanaBanana · 18/07/2017 22:52

And the award for most pointless thread goes to............
Surprise, surprise, it's another User without a name!

MrsOverTheRoad · 18/07/2017 22:53

Sounds awful op! I'd have struggled too.

Whodoesthis17 · 18/07/2017 22:55

I think this is funny, having sat through an awards thing the other week. All the kids got a prize for this or that, one got the best dressed, oh they were in last year of school...

and yes the singing was off, and the music was out od sink.

BlackeyedSusan · 18/07/2017 22:58

there are advantages to being not so good at music. less wincing.

paxillin · 18/07/2017 23:06

We had a concert of 120 fucking recorders. Gin next year. It's the only way.

highinthesky · 18/07/2017 23:07

Our summer school concert was brilliant, the kids played and sang like angels (albeit some dystopian choices!).

The next night I saw Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour. They also sang like angels, but that's where the similarities end. I hope Shock

cloudchasing · 18/07/2017 23:08

I think you're being really mean. So what if it's out of tune a bit? It's not the Royal College of Music is it? Hmm

WhineCellar · 18/07/2017 23:11

I think you're missing the whole point of school shows. It's about doing the best with what you've got.

paxillin · 18/07/2017 23:25

It's about doing the best with what you've got.

Agreed. The best of 120 recorders isn't something I'll forget in a hurry though Grin. I loved it, but it was excruciating. My favourite kind of parenting moment. The kids were so beautiful and proud and excited, but oh such pain.

gillybeanz · 18/07/2017 23:25

Aw, maybe they didn't have a lot to go on. Not all kids are good at stagey things and whether they were singing wrong notes or out of tune, spending £100+ on having the piano tuned would have been pointless.
If they Piano is old and been hammered (no pun intended) then it's probably not tuneable anyway.

I have a dd whose school performances are really good, they are all musicians of the highest standard.
Nothing gets in the concert unless it's practically perfect.
I miss the thrown together bits of untalented kids where they try their best and are so pleased with their end of year performance.

Original poster
user1476869312 · 18/07/2017 23:30

I know it's good for them and they enjoy it. I just wish it could be made a bit less excrutiating for the parents. Like, maybe not let kids who couldn't carry a tune in a bucket tackle something like Somewhere Only We Know.

OP posts:
Original poster
user1476869312 · 18/07/2017 23:31

Oh and extra commiserations to paxillin. That many recorders and they would have been carrying me out of the hall in a bucket...

OP posts:
IncyWincyGrownUp · 18/07/2017 23:35

I once went to a wider ops concert at my eldest's school. 60 children with clarinets.

I think the bleeding has stopped now, but it has only been five years!

AudTheDeepMinded · 18/07/2017 23:37

Back up the bus, who says threads have to have a point? Is this a dictat from a branch of the thread police?

paxillin · 18/07/2017 23:41

I'd love to get the 60 clarinets to play together with the 120 recorders. What an orchestra!

Original poster
user1476869312 · 18/07/2017 23:44

@paxillin I am now hiding under the table.

OP posts:
LellyMcKelly · 18/07/2017 23:49

Just be grateful you weren't at the Violin, Trumpet and Guitar show put on by a class of Year 4s. Not one instrument was in tune, maybe 3 out of the 90 kids could play, and you could hear the cacophony 2streets away. They had a ball. I'm bring ear plugs the next time!

IncyWincyGrownUp · 18/07/2017 23:54

pax I could probably talk the two schools who do glockenspiel and baritone into the band as well. It'll make for a somewhat odd sound, but loud enough to give no damns at all.

kelpeed · 18/07/2017 23:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

paxillin · 19/07/2017 00:04

Our school can add a trumpet ensemble, IncyWincyGrownUp. I love the atonal school concerts, such joy, even if they are tough to sit through.

musicposy · 19/07/2017 00:40

I take your school musical and recorders and raise you 30 violins Grin.

DD in primary school had a term of violin lessons, along with the rest of her class. We were "treated" to an assembly at the end of term.

Thirty Year 4s, each in possession of a violin, each having had only 10 lessons on said violin, was an assault to the eardrums like I've never heard before.

Unfortunately I am musical. I've never wished so much to be tone deaf!