Spring Term Music, Musicians and Music Exams Thread

[Wafflenose]

Hi all, my children go back to school tomorrow, so I thought it was time for a new one. Who's doing what this term, and how is practice going?

Our main focus is the local festival next month - we're all doing loads, as are my pupils! My girls have just started practising for that.

MiniWaffle (9) is doing her well-overdue Grade 4 Flute this term, and hopefully Grade 3 Theory (to keep her on track) in the summer, and Grade 6 Recorder in the autumn. She also has some SWMS and NCO commitments, although not too onerous yet! She plays the trumpet for fun, and dabbles with piano, ukulele and singing.

BabyWaffle (6) will concentrate on repertoire and technique for a while. I think Grade 1 Cello is supposed to be in the summer. She can play a coupe of the pieces and some of the scales. She plays the recorder too, but won't be doing another exam on that for at least a year.

RaspberryLemonPavlova, that's exactly what I'm worried about! I don't want an adjudicator's expectations to be too high even before they've begun to play. I really hope someone can help

EssexYumMum I can help you with Arietta if you leave me an email address I can email it to you. Dd not doing Arietta so no scribbles on it.

Fleurdelise, thank you very very much. I've sent you a PM.
So that's one down and a good start to my day.

EssexYumMum just sent it. Good luck with the festival.

ds grade 3 rock guitar in March, didn't think it was ever going to happen....

Question for the piano teachers: is it normal for a child to mess up a piece because she played it too much? I am panicking a bit as until yesterday dd could play her pieces with her eyes closed, literally one of them she was showing off how she can close her eyes and play it. Today she messed the second bar and she doesn't seem to be able to remember how to do it.

Is this normal?

I have noticed it with my son but its just occasional. he is better next time(next day).

I find it a bit scary as I wonder "what if she does that the day before the exam?!" I'll talk to her teacher on Sat when we go for her lesson.

My son does this when he doesn't count beats and tries to play really fast. At times he plays very fast (w/o metronome/ counting) may be when he is not in mood or gets some thrill playing fast. Though when asked that stop playing if you are not in mood, he doesn't accept that he is not in mood, may be repeating all songs everybody is boring n he wants to finish it off. Can't understand these kid's mind !!

sorry, meant everyday

I'd leave it for a few days and then come back to it. It happens, usually because they're not LOOKING AT THE MUSIC (in my teaching experience). I often get children who think they know a piece well, try to play it from memory, and stuff it up a bit.

Over-practice can be negative sometimes, too. Play other things for two or three days, then go back to that piece.

Julie I suspect this is what it is then. She plays all her pieces from memory now and last night when she messed up the second bar which has a hand position change she didn't even know where to look in the book exactly. It is weird as she obviously learnt it from the book initially, read the notes and so on.

We'll leave it aside a few days completely, there is still a while until the exam so I am sure she can sort it out until then. Plenty to work on anyway.

I think it is the playing too fast from memory that does it - I try and make sure DS2 plays with the book in front of him as he always does something worrying to whichever piece he thinks he knows when he plays without it!
DS1's G4 drum exam date has come through for early March, have impressed on him he needs to focus!
I knew those sight-reading stickers would go to my head: I have been persuaded to aim for G3 piano exam in June/July. Had mad vision of DSs posting threads on Mumsnet entitled 'How do we tell mum her scales need much more work?'

LooseAtTheSeams - this week my husband came back from his piano lesson wearing a sticker that said "good playing". He was so pleased with himself, maybe stickers work at all ages?

DS has missed his music lesson today, school is closed due to snow.

Ishouldbeweaving I definitely think they do! Well done to your DH, I should imagine he felt very proud!

Snow! My kids will be so jealous. We haven't seen a flake! Not so much fun if you get stuck at home, though.

Dd had her third session at her wind band this week and you were all right, as I suspected, that she would push on through. Last week she found a lot easier, this week she has come out absolutely buzzing, as instead of the usual pieces they were learning Uptown Funk. She also got to be Clarinet Number 1 (we had snow, and she was the only one of 10 clarinettists there!)

She has also been picked to perform a solo in a concert at school so very much enjoying preparing for that too.

It is official now, dd forgot one of her pieces. Completely. We sorted out the problem bar where she was muddling it up thinking that will do but then she looked up at me with a "now what?" Expression on her face.

I've asked her to play it with her eyes closed, asked her to relax, nope, not coming back. In bits and pieces like the right hand movement but on the wrong notes.

She cried and said she wants to give up. I felt like crying for her as she worked really hard recently, it is really not fair. I am sure she'll sort it out in a week or two because she already sorted the first line tonight. But I feel for her, it doesn't seem fair after all the work.

Fleur - I am no expert but I assume the exam is in march? Given she was in pretty good shape already, I would leave the pieces completely for now as another two months is a lot of time to be doing so much practice for pieces that are 'ready'. May also be making it all a bit stressful when it hopefully shouldn't be. When we get to this sort of situation we do a lot of other fun and serious stuff and then come back to pieces a couple of weeks pre exam and we usuall see an unexpected improvement In the performance. Just a thought.

ds2 auditioned for the music academy at the sixth form today. I was more nervous than him, especially as he suddenly decided 5 days ago to sing instead of play for the audition, and he's not currently having singing lessons....! But his logic was sound (he has certificates to 'prove') how good his playing is, whereas he's never done any singing exams, and the piece he chose he was singing beautifully this week. He says it went well and they were very encouraging, so fingers crossed he gets in.

janet I know it sounds like months away but it could only be 5 weeks if she gets the first week. It starts on the 2nd March I have been told.

Anyway that is a good idea, I am sure that is what her teacher will say Saturday, work on the other two pieces for technical touches and bring this one back bar by bar.

I know it sounds weird but I do think she over played it as it was her first secured piece and no matter how many times I asked her not to, she would still play it 2-3 times every night just because she was so proud of what she achieved.

I'll take some old pieces out that she enjoyed tomorrow and we'll have a bit of fun with that. I have got a duet book also to mess around with.

roisin well done to your DS, you must be so proud!

Can't wait for Saturday so hopefully dd's teacher will give me piece of mind. I was hoping that stress will not come into exams, but tonight dd saw my face and I am sure it was pretty stressed. That's it, I am putting all this behind me, if she'll be ready in March in a confident manner fine, if not we'll just not do it. I refuse to see her sad and stressed like tonight.

We had snow too, DCs and I both had a day off our schools. Its a shame they also missed music lessons. DS2 fitted in some extra theory though, as well as sledging.

Most stress here is coming from DD regarding the the work she still needs to do towards her Grade 8 in March, that is March 2016.

Woolleybear - I'm glad that wind band came up a winner in the end, it's good because it teaches that sometimes you just have to stick at things.

Roisin - I hope everything goes well, it sounds as if it should.

Fleur, she's played it before, she can do it again. My husband had the same thing happen to one of his G7 pieces, it was perfect for the longest while and then everything went wrong. The more he worried about it the worse it got. March is still a long way away, there is plenty of time for her to recover it.

RaspberryLemonPavlova - March 2016? and she's thinking about it now? I don't think we've ever planned that far ahead, even if we did I suspect that it would all get left until the last few months.

Back to school today with much grumbling about having to walk to the bus stop "in all this". Well I managed it when I took the dog out last night so off you go.

I think there is too much stress in her life at this point. She does singing also which from my point of view should be just for fun, I don't insist on her practicing and I tell her to sing for fun. However her music school is having an assembly at her school and asked dd and another two girls to sing in this assembly. This is next week and while she agreed to do it I can imagine she is stressed about singing in front of the entire school.

This weekend will be about having fun and I think I will send her piano teacher a text to warn her about her forgotten piece before tomorrow's lesson as dd is now stressed that the teacher will get angry. I don't know where she got that from as I stay in lessons and her teacher never gets angry or shouts. She is fantastic (the teacher I mean) and never gets annoyed even when I feel like I would if I would be in her shoes. I guess that's why she is a teacher and I am not :)

If she's at the appropriate level - really at the level - then she could probably learn a completely new piece before March.

Caveat: choose the piece carefully. I have a grade 2 student for whom I chose the third piece last week on the grounds that it was one that was easy to learn because it's made up of repeating bits. I'd already taught it to a 7yo for local festival (set piece and waaaaaay too hard for the age group, taking her a month or so to learn) but this lad is older and learnt it passably hands together in 10min. He came back this week with it note perfect and just needing some work on articulation and dynamics. And this is a boy who struggles with sight-reading.

We're doing Trinity and for some reason their pieces this time round seem more straightforward like that while the ABRSM choices at the same level are more through-composed with less repetition.

Of course, said boy still hasn't learnt his scales. I sent him home with the scale book yesterday. We could have waited until summer but he wants to do the exam this term so it's up to him to put in a lot of practise :p