Autumn Term Music and Musicians Thread

[Wafflenose]

Hello everyone!

I know not everyone is in the UK, but my children went back to school today, and I have found that having a new thread every few months works well. The school terms sort-of coincide with music exam sessions here - I will shortly start preparing the pupils that I plan to enter for November/ December.

As there are quite a few people reading/ posting on these threads, I would find it really helpful if people could remind us what children they have, how old they are, and what they play. If you don't mind, of course! Please feel free to ask questions and talk about your own learning too!

I'm Waffle and I'm a teacher of woodwind - mostly recorders these days. I have Mini who is 9 and plays the recorder and flute properly, and a bit of piano, trumpet and ukulele for fun. She is a member of South West Music School and NCO. I also have Baby who is 7 and plays the recorder and cello, and would like to play the piano.

For exams this term, Mini is doing Grade 6 Recorder with Trinity, and Baby is doing Grade 2. Next term, they are doing Theory exams - Grades 5 and 1 respectively. I know Grade 1 is utterly unnecessary, but Mini found it helpful to have a practice run by doing her Grade 3, and I can think of worse ideas than sending Baby in for the first time with her big sister. The next Flute and Cello exams will be Grades 5 and 2, but not yet.

I need to change their names at some point - Mini is not mini any more. She is 4'8" and up to my top lip. Baby is clearly 7, so I need to think again.

Can't help with theory, but shortly after DD achieved her piano G2 a few years ago we used that as a pretext to upgrade our quite old entry-level digital to a not-cheap digital with much of the expense being thrown at the action, progresssively weighted wooden keys, three pedals, aftertouch etc. I'm quite fond of it and it's very good for 'dynamics'. In fact it's much better than anything DD ever gets to play elsewhere, including some matched pair uprights and mid-sized grands at the nearest music centre where she's taken the last couple of grades.

Do ask a couple of experts, however if anyone is contemplating getting a decent digital piano then don't assume it won't still be very heavy and do investigate what it's like with middling or better head-phones. Ours sounds very good via the built-in speakers, but it sounds even better wearing headphones.

Umm. Place marking here with a terrible parent comment .... I think dd2 is doing grade 7 singing this term, I'm not sure!

I fear it was about 12 months ago I posted " lucky us no exams" to creep back a week or so later " uh ok... Grade 7 clarinet in a week!"

Fortunately dd organises me , so this info is on a need to know basis , and if dh has dealt with it that's fine !

I've given up trying to work out what exams DS1 is doing and when! i think he's given up on the flute. it doesn't come out of the case unless I nag and he doesn't like the repertoire despite encouraging comments from his new teacher. I'm going to phone the music centre next week and say he has just taken on too much and we're giving the half term's notice. it's not worth the lying on the sofa emanating misery that we get from him on Saturdays. the contrast between that and his other musical activities is amazing and he could do with focusing the flute time on grade 5 theory, maybe.
meanwhile, I have entered for grade 3 piano and am trying to memorise my scales! how do little kids manage to do this?!

Can I vent?

WTF do you do with a perfectionist stressy competitive child?

DD2 will do just fine but she's getting stressed about a singing exam in December! She's an able musician, OK it's grade 7 but she's already done grade 7 clarinet so the aural etc is covered. She has 4 songs to learn and is approaching them from above, as it were, they aren't challenging to her.

She's in year 12 at school and spending ages perfecting compositions that don't matter at all - so much that she's not getting enough sleep :(

I've set her bro on the case after a long chat suggesting that she play a game of "risk" at school, submitting what she has done after the 30 mins or what ever that was allocated and see how she gets on. Stuff doesn't count at the moment anyway and the difference between a B after 30 mins and an A after 2hrs really isn't worth it! DS will hopefully talk a bit of sense into her as he is " do enough when it doesn't matter and then up your game" sort of student. ( eldest wouldn't help, she's a perfectionist too but one who looks like she's not working but is!).

Being the youngest of 3 who are all very similar is very hard!

Loose I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't follow what exams are coming up when!

Hello everyone! DD started her second grade 3 piano piece (Stormy Coast) and I think she likes the force of it. Getting there with her scales, minors left to learn and arpeggios.

She's pencilled in for March exam session again.

Her teacher was a bit short on lesson time as every time she works on a study with her there's no time left for exam stuff and when she does exam stuff no time left to progress with other things.

So we agreed to extend the lesson time but rather than 1 hour lesson she'll do 2 X 30 min lessons a week with different teaching in each lesson. So one lesson will cover progression pieces, studies, technical exercises and the other lesson sight reading, aural, exam pieces.

Hopefully it will work well as I am aware there will be more to practice at home.

Fleur - the pedalling on Stormy Coast is great fun, I think your DD will enjoy it!
Your plan with the lessons sounds really sensible. I have one 45 minute lesson, which goes really quickly and you can basically do either aural or sight reading, but not necessarily both in that time! Two half hour sessions much better for young pianists, I think. DS2 only has one 30 minute lesson and I basically have to do the sight reading at home with him. Aural is left to the last minute but is helped by having cello lessons as well. He has Stormy Coast, too, although I've heard a lot more of Moody Prawn Blues, which he wasn't meant to be focusing on last week! He won't do the exam until next Summer as we don't have a March exam period here and we'll need to avoid May due to SATS! (Although I suspect he may have a cello exam then, so I shouldn't speak too soon.)

Ah, lovely to hear the entries for next exams.

In my experience children like your dd, you just observe from a distance and let them get on with it.
I have one of those too, not the stressed bit but the very competitive type.
She only competes against herself though, wants to be better all the time.
If she gets a distinction she'll tell people she scraped a distinction and feels she should do better next time.

I too have no idea if any exams will happen anytime soon. I think there may be a piano exam in Spring, maybe grade 2 or 3.
Perhaps no singing for a while although she is mostly there with grade 6.
Oh and I forgot the dreaded grade 5 theory has to come first.
I can't wait to find out what they intend to do exam wise, funny now it's been taken out of our hands

Loose she already did the first few bars with pedal and she funds is so fun. The only problem was learning to play with her body rather than whacking the keys to get the force behind it. It is a lovely piece though.

Aural is her strong bit so always left last but sight reading, while she passed it last time it is more of a struggle so the new lesson plan will hopefully address that.

I don't have perfectionist dcs, unlike Helen and Newlife, although I have noticed DS2 can be quite competitive! Especially with his DB!
I think sight reading is often a struggle with piano but definitely worth spending the time on it as it pays off in the long run. My last teacher was Very Keen on sight reading!And yes, I nearly damaged my shoulder overthumping the keys on Stormy Coast. Much safer with it now!

PiqueABoo thanks for that. I suppose I will have to have a look around at digital pianos. I was hoping that this might be the term without a major music expense!!! (new sax a year ago - only a student one but they don't come cheap - and a new high-end guitar in the summer).

Helen DD who is in equiv. of Y11 is a bit of a stressy competitive type at school (where she has no need to be) but not so much with music (even where she could do with it). She is playing a paid gig on Friday, and I am having to nag her to prepare, which I am annoyed about.

DS2 has only a half hour lesson for piano and theory, but often eats into DD's half hour, it works well because she is just doing lessons for fun. School lessons are only ever 25 mins though. DS1 was fine on Brass, the pieces aren't nearly as long. It's harder for DD and Grade 8 sax.

We have a date for DS2's Gold RSCM award in November, and discovered on Thursday
He is off on tour with Cathedral Choir abroad next week, and has also been offered a paid singing gig for later on in November, so is very excited.

Helen your DD sounds much like mine, I hope someone can help!

Newlife I follow your other thread and it sounds like your DD is having a great time. Have you seen our friend?

raspberry

yes, our friend is doing fine and in one ensemble with dd

Helen
It can be hard work, I know.
We have 2 much older dc who tried various instruments but didn't really take to it, we had to nag them to practice, they didn't get very far and were just not interested in the end.
Sometimes I wish we'd have had just one happy medium child ito music.
Mine is copying out parts for sax clari and flute for her, me and her dad to play.
Lovely, you may think. Christmas carols for Christmas Day.

HelenluvsRob I was the competitive child and it was the one thing I would have changed about my childhood. Those things that seemed to be important at the time turned out not to be (O level Spanish, I'm looking at you). I've tried really hard not to rear another perfectionist although now DS is 15 with his exams around the corner I wouldn't mind him showing a little bit more effort. He comes firmly from the school of "good enough will do" although he also spends hours twiddling with compositions for school. I guess the comparison is with artists who go on "improving" their work until the canvas is taken away from them.

We have a date for DH's G8 piano, it is much earlier than he expected and there's a huge mental difference between November and December. He is not a happy pianist. I am refraining from pointing out that an extra two weeks will make no difference to pieces that he's been practicing forever. It feels like forever to me anyway. The accompanist for DS is trying to arrange a rehearsal schedule - I wish her luck with that one . Next week he's away with county, the week after is full with two sixth form visits, a music lesson and two band practices. I suspect that the way forward is to pull out of one band practice from now until the exam because there are only so many evenings in the week.

I am really looking forward to Christmas, by then it will all be over. Sixth forms visited, both exams done and the results in for the audition DS did in the summer. I would like to be listening to some different music for a change.

I was just like that as a child/ teenager, and Mini is the same. Her perfectionism is crippling her, and she will spend 3+ hours on one bit of homework (and even a whole weekend, if she really gets into it) then stresses about slight mistakes and not getting top marks. She also had a performance in front of hundreds of people recently, which she perceived to be terrible, and now says she is giving up playing solo, doing auditions and competitions. We are in the process of changing teachers too, and her confidence has gone. It's so sad to see. She could do with some musical happiness, so I hope she will gel with one of the teachers we're setting up trial lessons with. And as soon as her NCO audition is done, I'll get her playing lots of fun duets with me, and with her sister.

Icould

I read this thread and thought I don't envy you all trying to fit everything in and remembering how frantic it all was.
The downside is I hardly ever get more than one word texts let alone a phone call. As for coming home every weekend that lasted for the first few weeks
Still, half term tomorrow after a concert in the cathedral, I can't wait.
Needless to say she absolutely loves it.

I need a new writer for the sitcom that is my life. So, DH has G8 piano coming up, he asked for a late date and got an early one. He told me his new date last night and it's in the same week that the local LCM exam centre will be running. Any bets that DS's exam will turn out to be on the same day?

It's going to need more than advent calendar chocolate to get me through to Christmas.

Hi everyone, I'm new to this thread. I have 3 children, DD1(age 11) who is about to take Grade 7 Flute, Grade 1 Piano and Grade 1 Double Bass this term. She also plays Violin and will be doing Grade 4 in Spring. My DS1 (age 10) has just started drums in the last month, he is doing very well too. My DD2 (age 8) started flute this year and is learning her Grade 4 for Spring Term.

As my nickname suggests they go to 6 orchestras a week between them!!

Looking forward to getting some support about music as my husband and I are not musical. :)

waffle I can sympathise on the school front. I think this is something that bright kids often struggle with. DD14 has become so accustomed to getting top marks that she views anything less as a profound insult to her self-esteem. She has changed schools this year ("lycée", which is from the equivalent of Y11 - she is a year younger than a peers) and she is putting ridiculous amounts of pressure on herself to maintain her record of near perfect marks (French lycées have a reputation for marking harshly - it's not unusually for a student who consistently got 80% in junior high to be just scraping 60% in lycée). She got her knickers in a ridiculous twist just before the holidays because she thought she had messed up a piece of maths homework - a piece of work that would have had only a tiny impact on her overall grade for this term, and absolutely zero effect on her later studies. I almost hoped she would get a low mark - to get it over with and show her that the world does not actually end when you fail at something!

Weirdly music is different - she's quite a perfectionist, and she knows what she wants things to sound like, but somehow it's in a much healthier way - it's not about being "little miss perfect" but about achieving a particular sound or effect or style. She enjoys performing and is TOO confident - against my wishes she has agreed to do a concert on Friday, playing songs she hasn't practised for months. So far this holidays she's been at a friends for 3 days and spent yesterday writing a NEW flippin song rather than practising the old ones. I could actually tear my hair out :-/

I don't know what to suggest for your dd. Perhaps doing something different musically where there is less emphasis on right and wrong? Maybe try a new instrument, or a jazz class, or learning some pop songs on the piano to sing along to? Something fun and low stress and different.

I loved your thoughtful and hope-giving reply! My DD sounds just like yours. (Thanks, school, for making the first 5 years so easy that she is utterly un-equipped for minor setbacks. She is now in Year 5 and has yet to get a single spelling word wrong in a test). Knickers in a ridiculous twist is a good description here. We will make sure to have loads of musical fun next - lots of duets lined up. I hope she will start piano properly at some point, and her mentor wants her to, but her attitude is all wrong right now.

Ho hum. NCO audition today, and I would say it's already gone badly wrong really. We'll all be a bit happier once it's over.

Good luck for the audition waffle. I hope today isn't too stressful for everyone.

DD was a bit stressy about her conservatoire audition - it helped that she only had about 2 hours warning (because we had left it too late to apply, but then got a last minute cancellation). She was entitled to be a bit stressy tbh as she was totally unprepared - she had been away for 6 weeks of the summer hols, hadn't touched the piano for the best part of 2 months, and had no sheet music with her! Fortunately due to time constraints (auditions running late) she was only asked to play one piece, and she only went to bits on the last line!

Hello OrchestraTaxi, at least there's only one big instrument in your list otherwise you'd need a van. I don't know how you keep track of three, I just about manage with one child and a husband.

Wafflenose, I hope it goes well today, it must be a rotten time to be living through, once they get in a tail spin it's difficult to know what to say to help them out of it.

Fingers x'd for waffle, good luck!

Good Luck today, hope it goes well.

Yes the flutes are an excellent size! Double bass is a bit big for her as the music service didn't have the correct size available. All the orchestras are linked so some of them follow each other. I am regularly known to have a flask and lunchbox in the car though for 2 frantic evenings a week!

Good luck for today waffle Hope it goes well!

Hello OrchestraTaxi Wow, that sounds like lots of hard work ferrying dc about, I used to find it difficult with just one musical child.

I thought I'd have a nice day shopping with dd today but she got up at 8.30 did some practice for a few hours and is now doing playalongs and impro with her dad.
I mentioned going shopping for clothes or some nice things for her dorm and she said good, we have to go to music shop for grade 3 Piano books.
It's relentless and I want my little girl back again. I think she's gone for good now to the land of music obsessed dc.